How many times have you heard people like Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein (remember him?) and other so-called reformers say that poverty doesn’t matter, that poverty is an excuse for poor teaching?
I have always believed that poverty imposes tremendous burdens on students and their families: hunger, homelessness, lack of medical care, illness, etc.
The best evidence of the difference that poverty makes is SAT scores. The poorest kids have the lowest scores, the most affluent have the highest. The difference from bottom to top is nearly 400 points. To be exact, it is 398 points.
The Wall Street Journal suggests a new name for the SAT: the Student Affluence Test.
What does the SAT measure? Family income and family education.
Those with vast resources of their own probably think that poverty is a personal defect rather than the inevitable result of an inequitable tax system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I teach in a high poverty high school and write a regular column for the op-ed page of The Charlotte Observer. The most vitriolic reader mail I get is when I write about poverty and how it impacts my students. People are quick to say that poverty is the result of personal failings of the poor–and they have long prescriptions for what poor people should do (work hard for a change, refuse government assistance), and things they shouldn’t (buy a $5 pizza with EBT or own a cell phone).
I keep waiting for those same people to be equally outraged about the personal failings of everyone else, such as the greed and ambition that almost crashed the world economy in 2008.
It is way past time we played. Ice and polite. The answer to these haters is simple: 1876. Since 1876, when the Republican Party sold out the newly freed slaves, all the former slave states (and you can throw Oklahoma in there since it is functuonally part of Texas), have led the nation (and still do) in low income, poverty, lack of economic opportunity, teen pregnancy, and . . . (The ultimate measure) shoeter life span. This must mean they are lazy because the other states earn more than they do, attain higher educatipn level, and live longer.
Steve O’Donoghue
sacramento, CA
Amazing to see the Wall Street Journal acknowledging this. Tragic that USDE and Congress fail to acknowledge this phenomenon, thoroughly documented with evidence that could be used to frame remedial policies. It is easier to blame teachers for these and other factors they simply cannot control.
I just recently learned that the CIA imported crack cocaine into the US to fund the Contras in order to stop socialism in Nicaragua, while our Govt instituted mandatory minimums for crack convictions. Of course it would be ludicrous to suggest that this kind of behavior might be more of a factor for poor student outcomes in the inner city than ineffective teachers! Hey teachers, have you ever worked with a crack baby? You have the CIA and our Govt. to thank.
And we funded the civil war in El Salvador as well, causing many civilians to seek refuge here in the US. Many young people in our large cities, feeling alienated from their transplanted lives, joined gangs such as MS13, sold drugs and landed in prison. When their sentences were completed, they were deported to a homeland they never knew, having left as children. Taking the only skills they had, they joined the drug trade and established gangs. Now unaccompanied children flee north across our southern borders to escape these same gangs.
Your tax dollars at work. Nice, huh?
American Dad sums this whole tawdry story up succinctly. When I showed it in class, my students could never believe it was actually the truth. George Bush I makes a cameo as head of the CIA.
I’ve been saying this for a long time, that poverty is the root of most of the education problems. Common Core is proclaimed to make us equal to international standards. But, one must compare apples to apples. Finland has only a 3% poverty rate, whereas the US has a 20% poverty rate. Even though, other countries such as Japan have higher poverty rates than Finland, it is the custom for families to put education as their priority, IMHO.
Poverty is going to continue here in the US until leaders in poor communities go into those communities and talk about strengthening the family unit. Why don’t they do that? Because there is no money in it for them. They WANT the poor dependent on the government. That’s how the leaders get their power.
Poor children come to school not know who their real father is, parents may be in jail because of drugs, grandparents are raising grandchildren, children are not getting fed at home properly and have to have their nutrition needs met at school, (which is a joke.) The list goes on an on.
It’s up to the community leaders in those communities!
How do US drug sentencing laws compare to Finland’s?
For arts teacher above, there is now a movie, Kill the Messenger, on a journalist who exposed this travesty by our government. I believe his name was Webb but am uncertain about that. He exposed it, was vilified by the government and even by his own colleagues. [Sound familiar?] It was one of the biggest and most important news stories of our time. He worked so hard, researched, followed difficult leads etc. Received initially fame but the powers that be “killed the messenger” when they could not refute the message. He finally was so despondent he committed suicide, could not get a job, was blackballed.
Too,
a comment: In my early days people thought that IQ was THE criteria for success. When no correlation between IQ and success was found it was discarded in favor of EQ, emotional quotient. When that too was found to be unreliable finally a criteria was found and written about which does seem to have relevance: AQ, Adversity quotient. How well does one handle adversity.
Perhaps that should be remembered now when there is so much money and power employed against quality education by those who know not that they know not but are absolutely certain that they know.
I wish the powers that be would spend a week in my classroom. The difference is glaring. Poor students have so many things to worry about besides school. If Mom is working late will I get in the house? Will there be food? Will they be so spaced out they even know I’m home?
Last year one of my 2nd graders was playing outside and two men got out of there cars and started shooting so she and her friends abandoned thei bikes and crawled home.
