Believe it or not, USA Today published a powerful article by Oliver Thomas, a member of its Board of Contributors, acknowledging that the latest PISA rankings reflect the crisis of poverty in the United States. Our Students in low-poverty schools are doing fine; some analyses place them at the very top. But the more poverty, the lower the test scores.
He writes:
“As researchers Michael Rebell and Jessica Wolff of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, have noted, there is no general education crisis in the United States. There is a child poverty crisis that is impacting education.
“Here’s one data point worth remembering. When you measure the test scores of American schools with a child poverty rate of less than 20%, our kids not only outperform the Finns, they outperform every nation in the world.
“But here’s the really bad news. Two new studies on education and poverty were reported in Education Week in October. The first from the Southern Education Foundation reveals that nearly half of all U.S. public school students live in poverty. Poverty has risen in every state since President Clinton left office.
“The second study, conducted by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, reveals that poverty — not race, ethnicity, national origin or where you attend school — is the best predictor of college attendance and completion.
“Chew on that. The causes of poverty are complex and varied: excessive immigration, tax policy, and the exportation and automation of manufacturing jobs. Yet the list of solutions is strikingly short. Other than picking a kid’s parents, it amounts to giving all children access to a high-quality education.
“Here’s the catch-22. While the only long-term solution to poverty might be a good education, a good education is seldom available to children living in poverty.
“One reason is that spending on education has not kept pace with the rise in child poverty. While poverty grew by 40% in the Midwest and 33% in the South from 2001 to 2011, educational spending per pupil grew by only 12% in these regions over the same 10-year period.”
Unfortunately, the article goes on to praise the Gates Foundation for providing college scholarships to low-income students but fails to recognize that Bill Gates has done more than any single individual (other than Arne Duncan) to promote the idea that we can’t “fix” poverty until we “fix” schools. He has promoted Teach for America, charter schools, and teacher evaluation as the way to “fix” schools. Better to do something about poverty. It is a scandal that the world’s richest nation has nearly one-quarter of its children living in poverty, and the best we can do is to privatize school management and test students with greater frequency.
I am going to go out on a limb and try to be an optimist here. This author seems capable enough of wading through the false PR put out by “corporate ed reform” as is evidenced in what he has said about PISA. So the more we push back against the false PR and get out their telling anyone and everybody to “reality check” and read what is coming directly from the mouths of REAL TEACHERS, the more the PR bull that led Oliver Thomas to actually sing the praises of Gates will be in question. He has to do some more reading. So let us give him material to read! I am going to click back on the direct link in the article and hopefully there is a contact for him. I hope readers here will do the same and keep forwarding him the well documented counter points that will alter his views on Gates and company!
First we must distinguish between poverty, and the effects of poverty that damage most kids. Poor kids w strong support are not as damaged. Schools should not take credit for poor kids who have strong support. Don’t lump in the same category.
Having said that we must keep up our fight against poverty. Until we win that fight however, we must take action by taking kids from where they are. Stop failing them into oblivion before they get a chance to blossom.
And here’s how http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html Pass this on bc this concept can be done in your school now!
“Stop failing them into oblivion. . . ”
CODDLER!!!
Teach for America interns ought to go in as assistants (if at all) to help existing teachers and not as privileged, rival, “better teachers” to show them up. The whole premise is misconceived and smacks narcissism and internal colonialism on the part of the one percent — as does the whole reform movement, whose leaders would not be caught dead subjecting their own children to its ministrations.
It have been far be better to have resurrected the social work profession — along with settlement houses — and pay social workers a living wage. But where would the opportunity for corporate exploitation by the publishing companies be in that?
A far better mission for Teach For Awhile would be to get out of our schools and start attacking poverty in the post K – 12 aged adult populations in our most impoverished rural and urban locations. Literacy, parenting, nutrition and other basic life skills could be taught, and the young, bright eyed corps members would themselves learn even more from their students and understand the truth of what poverty is. They might even be able to turn a small profit. Leave teaching in the schools to actual teachers, ones who don’t need a government edict slipped under the door in the middle of the night to become “highly qualified”. That is how education can end poverty in America, by attacking it everywhere it is found, not just in our schools where it is most profitable, convenient and easiest to falsely declare success.
