For the past decade, corporate reformers have repeatedly said that poverty is an excuse used by and for bad teachers. If all teachers were “great” teachers, all children would have high test scores, there would be no achievement gap, and our problems would be solved. Forgive me if the logic doesn’t work, but I don’t entirely understand the train of thought. The bottom line is the reformy belief that all children, e ery single one, will achieve at the highest levels if great teachers accept “no excuses.”
A new report from ETS reminds us why poverty matters and how it affects the lives of children and families.
Written by Richard J. Coley of ETS and Bruce Baker of Rutgers, the report finds that 22% of America’s children live in poverty. They show that:
“Children growing up in poverty complete less schooling, work and earn less as adults, are more likely to receive public assistance, and have poorer health.
“Boys growing up in poverty are more likely to be arrested as adults.
“Girls growing up in poverty are more likely to give birth outside of marriage.
“Costs associated with child poverty are estimated to total about $500 billion per year.”
Read this along with Richard Rothstein’s “Class and Schooling.”
And google Helen F. Ladd’s review of the evidence on education and poverty.
Do schools make a difference? Yes, they do.
Do teachers have the power to change children’s lives? Yes, they do.
Are schools and teachers powerful enough to end poverty? No. Poverty rates rise and fall in response to economic trends, not to the rise or fall of test scores.
Here are the conclusions of the ETS report on poverty:
“CONCLUSIONS
While fierce policy debates persist over how to effectively disrupt the link between poverty and chil- dren’s educational outcomes, a fair amount is known from research on effective strategies and program- matic interventions. Several strategies are offered above that might be used to improve short-term educational and long-term economic outcomes for children from low-income families. Each of these strategies comes with a price, and for any to be equitably and adequately implemented requires equi- table and adequate access to funding. Baker and Welner (2011) pointed out that research on state school finance reforms supports this contention, with a significant body of state-specific studies showing that changes to the level and distribution of available resources can, in fact, influence changes to the level and distribution of student outcomes. Specifically, in one cross-state study, Card and Payne (2002) found “evidence that equalization of spending levels leads to a narrowing of test score outcomes across family background groups.” (p. 49)18
The evidence is clear that income inequality continues to rise in the United States, and that federal and state policies have arguably been less successful at curbing income inequality than policies in other developed nations. Since the “Great Recession” officially ended in 2009, the average net wealth of the wealthiest seven percent of households rose by 28 percent, while the average wealth of the lower- wealth 93 percent of households dropped by 4 percent (Fry & Taylor, 2013). Further, the political balance and distribution of government benefits continues to shift in favor of the elderly to the disadvantage of children. Total federal and state spending per capita is highest for children age 6–11 and next-highest for those age 12–18. Three- to 5-year-olds are in third place, and our youngest children (under age 2) get the least support (Edelstein, Isaacs, Hahn, & Toran, 2012). The confluence of these forces results in a growing gap in educational opportunity, largely influenced by gaps in income.
Indeed, some policy actions such as the provision of children’s health care have improved through blended federal and state policies. But even those successes vary widely across the country, depending largely on state-level actions. Likewise, public education policy continues be highly decentralized and controlled by the states, with state investment in public schooling and participation rates of children
in the public schools varying widely. Further, while a handful of states have made significant efforts to target school funding to those areas where it is most needed, many others have not and show little or no sign of future change in their state school funding policies.
In addition to more precisely measuring poverty and targeting resources accordingly, now is an appropriate time to rethink programs and strategies that might best serve to mediate the relationship between poverty and educational opportunity. Providing high-quality pre-kindergarten programs, reasonable elementary class sizes, and a high-quality teacher workforce for schools serving children in poverty requires sustained, equitable and adequate funding. Federal policy should focus on targeting the maximum available funding to schools, districts, and states with the greatest shares of children in need, and encouraging states to increase their own investment, placing less emphasis on competitive grant programs such as Race to the Top. State school finance policies should ensure equitableand adequate funding first, before attaching strings related to currently popular though largely unproven reforms.”