Another time I was trying to teach a little girl dynamic subtraction. In the middle of the lesson, she looked up at me and asked, “did you know my dad shot my mom? Do you think he might come back and shoot me?”
The U.S. public schools—-regardless of the for-profit, corporate funded propaganda and criticism of those same schools—are doing something VERY right when it comes to teaching children who live in poverty, because a breakdown of the PISA scores by comparing social class groups by country reveals that children living in poverty in the U.S. rank #1 repeatedly when compared to similar numbers of students who live in poverty in other countries.
In addition, the U.S. tests more of these students from the lowest social class group than any other OECD nation.
For instance, in 2009, the average distribution for the lowest group that was tested [children living in poverty] was 7% for the three top-scoring countries and 14% for similar post-industrial countries compared to 20% in the U.S.
How did the US do in this equal comparison while dealing with the challenge of more children living in poverty than any other OECD nation?
Scale scores in Reading by social class group for U.S. and simliar post-industrial countries reveals that children who live in poverty from Group 1 (the lowest) were 442 compares to 424 in the U.K., 413 in Germany and 403 in France.
The same holds true for Group 2 (the next lowest social economic group of students):
In Group 2, the U.S. score was 471 compared to 455 for the U.K. and Germany and 458 for France.
And also for Group 3 (the 3rd lowest social class group economically): The US score was 504 compared to 490 for the UK, 496 for Germany and 498 for France.
In fact, when we compare the U.S. to the top three scoring countries by socioeconomic group from lowest to highest, the difference in the scores is very small in all six groups from lowest to highest, but when we average those scores, the 20% of students who live in poverty that are tested in the U.S. are like an anchor dragging the overall average down, because no other OECD country tests a ratio of children living in poverty at that percentage.
http://www.epi.org/publication/us-student-performance-testing/
For the corporate funded, fake-education reformers, it’s all how you spin the numbers to fool as many people as possible with the goal to achieve their profit driven agenda. To them, the truth doesn’t matter.
Thanks for reporting this. A little caution on those graphs: much of the data seems to depend on survey data, answered or not, by the students, who may or may not really know their parents income etc, or may or may not tell the truth.
Sent from my iPhone
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Good point.
The link below is to the College Board’s Total Group Profile Report of 2013 College-Bound Seniors that appeared in the Washington Post article.
Click to access TotalGroup-2013.pdf
“The College Board announced Wednesday that it is overhauling the SAT, dropping the timed essay and focusing less on fancy vocabulary in order to level the playing field a bit for high school students from a wider range of families.”
“The organization’s own data show that wealthier Americans, from more educated families, tend to do far better on the best. As do white and Asian Americans, and those students who had the opportunity to take the PSAT in high school before taking the SAT. Almost certainly, these four findings have common origins in that the SAT benefits families who can provide their kids with a better education and more test prep.”
Even the Wall Street Journal, with their Student Affluence Test acknowledged the inequality.
“Yet despite the changes in recent decades, and even with the writing test scores dropped, the gap between rich and poor remains pronounced across the math and verbal sections.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/10/07/sat-scores-and-income-inequality-how-wealthier-kids-rank-higher/
Instead of value-added metrics, we need some value-subtracted metrics.
Teachers who offer anecdotal reports on the well-being of students are too easily dismissed by the bean counters, even if these reports are on the mark.
In all of the hoopla about closing the “achievement gap,” too many people making policies want to ignore the gaping holes in the social fabric of many communities.
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Metrics are available but seldom used. They are hidden from view. USDE’s very crude “proxy” for household poverty–eligible for free or reduced price lunch–hides from view more than it discloses about school enrollments. Even that crude measure is off the books of USDE accountability, a price for getting a “waiver” on the dreadful requirements of NCLB. Ostriches are not that dumb.
A recent study by John Fantuzzo, Whitney Leboeuf, and Heather Rouse published in Educational Research (jan/feb 2014) put together information on the following seldom documented factors. All of the data came from public records distributed among social service agencies in a large urban school system. The researchers looked at school attendance and Grade 3 math scores–Sample size: 10,100 plus– as these are related to the following factors:
students are classified as economically disadvantaged,
preterm or low birth weight,
inadequate prenatal care,
high lead exposure,
substantial maltreatment,
homeless shelter stay,
teen mother,
mother did not complete high school.
This study did not include additional measures of school or family characteristics such as unexpected movement of students in and out of school, parental well-being, depression, stress, unemployment, social support, residential instability, incarceration, and so on.
Bottom line, race and poverty do not tell the whole story.
Child welfare and educational well-being are connected. Schools and teachers alone cannot produce the changes needed for the well-being of vulnerable students.
In the era of big data, it is time to connect the dots and get data on corporate tax beaks, unemployment data, flows of money away from public schools, cuts in social service agencies, and more into our accountability schemes. It is time to give priority to the personal and educational well-being of our students, especially those who are the most vulnerable.
