There is one fact about America today that has not been mentioned in the political debates: nearly 25% of our nation’s children are growing up in poverty.
This nation leads the advanced nations of the world in child poverty.
Two articles today by conservative writers suggest that some hint of realism may enter the national discourse.
David Brooks wrote a column today expressing alarm about the growing inequality of opportunity among children, as affluent parents invest more in their children and lower-income parents have not. There is some hope here that Brooks is beginning to think that the large and widening opportunity gap is a social problem, not a result of bad teachers and bad schools. He concludes by saying that liberals are going to have to voice more support for two-parent families, as though their not voicing support affected the behavior of lower-income families. More impressively, he concluded that “Conservatives are going to have to be willing to accept tax increases or benefit cuts so that more can be spent on the earned-income tax credit and other programs that benefit the working class.” Whether that will be adequate to stem the rising tide of poverty is unclear, but it’s a start.
Minutes after I read Brooks’ column, I received a post by Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in which he questions whether school reform would have much affect on social mobility. He begins thus: “Voucher supporters, charter advocates, standards nuts, teacher-effectiveness fanatics—we all fundamentally believe that fantastic schools staffed by dedicated educators can help poor kids climb out of poverty and compete with their affluent peers.” But then Charles Murray came to the Fordham offices and told them that it wasn’t happening and it wasn’t going to happen.
Murray told the assembled listeners that ““The better the meritocracy, the more efficiently you identify and reward talent, the faster that social mobility will decline over time.” According to Petrilli, the audience was taken aback.
The theory behind the current school reform movement is that by pushing school choice, there will be greater social mobility and more poor kids will enter Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Murray pointed out that the doors of the elite institution are now wide open to highly talented students from “backwaters,” more than ever. But that does not change his view that class lines are hardening.
The point that I think Mike Petrilli and other reformers don’t get is that the pie is not expanding and the division of the “pie” is more unequal than ever, and nothing they do now to “reform” schools will change those facts. There may be more poor kids gaining admission to college, but the number and proportion of poor kids is not declining. It is increasing.
And this is where Brooks and Petrilli and Murray converge. The opportunity gap is growing; if we do nothing, it will continue to grow. Social mobility is declining as more tests and hurdles limit access to the top. Vouchers and charters may (or may not) boost a few more children up the ladder, but the distribution of rich and poor remains unchanged. The meritocracy, as Murray put it, gets “better” and consequently less welcoming to those without the high test scores and privileges of the elite.
As we Race to the Top, the number of places as the Top does not increase. And the proportion of children in poverty continues to rise. These are not school problems. Brooks and Murray are right to recognize that our society is hardening its social and economic arteries. The rich are getting richer, the poor are growing more numerous, the middle class is shrinking, and the working class is losing hope.
This is not a formula of which we can be proud. It demands new social policies. Who is thinking about where we go from here?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When you have parents under deep stress, working two or three jobs apiece trying to keep the mortgage paid, they don’t have time to read to their kids or even the money for gas to take them to the museum.
Maybe the genius of Finland’s system has nothing to do with their schools. Maybe it’s 4% poverty for kids and 5 weeks paid vacation for their parents.
I agree. It’s the economy. I’m going to Cuba for a visit and I’m so surprised how excellent their health care outcomes are for a country under a 50 year blockade. If Cuba can care for and educate their people, we in the US certainly can.
“Maybe the genius of Finland’s system has nothing to do with their schools. Maybe it’s 4% poverty for kids and 5 weeks paid vacation for their parents.”
The “genius” of the Finnish system is largely demographic. If you compare the performance of white Americans in international student assessments to that of Finns, there’s little difference. Minorities do poorly in Finland, too, but there are very few of them.
One thing that hampers social mobility in the US is the existence of a vast range of higher education institutions some of which are springboards for elite careers while many others are worthless. Moreover, non-academic criteria such as extracurriculars are usually considered in admissions to selective schools, which gives an edge to kids from educated, well-to-do backgrounds. In Finland and many other European countries, there are no elite universities nor are there really bad schools, and admission is based on strictly academic criteria. Consequently, the class backgrounds of students are more diverse, while the lack of elite schools means that the higher education system does not exacerbate class differences the way it does in the US.