I think this is a great idea.
Cap Lee said: “Having said that we must keep up our fight against poverty. Until we win that fight however, we must take action by taking kids from where they are. Stop failing them into oblivion before they get a chance to blossom.” You seem to be making the huge assumption that that the kids are being failed into oblivion because the “lazy union teachers” are just lounging around doing nothing and waiting for poverty to be abolished. That’s a real slap in the face of teachers and the schools. I believe that the teachers are not lazy, are not waiting for poverty to be abolished and that the teachers and the schools are working very hard to educate the children and to assist them in every way possible. Pointing out that so many US kids live in poverty is not an excuse to do nothing, it’s an observation of fact.
The reform crowd, the billionaire school privatizers are really offended when it is reported that so many US kids live in poverty. How dare the media reveal that about 23% of US kids live in poverty, how dare they. And then the Rheeformers will regurgitate the false premise that bringing up child poverty is just an excuse to do nothing, blah, blah, deblah. We really need to restore the top marginal tax rate to what it was during the 1950s, 91%; the billionaires and the giant corporations should be paying their fair share in taxes. The minimum wage should be $15 an hour, we should have true universal health care or Medicare for all. That would go a long way to reducing poverty in this country. Instead we have the super rich lobbying Congress to lower taxes, lower taxes and then lower taxes some more. The billionaires want to cut all the social programs, the super rich have an orgasmic jihad against Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, any minimum wage and unemployment insurance.
Fine, restore the 91% tax rate, and while you’re at it restore the 1950s minimum wage. How self-contradictory can a policy proposal be?
There are people of good will all along the political spectrum, and the truth about the savage inequalities of U.S. schooling is just too obvious for any but the most brain dead to ignore.
And speaking of brain dead, a group of baboons is called a troop, a flange, or a congress. This last term is an unjust aspersion against baboons.
“And speaking of brain dead, a group of baboons is called a troop, a flange, or a congress. This last term is an unjust aspersion against baboons.”
Chuckle.
Robert D. Shepherd: thank you for alluding to an important point.
The League for Apes, Baboons, Chimpanzees and Monkeys has frequently urged me to remind the viewers of this blog that there is not one documented case of any of their member species saying or even implying anything as “brain dead” as Bill Gates’ statements that 98% of teachers get an eval that says nothing more than “Satisfactory” or that it will be another ten years before we know if his effort to socially re-engineer public ed was successful.
Re the LABCM [see above] press releases, any sentient being even remotely resembling Homo EduFraudulus is unknown outside of the [strangely labeled, according to them] Homo Sapiens.
I will not even delve into the arcane arguments of the equine variety that take offense at associating even one horse’s hindquarters with Secretaries of Education or Superintendents/CEOs or education rheephormers or edubullies. Such, I have read, do a disservice to equine nether regions that, well, diverts attention from the Rheeal culprits.
I leave you with one thought: when was the last time you heard of any other species that determined life chances with standardized testing like PISA?
Although, of course, there is that old joke about lemmings and cliffs…
Sorry, my bad.
😎
TAGO!
🙂
CEE’s Michael Rebell will be a panelist in a presentation “Education Under Fire,” Jan. 29 in NYC. http://WWW.Nysba.org/am2014lyc
A living wage for the working poor. A simple, concrete solution.
Set by the government? How about price controls as well? Liberal shibboleths.
NYS has started to legislate in this direction. Minimum wage soon to be $9/hr. Also talk of a NYC minimum of $15/hr.
Yes, set by the government. Gordon Gecko had it all wrong.
Yes, it is coming, for sure, but is it good economics? Are low wages a function of greed? Have YOU personally ever run a business?