How would students from economically poor families do if all the educational advantages were present in their schools? What would happen if they had the best teachers, materials, resources, school meals, tutors or anything that is provided by a school? What do students need that their families must provide for them to be successful? Why do any economically disadvantaged students perform well in spite of their economics? A certain economic level makes the students’ education easier, but is not a guarantee of it. Perhaps we need to find out what causes some economically disadvantaged students to succeed. What impact does taking honors and AP classes have on SAT scores? For example, in the Florida county where we now live, public schools pay for students to take AP classes. Does that make a difference on their SAT scores, or is there another reason? It is so easy to make money a solution or culprit, when in fact it might not be totally either one. It is the easiest answer.
As a disclosure, we are as middle class as you can get with an income about $70,000. Yes, our children all have graduated from college, two private and one public, with loans. A masters degree is an expectation, which 2/3 have completed. All three took AP classes, played in the school marching band, read books and enjoyed HS. The highest SAT score was enough to qualify for a full Bright Futures scholarship. Just think what they would have done if we were really wealthy!
I had the pleasure this week of assisting twice in the computer lab. Approximately fifteen percent of the students were engaged in watching basketball games, rap videos, playing computer games and online shopping. One student inquired as to why I kept coming back to him. Another wanted to know the price of my foams (shoes). The Nikes being examined were $150. The rap video featured inappropriate lyrics, but the student claimed that I was mistaken. Those students were academically disengaged. What is the solution Laurie?
Laura and Laurie: You both are absolutely right. But has anyone separated the test scores and income levels by race. You will still find as Ogbu found long ago, test scores also follow color.
“InSATiable”
InSATiable is what we are
For standard and for test
We dote upon a testing star
Ignoring all the rest
Reblogged this on closetheachievementgap and commented:
Wealthy families often purchase SAT tutors for their students, a luxury that low-income households cannot afford.
I’m sure it’s the same in other states, too, but the school grades in Utah almost completely correlates with school poverty levels. We were congratulated at our school because we had the highest grade (we got a C) compared to other schools with the same income levels. What’s the point of the grades when we can just look at poverty levels?
The SAT is one of the best-vetted standardized tests, and it has NEVER done what it was supposed to do.
It was originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test because it was supposed to measure whether students had the aptitude, or general, inherent ability, necessary for advanced education. But because it did not do this well, the name of the test was changed to the Scholastic Assessment Test, signaling that it was to be viewed as a measure of scholastic achievement. In other words, it was supposed to show that the student had achieved enough to be ready for advanced, college-level work. But it didn’t validly do that either. It was positively correlated with g, the “general intelligence factor” measured by IQ tests, so its name was changed to SAT I and then to the SAT Reasoning Test.
High-school grades have always been better predictors of college success than the SAT is. What does this test do well? Well, it’s a great predictor of ZIP Codes.
But this test, for all its problems, is a model of validity compared to the new spate of CCSS state tests, PARCC, and SBAC.
And soon, of course, we shall see the new Common Core version of the SAT. I have a suggestion for the name: Call it the Scholastic Common Core Achievement Test,
the SCAT.
What’s in a name? That which we call a SAT, By any other name would smell as SCAT.
Robert,
Are weighted or unweighted grades the best predictors of college success?
In a study of more than 81,000 students entering the University of California system, Geiser and Santelices (2004) found that
1. high school grade point average (HSGPA) “has by far the strongest predictive weight…the predictive weight associated with AP/honors is uniformly small across all disciplinary areas.”
2. “unweighted HISGPA –– a GPA that does NOT grant additional points for honors –– is consistently the best predictors of first- and second-year college grades…the HSGPA weighted with a full bonus point for AP …is invariably the worst predictor of college performance.”
SAT score adds little to the predictive value of unweighted GPA.
Democracy,
Testing this is extremely complicated because students are generally not randomly admitted to a college or university, but instead are screened using a variety of measures. If a student has a high set of standardized scores (SAT, ACT, SAT subject exams, AP etc) but a low GPA, the student may be admitted because the institution believes the GPA is not an accurate measure of the student’s academic ability. If a student has a low set of standardized scores but a high GPA, the student may be admitted because the institution believes the test scores are not an accurate measure of the student’s academic ability. If in either case the institution believes the low score is an accurate measure of the student’s academic ability, the student will not be admitted. We don’t get to see the college grades of those students with high GPA and low test scores or students with high test scores and low GPA where the institution believes the low test scores or low GPA is actually a good measure of the student’s ability.
I think it would be useful to look at institutions that have little discretion in admitting students. In my institution, all in state students with a C average on a set of academic courses are automatically admitted. I think that is why the ACT score does a pretty good job of predicting student performance at my institution. Even better would be to look at an institution like UT Austin, where the school must admit the top 7% of the graduating class from every recognized high school in the state (I think that was the cutoff this year). If Texas high schools are like my local high school, that would mean that they automatically admit any student with a GPA of at least 3.9 on the unweighted 4.0 scale. Do SAT/ACT scores do a poor job of predicting success at UT Austin? I suspect that there is not really enough variation in GPA among those students to allow us to say that high school GPA predicts anything.
In my 35 years of teaching at the preschool and elementary level, I have always believed that poverty is a significant factor in student achievement. How can you achieve when there is no one home to read daily to you, to sit by you as you do your homework, because both parents are working 2 jobs to pay the mortgage and put food on the table? Parent and child time spent together are crucial in the early years.