This graphic says it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
America is very fond of Horatio Alger type myths – the plucky guy that comes from behind, growing up poor, and, by the power of his own bootstraps, pulls himself ahead to become overwhelmingly “successful” (meaning: rich). This then becomes the expected “norm. Because Oprah grew up in poverty and went on to become a billionaire (all by her own efforts, of course!), there is no excuse for any other poor minority child not to succeed. It’s like having a 400 meter race in which some runners start on the start line, some start 100 meters behind, and a lucky few start 100 meters ahead. If even one of the 100 meter behind starters finishes well, then it’s evidence that the race wasn’t rigged. (Or, worse, you have people like Joel Klein who like to pretend that they started behind when actually they started on or ahead of the line, lecturing to those who really did start behind).
There is some interesting recent research on inter generational income mobility and local geography. In cities like Atlanta, where there is a great deal of residential segregation by income, income mobility is very low. In cities like Seattle where there is much less residential segregation, mobility is much higher.
Now this is really where the conversation really needs to be for those who can use genuine benevolence for change.
I hope the national focus shifts off of how schools have caused problems and more on how various entities can strive to help America’s real crisis.
“the political balance and distribution of government benefits continues to shift in favor of the elderly to the disadvantage of children. ”
At a time when virtually every day, I receive notices and petitions about how Congress aims to reduce Social Security and Medicare, it’s very disheartening to read this claim about the elderly, although the report also says, “some evidence suggests that poverty among elderly constituents and access to healthcare among the elderly has improved marginally over time.”
However, people get those benefits regardless of how wealthy they are, so some seniors are benefiting at the expense of others. Instead of reducing benefits for the most vulnerable –low income seniors with no savings or pensions, the disabled and children– those programs should be means-tested, so that money stops going to people who don’t really need it.
On practically every front, we are facing the issue of greedy billionaires and politicians who steadfastly protect their interests over those of the common man.
Same discussion, same debate we have been having for 40 years. Yes, we need to work on problems outside of school, and problems inside of school. We need more high quality health care, more people employed, better transportation, more equity of funding.
We also need to recognize that there is no one best kind of school for all youngsters or all educators. Some kids thrive in a project based school; some in Montessori, some in a more traditional program.
Sorry ETS -which has a huge financial interest in promoting testing, does not recognize this. Many educators and families do.
If teachers all have extremely high standards and also accept “no excuses” for poverty, sloth, or anything else, wouldn’t this make performance and grades go down instead of up? Or am I just a dolt?
Maybe. But it doesn’t fit the cartoon debate between those who say poverty doesn’t matter at all and those who say poverty is all that matters. Strawman versus Strawman.
all that matters in education, or just all that matters?
In education, for these purposes. But it doesn’t matter. Both arguments are strawmen.
But the poverty issue, while not a singular reason for the challenges of public schools, might need a more elevated place in the overall conversation about how to improve American lives. I think that is more the point here, don’t you? Not that it trumps education talk in terms of improving education, but that it trumps all talk in terms of improving American life.
Dienne, I agree! The US must learn that poverty is man-made and reject the notion that it is a natural condition of society.
Developmental science has consistently demonstrated that environmental risk factors such as poverty contribute to a decline in intellectual development. (Read: DECLINE) Poverty’s toll is particularly harmful for infants & young children with disabilities “Poverty, particularly if it occurs during the early years of a child’s life and is chronic and pervasive can clearly produce adverse outcomes of considerable magnitude.” (Guralnick, 2005).
For children with disabilities, the factors that contribute to intellectual decline (Repeat:DECLINE) are exacerbated when families are unable to access early intervention services. This fact is well documented: the greater number of family environmental risk factors, the larger the negative impact on children’s intellectual development.
No corporate reformer can produce the quality or the quantity of literature that supports these sad facts. They spend obscene amounts of much money manufacturing self-serving white papers and marketing strategies in order to obscure responsibility for a failed economic system that has left millions of families behind.
Yes, you make an important points – those who start off behind the finish line are more susceptible to factors that are likely to hinder them even more, and ’round and ’round it goes.
Arg, I mean, start off behind the *start* line, of course. “Edit” would be a nice feature.
The very sad part of this for me, as a superintendent, is that there are very few politicians who see it as serving their best interests to try and create funding equity. Equity tends to be a nice sounding universal value, but there are many folks who really would rather that the playing field not be leveled. Trying to fight that reality in the political realm may be the definition of quixotic!