That is wrong. Finland far outperforms its neighboring Nordic countries with the same demographic: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. It has both low poverty and a superior education system. We are unquestionably impaired by high child poverty. We lead the advanced nations of the world in child poverty.
I was comparing Finland to the US. If you disaggregate American results in studies like the PISA by race and ethnicity, you’ll notice that white (and Asian) Americans outperform most nations in the study. As far as these groups are concerned, the idea that there is some kind of crisis in American education is a total fiction if we use international comparisons as a metric. Adjusting for demography makes a big difference in the PISA in general, see here. You should compare like to like.
Finland’s success in these comparisons of course cannot be due to low child poverty or long vacations, because it is no different from other Nordic countries in these respects. (Switzerland, of course, is neither a neighbor to Finland nor a Nordic country.)
Wrong. Read the tables in “Highlights from PISA 2009.” Finland’s scores are significantly higher than those of Norway, Sweden, Ireland, and Germany. It is not whiteness that makes for superiority. Finland is known for its innovative, non-test-based system of education. I was there last fall and was impressed by what I saw.
Furthermore, if you look at the breakdowns in this report for race and for poverty, the US white student average was 525 but the low-poverty average was 551. Being white was an advantage, but being in a school with less than 10% poverty was far better.
The combination of low poverty and an excellent school system gives Finland a great advantage over other nations with similar demography.
Read Pasi Sahlberg’s “Finnish Lessons.” It’s a good read.
Here is the link to “Highlights from PISA 2009”: see the tables on pp. 8, 14, 15: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011004.pdf
Finland’s scores are significantly higher than those of Norway, Sweden, Ireland, and Germany. It is not whiteness that makes for superiority.
Controlling for race and immigration status does eliminate much of the advantage Finland has vis-a-vis countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. See the link I posted above. It also shows that US whites (and Asians) score similarly to the top-performing European countries, which gives the lie to the notion that the US system is somehow broken.
The Finnish system is not non-test-based. It’s just that the tests are not standardized (with the exception of the Matriculation Exam at the end of high school). Teachers make their own tests or use tests from textbook publishers.
Even controlling for demography, Finland does have an advantage compared to most (non-Asian) countries (but not all — see New Zealand’s results), so perhaps there’s something to the Finnish system. However, I predict that the publication of the results of the TIMSS math and science study later this year will dent the reputation of the Finnish education system. Finnish mathematicians have noted a sharp decline in the math skills of Finnish students in recent decades, something that is masked by the PISA which has few algebra and geometry items.
Furthermore, if you look at the breakdowns in this report for race and for poverty, the US white student average was 525 but the low-poverty average was 551. Being white was an advantage, but being in a school with less than 10% poverty was far better.
You cannot make a causal interpretation that poverty is what causes those score differences. In any case, 525 is clearly above the OECD average.
Poverty affects test scores in every nation in the world.
In every nation in the world, test scores are skewed by relative family income, with the most affluent at the top and the poorest at the bottom.
The US is not unique in that regard.
What makes us different is that we have more child poverty than any other advanced nation in the world.
Aside from your insistence that race is the determining factor in test scores, what evidence do you have that poverty doesn’t shape the distribution of test scores? Have you read Helen Ladd’s recent paper “Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence”?
I’m not saying that poverty has no causal effect on educational outcomes. But what is clear that much of the poverty-performance association is confounded by unmeasured variables, in particular intelligence and conscientiousness which are both highly heritable and highly important for educational outcomes. Moreover, there is so much variation in educational outcomes within families, i.e., among siblings, that explanations based solely on family environments are not plausible. Most of the population variation in educational outcomes would persist even if all students had identical home environments.
This article demonstrates how powerless socioeconomic explanations of educational differences are compared to racial explanations. For example, they show that blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a lower mean SAT score than whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000. You get similar results with all standardized tests, e.g., NAEP tests and IQ tests.