The fact that the ACT and SAT offer little useful information other than family income is not new news.
The real story is that both the ACT and the College Board (purveyor of the PSAT, SAT, and the AP program) were major players in the development of the Common Core standards – and its massive testing regimen – which are being unleashed on public schools across the nation. Both the ACT and the College Board claim their products are tightly “aligned” with the Common Core, and that’s problematic.
College enrollment specialists say that their research finds the SAT predicts between 3 and 15 percent of freshman-year college grades, and after than that nothing. As one commented, “I might as well measure their shoe size.” The ACT, the SAT’s big competitor, is only marginally better. The “new, improved” SAT will be no different.
As Matthew Quirk reported in ‘The Best Class Money Can Buy,’ “The ACT and the College Board don’t just sell hundreds of thousands of student profiles to schools; they also offer software and consulting services that can be used to set crude wealth and test-score cutoffs, to target or eliminate students before they apply…That students are rejected on the basis of income is one of the most closely held secrets in admissions; enrollment managers say the practice is far more prevalent than most schools let on.” Guess what? It will get worse, not better.
The Common Core was funded by Bill Gates, and it was largely the work of three main groups: Achieve, ACT, and College Board. Toss in the Education Trust. All of these groups are tied tightly to corporate-style “reform.”
Achieve, Inc.’s board includes Louis Gertner, who’s bad-mouthed public education for decades. It also includes Tennessee Republican governor Bill Haslam, a pro-life, anti-gay, corporate friendly politician. The board also includes Prudential executive and former big banker Mark Grier (Prudential has been fined multiple times for deceptive sales practices and improper trading), and Intel CEO Craig Barrett (who keeps repeating the STEM “crisis” myth). Intel has laid off thousands of workers and is masterful and aggressive at avoiding tax payments and seeking subsidization, much like Boeing, and Microsoft, and GE, and IBM, and Chevron, and AT & T. These are some of the biggest tax cheaters in the country. There’s a reason that Achieve’s main publications never mention democratic citizenship as a mission of public education.
Achieve’s funders include – not surprisingly – Boeing, Intel, GE, IBM, Chevron, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Prudential (and State Farm, MetLife and other insurance companies), and the Gates Foundation. The Education Trust is funded by MetLife, State Farm, IBM, and by the Broad, Gates and Walton Foundations, among others.
Wendy Kopp, charlatan-in-chief for years at Teach for America, says the Common Core standards are modeled on “the world’s education superpowers.” She say these “globally-aligned Common Core standards” are needed to ensure American global competitiveness. Sigh. Kopp is a woman, who despite all the anecdotal and empirical evidence on the deleterious effects of high-stakes testing, says that “I have not seen that standardized tests make the profession less attractive.” Kopp says standards should be used to build “systems for accountability,” and adds that “offering parents the ability to choose their schools is the ultimate form” of accountability. She uses the terms “transformative” and education “entrepreneurs” a lot.
“The real story is that both the ACT and the College Board (purveyor of the PSAT, SAT, and the AP program) were major players in the development of the Common Core standards – and its massive testing regimen – which are being unleashed on public schools across the nation. Both the ACT and the College Board claim their products are tightly “aligned” with the Common Core, and that’s problematic.”
It seems somewhat incestuous given David Coleman’s involvement first with the Common Core Standards and now in his role as President of the College Board. Escher’s Red Ants on a Mobius Strip again?
http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/top-ten-scariest-people-in-education-reform-9-david-coleman/
It is incestuous. No question.
But I’d be careful about citing Christel Swasey’s website as a source of authority. Swasey is a Utah conservative opposed to the Common Core, and she’s said – among other things – that we SHOULD have more rigorous standards that are “internationally competitive,” and schools should not teach things that “parents disapprove of” (there goes evolution in many states), and she’s opined on Glenn Beck’s site that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg –– who most certainly is one of the better justices on the Court –– has a “terrible position” on her oath “to uphold [the] U.S. Constitution.”
Part 2
Who funds Teach for America? The big contributors are the right-wing Arnold Foundation (which wants to privatize public pensions), the arch-conservative Kern Foundation (which even wants to inculcate ministers into the belief that unregulated “free enterprise” is a “moral system”), the Broad and Gates and Walton Foundations, Cisco, State Farm, and big banks –– Bank of America, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Wells Fargo, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase–– that have paid billions and billions in penalties and fines for fraud and market-rigging. The FDIC just filed suit against 16 major “global” banks – including Bank of America Corp, Barclays, Credit Suisse, HSBC, and JPMorgan Chase – for “manipulating the Libor interest rate.” The Libor rate is critical to determining interest rates on “$550 trillion in financial products, from home loans to derivatives.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-fdic-libor-idUSBREA2D1KR20140314
The US Chamber of Commerce loves Teach for America and the Common Core. It says this: “Common core academic standards among the states are essential to helping the United States remain competitive and enabling students to succeed in a global economy.” Chamber president, Tom Donohue, says the Common Core is absolutely necessary for “businesses and country” to “ succeed.”