There is an interesting wrinkle in my state. Local jurisdictions are limited in their ability to use local funding for schools because it would create a more unequal funding situation across the state, especially for small (in terms of students) rural districts in my very rural state.
The evidence that children in poverty struggle is not direct evidence that poverty is or is not the primary contributing variable to educational struggle. Rather, it shows that children in poverty aren’t learning for whatever reason, be that teacher/school quality, psychosocial interference, etc.
Personally, I’ve never seen a statement issued by someone that indicates that poverty doesn’t affect a child’s education. I’d be happy for anyone to point to one quote that essentially says, “Poverty has no impact on education.” My interpretation of the “poverty should not matter” argument is that we, as educators, should find ways to educate children no matter what, and that every child – regardless of SES – has the capacity to learn and meet expectations. This does NOT translate into ALL children will learn everything all the time – poverty or no poverty.
What I believe is that poverty presents a significant challenge to educators, but a challenge for which there are strategies. Those strategies don’t work all the time, but no strategies work all the time. My experience has been that many teachers I’ve worked with who teach children in poverty do use many effective strategies, but that many teachers do not. The essential position of those of us who support change or improvement in our educational system is that more teachers could use more effective strategies.
In other words, as I’ve advocated before, there aren’t just 2 positions out there. I often hear it dichotomized as:
1) Most teachers are great and poverty is the main reason why kids aren’t achieving.
OR
2) Most teachers are awful and poverty is no reason whatsoever why kids aren’t achieving.
The reality is that most of us out there feel a 3rd position, which is really never advocated here:
3) Many teachers do great work, and poverty presents significant challenges to educators. Teachers who teach children in poverty may experience lower “success rates” on paper when compared with teachers from higher-wealth schools. Still, there exist effective educational decisions teachers can make in the classroom that are particularly effective with children in poverty, and too many teachers aren’t making enough of these effective decisions. This is largely due to lack of training, experience, and knowledge, NOT due to teacher effort or care.
Why are we trying to argue that poverty is everything or nothing?
The problem is that it’s teachers who are held responsible when kids in poverty (predictably) don’t score well on standardized tests. That’s where the simplification comes in. Teachers are the ones trying to point out how poverty complicates (but doesn’t rule out) education for poor kids. But when such objections are raised, it’s the rheephormers who holler about “NO EXCUSES!”
I agree Dienne – that’s definitely problematic.
Right on. Hold me accountable for showing a years worth of growth for every student in my class. I can do that, I want to do that, that is my job. Then race, gender, ability/disability, and class become irrelevant in terms of results.
The accountability conversation should be around finding or developing an entering the grade assessment and a leaving the grade assessment. Then differentiated instruction makes sense. What is the point of having focused, laser-like instruction based on the individual needs of each child, when the assessment tool, standardized tests, by their very nature, don’t respect the differences between children?
Could you flesh out what a non-standardized entering grade assessment and a non-standardized leaving grade assessment might work? It seems to me that the gains in a year would have to be measured against some standards.
first grade teacher – but can you really do that? For each and every kid? What about the kid whose parents get divorced in the middle of the year? The kid whose family becomes homeless? The kid who gets seriously ill?
Holding teachers accountable for one year’s growth from wherever the child started from is better than assuming all children started from the same place, but it still leaves out the multitude of factors outside a teacher’s control. Life happens.
teachingeconomist
That is the million dollar question. It’s a thorny issue. There would have to be a district and/or state assessment/screening. It would have to be based on the state-adopted standards (in my state that is CC). As a first grade teacher, I would want beginning screenings/assessments to focus on foundational skills (to use CC language). I would want to know what my incoming students missed in K. I would want to be able to give these same assessments to students who entered my class during the year (this past year I had 9 students leave and be replaced – about a third of my class). I would want time, lots of time, to administer these assessments/screenings and to think about the kids and the implications for instruction that the assessments revealed. There are some commercial products that are user friendly and give solid information – Assessing Reading: Multiple Measures, 2nd Edition – is one I have used.