$7.25 an hour for a full time, adult worker? No Harlan its a sign of benevolence and philanthropy
Why is running a business a criteria for understanding that providing a living wage and universal health care are moral responsibilities of the most powerful land wealthy nation on earth?
A living wage also means more disposable income that goes back into the economy.
If the owner of the business could require that her employees spend their earnings only on goods from the business, no doubt businesses would be more able to increase wages. Some, no doubt, would complain about having to buy from the company store.
The questions we ask frame the answers we get. Recently, there has been increased attention to lack of upward mobility that challenges the American dream of “rising above one’s circumstances.” That perspective leads us to ask about what we need to do create educational opportunities the make it easier move up the ladder and “escape from poverty.” I prefer to ask about what we need to do ensure a decent respectable life and high-quality education for everyone no matter where they are on the ladder. The former leads us to competitive solutions, such as “choice” in which parents compete with one another for their children’s access to more successful schools. There is no evidence that competition between schools leads to overall improvement. The latter, leads toward comprehensive systemic solutions for all students. As I describe here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-camins/pisa-results-a-chicken-li_b_4404925.html) these are values choices we make as a nation.
Well said. Reminds me of this quote from a couple days ago:
“In a fundamental sense, Sahlberg said, the United States is asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking, “What will help students succeed in today’s economy,” the U.S. should be asking, “What will encourage students to be active participants in a democracy?” and “What will make them be lifelong learners?”
The answers to the first question will be dramatically different from the latter two. In addition, the answers to the first question are of temporary value (today’s economy) whereas the answers to the latter two are of long-term value.
In your Huffpost piece you offer as a desirable: “programs to mediate residential segregation.” I wonder if you could clarify what your conception of such programs might be.
I read an interesting piece in “Nation of Change” this morning on the effects of Nafta on all economies. Essentially it has marginalized workers’ voices as businesses can always threaten to move jobs if the workers do not agree to corporate demands. My brief summary should not deter you from reading the whole article; there is much more to it than my recap.
Of course moving jobs will benefit the workers in the destination location. The enemy of expensive labor is 1) technological change that allows companies to substitute away from labor inputs and 2) less expensive labor.
Did you read the article? Your obvious comment adds nothing to the discussion.
I apologize for missing the implied “some” in your sentence “Essentially it has marginalized workers’ voices as…..”.
Harold, I really like that idea. Having two adults in a classroom makes such a huge difference. And if TFA would instead create teacher assistants that would work with specific teachers for two years and then move on to either education or another profession would create a much better learning environment.
It’s too bad these neo-liberals and tea-party people don’t see poverty as a major problem. It’s worse that the whittling down of unions and deregulation has had enormous impact in creating, sustaining, and growing poverty . . . .
Is all poverty the same?
No. Generational poverty breeds dependence and hopelessness. Not all poor people feel hopeless.
What is the motivation for the under skilled to work. Two full time jobs (80 hours a week) comes to $14,500 a year – and in may cases no benefits.
I certainly agree that generational poverty is the most devastating. It would be helpful if we tried to measure it, rather than measuring poverty based on the annual income of a household. How wealthy the household was last year, how wealthy it will be next year, what claims the household might have on other’s earnings would be relevant to a good measure of poverty.
Does everyone have a right to a minimum income regardless of whether they work or not?
In the wealthiest country in the world, this shouldn’t even be an issue.
It is not obvious that the IS is the richest country in the world. Measured by GDP per capita it is certainly in the top ten, though exactly where depends on how you do your accounting.
YOU say it should not be an issue, but you don’t answer the question. Here’s another, Is all wealth the same?
You point is moot TE
Perhaps you should say something like ” in the eighth wealthiest country in the world this should not even be an issue.” I admit it does not have the same rhetorical appeal as your statement, but it does have the advantage of accuracy.
8th? Based on what data? Can you list the 7 wealthier countries?
How the Us ranks depends on how you do the conversion to a common currency. Here is Wikipedia’s alternative ordering a of world GDP per capita. Using the Atlas method that is standard at the World Bank the US is 7th, using the IMF method it is 6th, using the CIA method it is 8th. The ranking also depends on what counts as a country.