It’s simply not true. As I’ve noted elsewhere, the U.S. already IS internationally “competitive.” When it drops, as it did a few years back, the World Economic Forum blames 1) weak corporate auditing and reporting standards, (2) suspect corporate ethics, (3) big deficits (brought on by Wall Street’s financial implosion) and (4) unsustainable levels of debt.
Guess who supported ALL of the laizzez-faire policies that led to the mortgage and financial crises and the Great Recession? Yup. The Chamber. And it’s working very hard to get those policies back.
Meanwhile, the Chamber blames the public schools for what it did.
The College Board and the ACT and Bill Gates and the US Chamber and the Business Roundtable and the big banks and the corporate tax cheaters are all on the same side.
And it’s not the side of public education.
The 1997 Princeton study was fairly conclusive on the wide ranging and long lasting impact of poverty.
That reformers want school to essentially do all the lifting without ever advocating for changes to the economy or the way we administer transfer programs is maddening. Even if all their assumptions about what works are correct, they would be embedded in a complete system.
Check out what I wrote In “Responsibility, Repression or Status Quo” http://teacherfromplanetreality.com/?p=144#more All we need to raise test scores is to only let the affluent reproduce – which is of course an unacceptable solution.
pmdevuono, no one is stopping the affluent from reproducing, to my knowledge. If you mean that people who are not affluent should not be permitted to reproduce, that’s a form of eugenics that is unacceptable in a democratic society. Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett made an offhand remark with the same sentiment several years ago, and it was generally condemned as racist.
pmdevuono,
I heard Bill Gates wife say that their foundation was developing a birth control device that can be embedded in the body.
SAT scores also seem to reflect birth weights: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/upshot/heavier-babies-do-better-in-school.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1
Vulnerability to asthma, heart disease, hypertension and stroke in adulthood begins very early in life and is linked to low birth weight and poverty, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health and co-authored by an economist at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/24/low-birth-weight-poverty-effect-disease-in-adulthood-says-new-study-co-authored-by-uc-berkeley-economist/
low birth rate + poverty probably explains many of the low SAT scores
Diane R’s Blog 10/11/2014 “Why the lower social-economic students living in poverty score poorly in K-12 schooling and on standardized tests, such as the SAT, while higher social economic students generally score high on the SAT. ”
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Question: Is the poverty issue in K-12 just an excuse for not understanding and addressing the “social promotion” practices applied as a rational for not educating the educationally deficient student, so that high performance can occur on standardized tests, such as the SAT?
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As a retired instructor and current independent researcher of 40 years, who has taught most of those years teaching the educationally disadvantaged, black and Latino students. I questions the reliability, validity, and value of using the student poverty issue, as a major factor and excuse why K-12 students living in these communities continue to perform poorly in school and on standardized tests, such as the SAT.
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First of all, educators can not do anything significant to positively change the poverty conditions of the students and the community directly, so educators and experts focus on poverty as the cause of student academic failure is in effect, defining an excuse for poor student and school achievement. Over time, the continuous poverty link to student academic failure issue becomes accepted by the student, parent, community, media and public, as fact, lessening the academic concerns causing the failure and lowering of the expectation level of the local K-12 teachers, schools, parents. students and community. The net effect is that low state NCLB, NAEP, SAT/ACT and college placement scores defining non-proficiency becomes no big deal and becomes accepted as a reality CAUSED BY THE POVERTY. A result is that the K-12 schooling function in the community becomes mainly a social meeting place, in which parents and community are assured that the community children are at least safe and not causing trouble during school hours.
In our early USA K-12 history(late 1770’s), the function of K-12 schools was not to educate students , but to keep students off the streets, out of trouble, and busy. In many cases today, using the POVERTY EXCUSE becomes a major PRACTICAL failure cause, function, with the result of the educationally disadvantaged K-12 schools poor performance becoming accepted and promoted by the community, society and the news media. Question: Does the analogy suggests that for many of the educationally disadvantaged students in the USA, that a K-12 system’s function equates not to the student proficiency level required to participate effectively in our society, but regresses to a attendance role of K-12 education in the 1770’s?
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The K-12 poverty, low expectation excuse connection allows the educational establishment’s failure to understand and address their own research results that defines the “rate determining step” of “social promotion” function practices instead of the desired and required proficiency. Research at the classroom, school, district, state, national and international levels suggests that the concept and practice of “social promotion” is the single most significant factor in low student academic expectations and performance in K-12. “Social promotion” by three California 1998 laws( and the NCLB federal law) is the illegal practice of promoting students from grade to grade by attendance and age instead of promotion by attendance AND proficiency, SEPARATELY and INDEPENDENTLY of each other.
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Consider several contrary K-12 examples disputing the poverty – low performance connection and result. In the early 1900’s many of the immigrants who came to this country were poor, not educated, and many could not even speak the language. Yet, many of these “poor”(poverty) immigrants and their children did very well not only in K-12 academic schooling and beyond, but later in life, as well. How do the educators and others explain this well documented example involving literally millions of so called “poor” students and families becoming educated and successful?