I have no idea what an end of year assessment would look like, since we are in uncharted territories with Smarter Balance. I don’t know what it will look like in my first grade classroom in my district this next year. Up until now, we have used a series of Benchmark tests for assessment. I have found these summative tests useless in helping me move 6 year olds academically.
I’m just tired of wasting my time jumping through hoops, collecting irrelevant data, being judged, and watching the children be judged, on things completely out our control.
Dienne
You’re right that there is a “multitude of factors outside a teacher’s control. Life happens.” I have seen things happen to my students that would make adults crack. It is hard to watch children deal with the deal of a parent, or an incarcerated parent, or an emotionally absent parent, or no parent and foster living situations. Many of us have heartbreaking stories of children in peril.
I want to be part of the solution, and am willing to compromise. Showing an academic year’s worth of growth is something I could strive for – even in the face of factors that are outside my control. Would I like to have my test scores in these situations used to evaluate me? Not really. But should a year’s growth evaluation system ever occur, and that is a pretty big if, I would noisily advocate for a system in my district that allowed teachers to move between “low performing” and “high performing” schools – a system that would give those of us teaching in schools with high Title 1 populations the opportunity to switch out with teachers in high performing schools – a sort of exchange program, maybe on a revolving basis. Having said that, I would always want to go back to my school of origin. But what a different perspective I would bring after seeing the other side!
A follow up comment in anticipation of responses: I do not support almost any of the current “corporate reform” strategies as they’re called on this website – teacher evaluation via state test, etc. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t GOOD reform strategies out there that might make a difference, if implemented in the right way by the right people.
This is another way of phrasing that there is a 3rd option out there – acknowledging room for growth and a better response to poverty without blaming teachers or unreasonably treating the poverty variable.
I agree, there are a lot of great teachers but even they need training in effective strategies to deal with poverty and other issues. That’s why I cringe when I hear that TFAers get 5 weeks of training. Five weeks! Man, we’re dealing with issues that would take a professional a lifetime to just handle effectively. In all these professional developments we attend, there is a gross neglect of teaching STRATEGIES. We sit there and listen to the useless administrative policies and directives that in the end are never followed. Instead of teachers meeting together in their subject fields and talking strategies and curriculum, we get professional development. What a waste!
Many thanks to Diane for keeping income ineq and child poverty on the table. Can I pls add the racist dimension to the stat of 22% child pov in US? Disagg by race: about 35% of Afr/Am and Hisp kids live in poverty; about 11% of white kids do. Dark-skinned pov is concentrated in urban inner-cities and gets constant media representation; rural and exurban pov which is white gets far less attention but shows same hostile effects on kids—lower income/poor kids more likely: dropout of school, subject to sexual abuse and violence, hunger and homelessness, untreated medical conditions which interfere with eyesight etc., teen preg for girls, alcoholism and drug abuse, jail for boys, and more. Poverty and income ineq are for sure the drivers of US ed stats vis a vis US performance vs. rest of world. Take out poor kids and US affluent kids score high. Income inequality is what both major parties refuse to face and change; both are parties of Wall Street; strong contender now for Fed Chair is Lawrence Summers, darling of Wall St and Goldman Sachs. The Occupy Movement in ’11 forced ineq onto national stage until obliterated by Bloomberg in NYPD raid of Nov. 15. The debate continues here.
Ira,
I’m not sure who originally said it, and I may not be quoting it verbatim, but, “In the US, class speaks in the language of race.”
This is a bit of a long aside, but If I’m interpreting that quote correctly, then I agree with it 100%. I’ve long felt that people’s understanding of race in American culture is severely hampered by the general lack of recognition of how race functions as an aspect of class, with class defined not as wealth or income but rather as a set of “markers” of a whole range of things that together are an expression of a person’s social position. The markers include:
— how people speak, which indicates how much education people have, what sort of education they had, where they grew up (if they speak with a regional accent), and sometimes what kind of class aspirations people have (for those who have learned to change the way they speak over time).
— how people dress, which conveys how much disposable income people have; which social groups people identify with or aspire to identify with; and people’s level of understanding of the “grammar of fashion.”
— what kind of “taste” people have, for example, in music, home decor, automobiles, dress (noted above), in sports (golf, basketball, boxing, rowing?), food, art, etc.