I’ll check Ladd’s paper out.
I am glad that they are seeing it….I am sad that it took so long. we have to institute policies designed to level the playing field….yes, that sometimes means affirmative action. Schools need resources based on the proportion of needy kids they serve. It means that we have to revisit desegregation and build some low income housing in affluent communities to give students access to diverse schools. We need to build community colleges that meet students where they are, instead of testing them and then whining that they are not prepared. We also need policies that do not reward (or glorify) teen pregnancies.
Now that they know, let’s see where they go.
Yes.
I would employ a ten-foot pole when dealing with Charles “The Bell Curve” Murray . In his 2012 offering, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010”, he claims that the rich have retained their position by holding on to proper values while the working class has sunk because they have become what can best be described as “too black.” He is an upper class apologist posing as a libertarian and he sees opposition to vouchers as a way to re-enforce his line that the under classes are self-destructive and therefore not worth helping. His view of meritocracy is one in which the “right” kinds of people have merit and the rest deserve what ever they get.
The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
Beat me to the punch about C. Murray. You are correct about the enemy.
Mr Murray claims that “the rich have retained their position by holding on to proper values while the working class has sunk because they have become what can best be described as “too black.”
I take great objection to Mr Murray’s broad stroke of the racist brush here…So his comment would imply that the Enron and Banking crisises (scandals) were not caused by the greed and criminality of the wealthy but rather by barely middle-class, hoody wearing punks with backward baseball caps whose parents collect unemployment. Glad he cleared up what “proper values$” means …good old white white-collar crime. He’s nothing more than a condescending self-righteous racist. Mr Murray better beware ’cause, according to my black students, “God really don’t like ugly”.
PS…Some of the hardest working people I know are black inner city folks raising their kids and supporting their aging parents at home while working 2 or more minimum wage jobs, as well as attending church regularly. Mr Murray needs a major attitude adjustment and a reality check (BTW…which can’t be cashed).
I had no idea. Thanks for sharing.
AFAIK, Murray does not claim that working class whites have become “too black.” That’s Scott’s own opinion. Murray describes how social classes used to differ much less behaviorally from each other than they do today. That’s simply a fact that you cannot refute by disparaging him.
Your claims about Murray’s politics also bear little relation to reality. He is, among other things, a strong advocate of a basic income for all citizens.
Thank you Prof. Ravitch. Similar situation in Australia (though less pronounced) whereby the individualist world-view of our notional “meritocracy” is doing the same job the old feudal system used to do in merrie olde England — establish a kind of ‘natural order’ in which the serfs don’t call into question their place at the bottom of the pile — and it just wouldn’t be polite to analyse or critique the social system that keeps them there. The technocrats’ meritocracy today is as mythical as the old feudal notions of divine right, or the karmic explanations for a caste system: everybody is in their rightful place as determined by the elites who coalesce the social order and install themselves at the top of it, and That Is How It Should Be. (Technocrats’ corollary: The Numbers Don’t Lie.)
Returning our manufucturing base back to the USA would create more jobs and help the middle class and poor acomplish more. If companies would stop outscoring, such as Microsoft in China, and bring these factories home we can once again become number one in all areas. The middle class is being destroyed because of this factor along with treaties such as NAFTA and GATT actually have helped create an unfair trade balance to the USA. The so called global economy certainly has not been accomplished in Europe…just take a look at what is happening there. I think it is about time that business works with unions to rebuild our once great economy…and yes, most important, our public schools. Get these greedy, no nothing, foundations and private businesses out of our schools. Just my opinion for what it is worth.
Just a little note: Microsoft also works to reduce the number of professional jobs. They send programming to India and lobby for increased HB1 visas, which allow foreign programmers into the US while our own programmers go jobless. There are many ways to shrink the middle-class.
Barbara, do you have proof of your statement? I do know when I need help with my Microsoft I’m connected to India, but is the company doing this to save money because American programmers cost more? I try to be fair from all points of view. I just wish the Gates and others would get out of education that they obviously know nothing about. I wish they would bring their companies back to the USA and help create joby for our unemployed.