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Second example: In our current society’s prosperity, high K-12 schooling achievement is much more complex, more important, and accurate to predict future student success- financially, employment, marriage opportunities, and life expectancy than in the early 1900’s. A major measure to predict future K-12 success, however measured, is whether or not, if the student achieves proficiency in the STEM disciplines, K through K-12 graduation. In California, 2013, all students in grades 2 to grade 11 were evaluated on the NCLB test called STAR. STAR measured student performance in five levels including Proficiency, which by federal NCLB standards was to be achieved by ALL students on grade promotion by the 2013-2014 school year. Therefore, a clear empirically measure of student performance termed “proficiency” evaluated student, school, and district academic success
The following national NAEP data defines the extremes of proficiency versus non-proficiency by social-economic criteria. If a student lived in mid or high income neighborhood, the educational expectation levels of the students, parents, teachers , schools and community was high. Secondly, the teachers in these schools were very experienced with little teacher turnover. The result was these teachers developed a strong, systematic, and increasingly correlated effective programs and standards. The combination of high expectation, well qualified, experienced teachers, and effective correlated programs and standards, resulted in a high percent of students in all grades meeting the high expectation level of the proficiency level and scores on standardized test,such as the SAT. In other words, beginning at the K level and continuing through to high school graduation, the students in these schools met or at least attempted to meet the community’s proficiency level demanded and implemented by the teachers, parents, schools, and the NCLB, STAR proficiency standard and law. The high grading standard in these schools required the students to attend school daily and complete, homework, quizzes, and tests, effectively from K to graduation.
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However, in the low income, social economically and disadvantaged neighborhoods, the expectation levels of the students, parents, schools and community reflected the neighborhood and parents low formal education and expectation levels. Secondly, the teachers were very generally inexperienced with much teacher turnover resulting in ever changing , weak, and ineffective and non-correlated programs. The grading standard in these schools generally did NOT require the students to attend school every day nor complete regular homework, quizzes, and tests, effectively. In addition, the rigor of the class work and evaluation was much less compared to other more effective schools. Therefore, without strong attendance, effective completion of homework, quizzes , or tests, and little correlation among programs, levels, and standards, the only option for the teacher, regardless of expertise, was to promote most students from grade to grade by attendance and only a few students by the required proficiency standard. The proficiency goal expected by the STAR and state laws in these”poverty” schools was not achieved, nor demanded by many, including the students, parents, schools and the community.
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In defense of these educationally disadvantaged schools’ low performance, a major problem is that the teachers, parents, students, schools and other educators did not have the “tools”, models, programs, expertise nor expectation values on how to teach and promote students from grade to grade by proficiency. A major problem occurs when students were not promoted by proficiency in the lowest grades beginning at the K level. The reason is the possibility of a student achieving proficiency becomes increasingly more difficult with each subsequent grade, since the learning process in many disciplines such as the STEM was dependent and applied the mastery of the lower pre-requisite skills. Listed below are two assumptions with support research explaining in detail the above discussion.
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Two basic assumptions that many educators, parents, and the media agree and apply to the K-12 system’s 13 levels include: (1) each K-12 level in most disciplines- math, English, science, etc. is incrementally more complex than the previous level, and (2) students in many defined disciplines are assumed to be promoted from grade to grade by proficiency, which traditionally in education has been defined as 80% correct. The first assumption is generally followed in K-12 , but the second assumption of promotion by proficiency is generally followed systemically and consistently only in the best performing K-12 schools. Documented research- NAEP, NCLB, and classroom, suggests that the learning process has at least ten characteristics(*) including: (1) linear; (2) incremental; (3) comprehensive; (4) additive; (5) interactive; (6) slow; (7) inductive; and 8-10- independent of social-economic; ethnic and gender factors. If one accepts the two assumptions and the ten research findings defined above, a student must be promoted by proficiency as a student moves from grade to grade or level to level, IF the student is to effectively learn the skills taught at the next level. Since the number and complexity of the prerequisite skills increases at the higher levels, the non-proficient student becomes less and less able to learn the subsequent material being taught and evaluate. Since the non-proficient student is expected to learn to a proficiency level academics that research suggests is not possible to accomplish at this time, a negative effect of the “social promotion” practices is that the student, teacher, and tax-paying public become “academically abused”. The teacher is also abused because the teacher is expected to teach material that the student cannot learn at that time. And the tax-payer is abused by requiring to pay additional taxes on K-12 programs that research documents can not work and are against federal and state laws.
The K-12 college placement, readiness model is defined that in theory will promote all students among grade level by proficiency meeting the federal NCLB and three California state law mandate.The inexpensive, effective ,and obvious, proficiency placement-readiness model promotes students by 80% proficiency(mastery) as the student moves from grade level to grade level, INDEPENDENT and SEPARATELY of age and attendance. For example, a student can be in 4th grade by attendance, but could be placed, taught and evaluated by academic class level of 1,2,3,4,5.6 by proficiency. In the model the responsibility for the student’s learning and promotion by proficiency is placed on the student with the support of the teacher, parent and others. Obviously, no one can force a student to learn the required material for promotion by proficiency. Only one program in each discipline would be needed in the model and no remedial nor advanced programs would be needed reducing cost/student. Since all students in each class would be approximately at the same academic level, research documents that class level size could be increased to 35 to 40 students/class without a reduction in student performance- also reducing K-12 costs Since peer pressure among friends is an important motivator for student actions, competition to come to school and learn the material to a proficiency level, should result improving both attendance and performance of most students.