— people’s names, with last names capable of conveying a lot of historical information (e.g., “Calamari” = likely immigrated in the late 19th or early 20th century; “Macy” = very possibly a much longer history in this country);
— people’s race and ethnicity, which are often conveyed visually (e.g. through skin tone, to some degree facial features). As with names, race and ethnicity convey a lot of information about people’s family history.
And of course these markers are interrelated. When we see a person named “Macy” who dresses like a preppy, plays tennis, and went to school “in Boston,” we understand each of those as signifiers of membership in the upper class. If our own markers signify that we have a lower social status, that will affect how we think about Mr. Macy and how Mr. Macy thinks about us.
This is a pretty complicated process, but my point is in America (and probably elsewhere), race is probably the single most important class marker, both in terms of the *amount* of accurate information race conveys about a person’s family history, and in terms of the weight that information in perceptions of a person’s social class (and noting that when it comes to social class, perceptions create the reality).
Ira,
Regarding Lawrence Summers: some interesting thoughts from Naomi Klein…
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/04/why-we-should-banish-larry-summers-public-life
As usual, I think Ms Klein is on to something!
I’m going to try to read this Shock Doctrine book, so I can have an opinion about it.
It’s a good book and while it comes off a little extremist at times, her points about the influence of the Chicago Lab School on international communities and how its philosophies lets no good crisis go to waste are extremely salient.
Chicago Business School, not Lab School. Lab School is K-12 – not many influential policy makers there (although, many future ones!).
The link leads you to other links including a TED Talk and a segment on Bill Moyers that will give people a flavor for Klein.
One way to fix poverty is to pay workers more rather than for companies to sit on record profits and pay a few lucky souls at the top a bajillion times more than their ordinary workers. I know this is kind of complicated though.
How about putting more people back to work rather than working those who have jobs to death?
It is distinctly complicated. True, companies are sitting on bajillions of bucks over seas and not bringing them home either for stock holders, OR for reinvestment and expansion of businesses. But why? Because Obama favors the 37.5% corporate tax rate. He has offered to bring it down to 20% for Incorporated businesses, which sounds great, but most small businesses file as S corporations, i.e. individuals, and he is wanting to RAISE the taxes for those. Moreover, part of the 20% deal is closing loop holes. Many of those big corporations are better off with the loopholes. And THEN he wants to spend the money raised by the “tax cuts” but REALLY tax increases, on more public jobs and union jobs. So, what’s REALLY going on is taxing people more to pay off his cadre of supporters for the 2014 elections.
No real interest in expanding economic activity which would employ some of the people in poverty. When there is an expanding economy, there will be new jobs added, though whether the demand for labor will raise wages to where you would want to see them, is iffy. That one percent of the population is sitting on 40% of the wealth is a real disaster for the middle class. Short of confiscating their wealth like a communist government (Think Venezuela), the ONLY constitutional and ethical game in town is economic growth. Something President Obama does not really seem interested him. Don’t blame the corporations. They are just reacting rationally to government policy. Put the blame for increased poverty among the middle class squarely where it belongs, on the President.
Come on, Harlan. Those poor corporations who managed to make a good percentage of their sales in the U.S. and then declare losses to avoid taxes through loop holes do not deserve our sympathy. I am not qualified to speak about small businesses (or large ones when it comes down to it!). I know it is extremely difficult to start a small business. How many fail within five years? The economic growth we need is NOT in the corporations. They are intent on circulating any profits within a select circle. I don’t see much evidence of investment in the U.S. The economic growth needs to come from the middle class and small businesses. So how do we empower the middle class? Lowering corporate taxes will not accomplish that. They have shown their interest to be solely in their own bottom line at the expense of the rest of society.
Harlan,
No, it is really not that complicated. Your post seems a rather misguided mishmash of ideas. By the way, Venezuela is not a communist country.
Our nation’s political leaders—Senators, Governors, Congressional Representatives, Big City Mayors and the like, almost never utter the word, “poverty” in the modern era.
Unless it’s to denounce the idea that poverty could ever be responsible for anything consequential, as in “I think it’s time for us to stop using ‘poverty’ as an excuse for our failing schools…blah blah blah blah blah. ..”