Here is the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
If they think welfare is such a gravy train, why don’t they get on for a ride?
Robert Rendo: It is not that we don’t see poverty as a problem, perhaps THE problem, but we are skeptical of the progressive/liberal implied remedies for poverty, which seem to us as simplistic, i.e. “more money.” Poverty appears to be more correlated with low intelligence and low cause-effect knowledge leading to bad life choices than anything else. Thus we conservatives think ending poverty requires improvement in the knowledge and character of those enduring the consequences of their own bad life choices, the worst of which is early pregnancy in fatherless homes.
Liberals call this stance “blaming the victim,” but that doesn’t much change the causes of poverty, mainly inability to earn a good living because if illiteracy, innumeracy, and poor life skills. I suspect we think that society has betrayed those in poverty more by subsidizing such bad choices than by any thing else, and by not providing proper law enforcement in the neighborhoods, as in Detroit.
Now Bill DeBlasion wants to eliminate stop and frisk in NYC. It has worked at reducing crime, the first step in helping good people get out of poverty. So why does Diane support him? Because he’s against charters. If poverty is the REAL problem, then people ought to correctly analyze its causes and vote for people who are helping end it, rather than people who are continuing to promote policies which continue it.
Researchers at Harvard have identified a correlation between the stresses brought about by living in poverty and the cognitive development of children. When children are born into or thrown into poverty at a young age their brains develop more slowly due to what is termed “toxic stress.” Google it up. As for Obama, Duncan, Gates, Walton and crew- they have no qualms about ignoring the poor in their quest for ever more political and corporate gain. The poor are absolutely powerless in our political system that has devolved to little more than a cadre of congressional whores lining up to service the true rulers of America, the corporate elite, in return for reelection funds. A war on poverty is impossible at this point because the mere implication by Washington that there is a poverty/education problem would serve only to indict themselves, their institution, and decades of failed and flawed leadership before the American people. Instead, Washington and the string pulling 1% have initiated the vilification of anyone and everyone involved with public education. Alfred Hitler would be impressed.
Alfred?
LOL. You know who I mean.
After some thought on poverty, Bill Gates, Common Core, and the above piece I decided to contact Oliver Thomas at USA Today with the following.
I read with great interest Oliver Thomas’ recent article on the effects of poverty on student achievement in America. As an educator who is increasingly held accountable for factors beyond my control that affect my students’ success, I feel vindicated that poverty’s effects are receiving some long overdue press. Lately the media is awash in articles, press releases, and even full page ads bashing teachers and unions and portraying them as the culprits behind America’s dismal showings on international achievement tests. This is to be expected as The White House, Congress, and big business are actively tearing down public education so that it can be corporatized, homogenized, and mechanized. Never mind that our non-poor students are right up there with the best in the world, Bill Gates, the self appointed ‘savior’ of America’s schools, has enthusiastically spent roughly $200 million dollars to back the creation of the increasingly controversial Common Core State Standards that are overrunning our schools. Had Mr. Thomas done some due diligence on Mr. Gates’ efforts to impose his personal views on what is best for America’s children he would likely have painted Gates contrary to the manner he did. The facts speak for themselves- Gates, while sending his own children to a private school where they receive an education rich in the arts, service learning, authentic education, outdoor education and independent study, has aided and abetted the dumbing down of our public schools via his funding of Common Core and advocating for the ‘career and college readiness’ they supposedly will bring to every classroom in the USA. While his intentions sound good in theory, and all those dollars spent on ‘improving’ our schools look good on paper, an inquiring look at Common Core reveals Gates’ true colors. Common Core was not created by experts in child or cognitive development, and not even teachers, and Gates knows it. Common Core, with it’s focus on English-language arts and math effectively narrows student learning to what is needed to achieve low paying service jobs or attend a community college, and Gates knows it. Common Core has no learning theory or science behind it, and Gates knows it. Common Core has never been tested, and amounts to nothing more than another ‘teach to the test’ experiment, just like the failed No Child Left Behind, and Gates knows it. Experts in early childhood development, educational theory and practice, curriculum development, and teaching see little to no validity in Common Core, and Gates knows it. See a pattern here? Bill Gates, while he paints a rosy picture of himself by throwing out the odd college scholarship to a poor child lucky enough to make it through high school, has made a habit of undermining our schools, our teachers, our children, and America’s future. This is undeniable. Shame on Oliver Thomas for not calling a spade a spade. His wonderfully enlightening piece on poverty, the true villain in our classrooms, would have been all the more so had he painted Bill Gates in living color.