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As mentioned previously, which is supported by research and common sense, the inability to learn the material being taught at the appropriate time becomes more and more significant as the grade level increases. For example, based upon NAEP data by grade 8 in math or science, the mean non- proficient students has the skills four years lower than the proficient student. In other words, the non-proficient student is expected to complete to a proficiency level of 8th grade material with academic skills of a 4th grade student.
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Here is a classroom verification study of the NAEP result for 8th grade students. In the study, two classes of 8th grade students- 29 students in prealgebra and 32 students in honors algebra- were tested at the end of the school year using a 50 question, diagnostic-prescriptive, ten area tests, divided into two areas. The first part involved 25 questions in five areas defined to 6th grade material(whole numbers, decimals and fractions). The second part involved 25 questions in five areas defined to 7th grade skills( percent, signed numbers, lower level graphs, measurement, and geometry). The percent correct for the proficient students was set at 80% correct and scores below 80% correct were considered non-proficient. The result: The proficient students scores were approximately 40 percent higher than the non-proficient students in EACH of the ten areas and the composite. The 40 % difference in prerequisite skills between the proficient and non-proficient students equates on the Stanford Norm reference test norms of 9.1 %/year or about four years. In other words, as in the NAEP results, the non-proficient students in supposed to learn 8th grade prealgebra or algebra skills to a proficiency level with only 4th grade skills! Unfortunately and sadly, the 8th grade instructor many times is evaluated upon student proficiency test performance, regardless on the number and percent of non-proficient students with 4th grade skills that are entering the class. In addition, the instructor most times, has no control on the number of non-proficient students entering the class by the administration and counselors. Ironically, no one seems to mention that the administration and counselors by this unlawful practice of promotion without proficiency are violating state and federal laws! Since 50% of teachers leave the profession within five years, it is not a surprise why the majority of the leaving teachers taught in the poor, educationally disadvantaged schools, where a large percent of students in their classes are non-proficient and the teacher has no say into who enters their class or not. Both examples- national and classroom data and research support the observation that K-12 “social promotion” is a major problem, that must be addressed empirically, especially in the low performing economically disadvantaged schools before the “poor” can effectively learn in ALL K12 grades, so high performance on standardized tests can occur including the SAT.
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In summary, if one examines the high performing students schools, the students who live in the best, and most affluent, neighborhoods with the highest academic expectations for all grades and disciplines, the most experienced teachers, and the least teacher and program turnover generally learn to proficiency and score high on standardized tests including the SAT. The resulting high percent of these students achieving proficiency during the entire K-12 experience in very understandable and reliable. In the low performing student schools, the students live in the poorest neighborhoods, with the lowest academic expectations and performance in all grades and disciplines and have the least experienced teachers with highest turn over of teachers and programs, resulting in low academic performance throughout their K-12 experience and performance on standardized tests, such as the SAT.
In California’s Standardized test system(STAR) program that evaluates all students from grades 2 to 11 in 2013, all ethnic student groups and composite scores increased from grade two to four. After grade four, however, ALL ethnic groups( black, Latino, white and Asian and composite), the percent of students that are proficient declined every year, lineally to graduation. In other words, unless effective intervention occurs from grade five and continuous until K-12 graduation, the percent of non-proficient students who will become proficient in the higher math and English grades approaches zero. The research also documents that many non-proficient student may fail to graduate from high school, ever attend college, or make earn a living wage without the need of government support.
(*)Research documentation of the information defined above is available from the researcher.
Sincerely, a retired instructor and independent researcher. Eric Kangas, ekangas@juno.com
I wonder how many states have social promotions for high schools. For instance, California has the CAHSEE test where students must take this competency test and demonstrate grade level competency in order to receive a high school diploma.
High school students, in California, may be moved from grade to grade automatically but they still have to meet the state requirements for high school graduation in 12th grade. There is no automatic HS degree, and many of the students who don’t make it may continue by taking classes at local community colleges or taking a test to get a GED.
Social promotion is nothing but staying with your age group so the schools don’t end up with a 20 year old sitting in a 3rd grade class.
Students who fail required classes in HS are required to take them again in night school or during summer school. In fact, I taught 9th grade English classes during the summers and I’d often start out with 50 students in each of the two classes I taught in the summer session, and most of these students had just finished the 11th grade year.
I think that changes the accepted definition of social promotion.
Lloyd Lofthouse comments as of October 17, 2014 at 9:28 pm; My comment on his four points on Oct 20 ,Monday,2014 follow his comments.
(1) I wonder how many states have social promotions for high schools. For instance, California has the CAHSEE test where students must take this competency test and demonstrate grade level competency in order to receive a high school diploma.