However, at one time, the national disgrace of poverty was a vital part of our public dialog.
For roughly a decade, from the publication of Michael Harrington’s classic text, “The Other America”, in 1962, to the landslide 49 state loss for George McGovern—probably the very last high profile candidate who actually talked about poverty as a problem that required a government solution—in 1972, politicians were expected to have a position on poverty, and it was taken very seriously, even among the conservatives of that period.
But the “lesson” most took from tat period was “Poverty is a loser at the polls. Stop talking about it.”
But when our elected leaders followed that conventional wisdom and stopped talking about poverty, it allowed our citizens to abdicate all social responsibility regarding this still critical issue.
The public conversation went from “How did our country get into this awful situation and how can we unite to solve it?” To “How did these people become so unmotivated and lazy and when will they get off the couch, stop making excuses and just go get a job!”
The results of this new narrative are with us every day, manifesting itself in the worst income inequality since the Coolidge administration, shameful childhoods of absolute deprivation, savage cuts in public education and abject suffering everywhere.
When we defeat The Privatizers, and we get our schools back, I think it will also be a good time to address poverty, openly and directly.
You might be interested in this: Letter from an officer of White Hat, the instigator of the charter movement in Ohio. Such accountability! I guess some times they recognize the consequences of poverty.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/07/27/charters-educate-kids-society-has-forgotten.html
A fascinating study of the effects of poverty:
http://articles.philly.com/2013-07-22/news/40709969_1_hallam-hurt-so-called-crack-babies-funded-study
Mr. Shepherd,
Thank you for the link to the “crack baby” study. It seems clear that while poverty isn’t the only factor at work in a child’s life, it often trumps other factors. Why can’t all those billionaire “philanthropists” just put some money into programs that we know make a difference? Make sure children can come to school and get a healthy breakfast and lunch, have physical education and recess every day, offer a full program of arts and music, fund sports, keep libraries open and well stocked, hire more guidance counselors, have nurses in every school. A few years back, a progressive mayor in our town helped organize and fund a band of travelling dentists who went from school to school providing dental exams and cleanings.
Sadly, our city is now led by pols and school board members who have drunk the reformy cool-aid. Last year our middle and elementary school libraries were only open every other day (library aides were cut). They did find tons of money to hand over to Pearson for new LA anthologies with snippets of actual literature and lots of cumbersome and nonsensical common-core-aligned lessons. Sometimes I get discouraged…
Definitely a must read. Thanks for the link.
Our nation’s political leaders—Senators, Governors, Congressional Representatives, Big City Mayors and the like, almost never utter the word, “poverty” in the modern era.
Unless it’s to denounce the idea that poverty could ever be responsible for anything consequential, as in “I think it’s time for us to stop using ‘poverty’ as an excuse for our failing schools…blah blah blah blah blah. ..”
However, at one time, the national disgrace of poverty was a vital part of our public dialog.
For roughly a decade, from the publication of Michael Harrington’s classic text, “The Other America”, in 1962, to the landslide 49 state loss for George McGovern—probably the very last high profile candidate who actually talked about poverty as a problem that required a government solution—in 1972, politicians were expected to have a position on poverty, and it was taken very seriously, even among the conservatives of that period.
But the “lesson” most took from tat period was “Poverty is a loser at the polls. Stop talking about it.”
But when our elected leaders followed that conventional wisdom and stopped talking about poverty, it allowed our citizens to abdicate all social responsibility regarding this still critical issue.
The public conversation went from “How did our country get into this awful situation and how can we unite to solve it?” To “How did these people become so unmotivated and lazy and when will they get off the couch, stop making excuses and just go get a job!”
The results of this new narrative are with us every day, manifesting itself in the worst income inequality since the Coolidge administration, shameful childhoods of absolute deprivation, savage cuts in public education and abject suffering everywhere.
When we defeat The Privatizers, and we get our schools back, I think it will also be a good time to address poverty, openly and directly and to stop blaming our teachers for it.
Why wait to address poverty until you get your schools back and defeat the privatizers? Is income inequality the “cause” of poverty? I mean is that your assumption? It is certainly true that we are seeing “shameful childhoods of absolute deprivation, savage cuts in public education and abject suffering everywhere.”