*BOOM*
The idea that education alone will end or even just significantly reduce poverty is an absurd farce. I’d like the reformers to explain how that works, just how educating the children will end generational poverty in their communities. Once these children have managed to graduate from college, is the expectation that they will return home and magically generate jobs in communities that have historically been so impoverished that they are food deserts, unable to support the basic necessity of a supermarket where better, fresher food can be bought for less than the few convenience stores serving that need in those places? Any rational person would go where the jobs and potential for a goods life are, and unfortunately that is not back to the old neighborhood. It seems to me that reformers don’t care one iota about the parents and others in impoverished communities since they are no longer in school and can no longer be profited from unless they are in a private prison. Are the reformers really so venal that they are counting on the failure of their system to perpetuate poverty and guarantee a long term cash flow into their coffers? Given the impossibility of success of their methods, it often seems so. Or will it be another Wall St. fiasco, where after it has all crashed and burned, the rest of the nation is left to bail out the edu-prenuer disaster while they blithely go on to their next conquest? How is education to cure poverty in communities where a significant source of income is drug sales to suburban outsiders since the community itself is too impoverished to support the sales volume we now see? The subtext of the reformers claims on education is that they require that all non profit generating members of the community be thrown under the bus or better still, into the prison for profit system where like their ancestors, they can once again be chattel, commodified for the sake of wealth generation.
An argument might be able to be made for a cultural crisis as well.
Agreed.
In many parts of the United States, if a single teacher has two kids, she (or, more rarely in this circumstance, he) will qualify under the federal guidelines for the free and reduced lunch program.
I did a study 30 years ago in college on this topic. I found there is only one indicator that can be linked to low school performance: Family Income. Skin color has nothing to do with it.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
With the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour it will be very difficult for anyone to rise out of poverty. A family of 4 working two minimum wage jobs for 40 hours still fall below the poverty line. It does not give people much help.
hope not help
Reblogged this on Terri Goldson and commented:
Socioeconomic status matters, poverty matters, income matters it all impacts education, opportunities, children and our future.
Every educator and concerned citizen should read this article. It’s a gem:
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/29-0
quoted about New York Times article:
Outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg went on the defensive when asked whether he was moved by the New York Times’ powerful series on a homeless family struggling to survive in New York City. Bloomberg defended his homelessness policies and claimed that 11-year-old Dasani, the star of the piece, ended up in dire straits due to bad luck.
“This kid was dealt a bad hand. I don’t know quite why. That’s just the way God works. Sometimes some of us are lucky and some of us are not,” he told Politicker, calling her plight “a sad situation.”
If you read critically he praised B. Gates for providing scholarships for low income students but admonished him on his theory that the solution to poverty is better education for the low income students.
Why don’t we require every incarcerated person in this country to attend classes in prison and jail rather than less structured time In order to receive welfare, let’s make it not only possible but mandatory for single parents to get the next level of education. Jobs could be created to make it possible for those in need to receive an education because someone has to help watch their kids. Finally, for every person who decides to be parent, there needs to be an understanding that education comes first. Education comes before play time, football practice, soccer practice, and whatever else kids are signed up for. What I believe America needs is priorities. We have forgotten what is important! Get off the back of schools and teachers. America educates all children regardless of ability or disability. We teach them all.