Barbara,
Husband works for Microsoft, so here’s his POV on H1B visa workers. Employees here on H1B visas make the same salary and benefits as US employees, although MSFT doesn’t have to pay into Social Security on their behalf. However, we’re assuming that MSFT handles the legal fees and much of the relocation expenses.
Husband also points out that currently there are over 400 openings for developers at the main Redmond campus. It’s probably a lot easier for MSFT to fill those openings with Americans than foreigners. This is particularly when you consider that those here on H1B visas probably aren’t here for the long-term. I’m not sure of the exact duration of the visas, but there are quite a few onerous restrictions, such as a spouse of someone on an H1B is only allowed to work if they’re here on their own, independently obtained visa.
Amy, sorry for the delay. If you know any computer engineers or EEs (electrical engineers), they will tell you all about H1B visas and how they are used to depress professional wages but I did not want this to be all anecdote so I did some goggling for you.
Norm Matloff is a professor of engineering at UC Davis who writes a lot about this issue: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html
Microsoft has a number of offices in India and they include development as well as tech support: http://www.microsoft.com/india/msindia/msindia_ouroffices.aspx
Microsoft is not the only corporation that lobbies for raising the annual cap on H1B visas but Bill Gates is a very vocal proponent. There are lots of hits on goggle about his repeatedly testifying for raising the cap over many years but here is a recent article on this effort. Gates is not mentioned specifically, but the article does say that eliminating the cap is an important goal for some big IT companies, including Microsoft:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228578/Grassley_plan_for_tougher_H_1B_enforcement_revealed
“Returning our manufucturing base back to the USA would create more jobs and help the middle class and poor acomplish more.”
The US is manufacturing more than ever today and it is still the world’s largest manufacturer, larger than China. Manufacturing has not gone anywhere, only manufacturing jobs, due to automation.
How come I can’t find a single US-made product when I go to the hardware store?
It’s not comforting to think that we kept the manufacturing, we just outsourced all the jobs.
How come I can’t find a single US-made product when I go to the hardware store?
The US generally produces capital goods, not consumer goods. From Wikipedia:
The United States is the world’s largest manufacturer, with a 2009 industrial output of US$2.33 trillion. Its manufacturing output is greater than of Germany, France, India, and Brazil combined.[107] Main industries include petroleum, steel, automobiles, construction machinery, aerospace, agricultural machinery, telecommunications, chemicals, electronics, food processing, consumer goods, lumber, and mining. The US leads the world in airplane manufacturing,[108] which represents a large portion of US industrial output. American companies such as Boeing, Cessna (see: Textron), Lockheed Martin (see: Skunk Works), and General Dynamics produce a vast majority of the world’s civilian and military aircraft in factories stretching across the United States.
Brooks has long been concerned with increasing social bifurcation. To characterize him as only lately coming around to the point is inaccurate.
More accurately, he’s long been as incoherent. He understands much of the depth of the problem, yet can’t bring himself to support the left’s more comprehensive – by definition – view of intervention.
WORD. Everything you say is the TRUTH.
Similarly, thinking of ways to alleviate social class differences has been one of Murray’s main occupations throughout his career.
It is time to admit the elephant in American classrooms is not the teacher, it IS increasing childhood poverty.
RttT is a pyramid/Ponzi scheme. No need to guess who the biggest losers will be. Our children and our future. This educational nightmare is laying the foundation for a dystopian society. We may already be there, but if not- this will surely pave the way.
But these things are self-evident. How blind can our leadership be or pretend to be – and that goes for both parties? These things (the increase of poverty, the decrease in the middle class, the horrible discrepancy between the vast underclass and the tiny over-privileged class) that our country will cease to be recognizable as the nation of equality and opportunity I was brought up to believe in. I realize that I’m bordering on the maudlin, probably crossed the line, but I still believe that, if we want to, we can change the situation and make it better, and education, not more and more tests and evaluations, but education (which means leading them out) can do it.