(2) High school students, in California, may be moved from grade to grade automatically but they still have to meet the state requirements for high school graduation in 12th grade. There is no automatic HS degree, and many of the students who don�t make it may continue by taking classes at local community colleges or taking a test to get a GED.
(4) Students who fail required classes in HS are required to take them again in night school or during summer school. In fact, I taught 9th grade English classes during the summers and I�d often start out with 50 students in each of the two classes I taught in the summer session, and most of these students had just finished the 11th grade year.
I think that changes the accepted definition of social promotion.
Lloyd: Here are my comments related to your comments on “social Promotion” in California, as numbered above.
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(1) “I wonder how many states have social promotions for high schools. For instance, California has the CAHSEE test where students must take this competency test and demonstrate grade level competency in order to receive a high school diploma.”…
My comment:… I do not have the data on the number of states that have “social promotion” in high school, but in the examining of any state data- NAEP, SAT their NCLB results- document that “social promotion” occurs in all states with the percent of students that are “socially promoted” involved related directly to the mean standardized test score.given, as listed above. In other words, the higher the state mean scores, the less the amount of “social promotion” that occurs. Therefore, states such as California and Mississippi that have a high percent of low scoring student groups, the amount of “social promotion” will be high. While states with a low percent of low scoring student groups, such as Massachusetts, the percent of students being “socially promoted ” will be much less. To lessen this difference in “social promotion” among states and student groups was the major reason that Edward Kennedy, the NCLB chair, and President Bush 2 implemented the NCLB, 2002 law. The law’s intent was to end “social promotion” especially for the educationally disadvantaged students.
Two points on the California high school graduation test, CAHSEE include: (1). The math level is set at the 8th grade level and the English level is defined to the 9th grade level. The CAHSEE would be an excellent entrance test to begin high school level subjects based upon the standards set for the test.(2) Secondly, with the test and the “social promotion” occurring throughout the student’s K-8 experience, approximately 50 % of black and Latino males do not graduate from high school, which is a strong indicator of the failure to of what happens when students are NOT promoted by the desired proficiency expectations, starting at the K level and defined by the NCLB law.
2) ” High school students, in California, may be moved from grade to grade automatically but they still have to meet the state requirements for high school graduation in 12th grade. There is no automatic HS degree, and many of the students who don�t make it may continue by taking classes at local community colleges or taking a test to get a GED”
My comments: Recall the high school comment of the failure of students to graduate from high school mentioned above. The GED test is not a good indicator of student learning compared to the high school diploma. For example, the GED, I believe, is no longer accepted for entrance into the military. In addition, over 65 % of USA students of military entry age are not qualified to enter the military. The community colleges are no longer a valid option tor many California high school and non-high school graduates for at least four reasons. (1) The students background levels of 7th grade skills and lower is too low to learn even the most basic math courses that are offered in the CC, as pre-algebra is the lowest level offered, generally. (2) The cost at $46 a unit is too large for many students , who may need at least four developmental courses in math( I taught these courses for decades at the CC) before starting any college credit math courses. (3) The college courses cover material at 2-3 times the rate of high school courses in math, eliminating many students, who can not handle the rigor. (4) If the CC offers an adult school, no math and English courses above ESL generally are offered( at SDCCD, adult school), so the adult school is not an effect option.
(3″)Social promotion is nothing but staying with your age group so the schools don’t end up with a 20 year old sitting in a 3rd grade class”.
My comment : In the model I proposed the student would be advanced each year by age and attendance, but was placed, taught, evaluated and promoted by proficiency, SEPARATELY from attendance/age. What I did not mention in the discussion is that a new high school diploma. would be needed that defined specifically the proficiency level attained upon graduation. In this way, although not very reasonable, a student could graduate from high school with a certificate that defines his attendance of 12 grades, but a proficiency level of 3rd grade. How would this student with a 3rd grade proficiency level diploma obtain a meaningful job?.
4) “Students who fail required classes in HS are required to take them again in night school or during summer school. In fact, I taught 9th grade English classes during the summers and I’d often start out with 50 students in each of the two classes I taught in the summer session, and most of these students had just finished the 11th grade year.”
My comment: So how did these students preform compared to your traditional English students? My guess is a much higher drop rate and less proficiency. Since my teaching experience and training was in math and chemistry(MS), I believe the pre-requisite skills in these disciplines are more extensive than in the English area, so maybe we are talking apples and oranges and not on the same page, since our discipline expectations are different..
I appreciate your comments. Contact me at ekangas@juno.com, if more discussion is desired.
Explain why the U.S. beats or is equal to both Finland and Singapore for HS and College graduation rates, and why the U.S. is often compared so poorly to these countries due to the PISA scores of 15 year olds in the U.S., Finland and Singapore.
In Finland, 84% of 25-64 years olds have at least completed an upper secondary, high school education and 39% hold a college degree.
In Singapore, 32.3% of 25 or older did not go on to earn a HS degree or even go to HS, and 19% of 25 or older finished HS, but did not go to college, and 39.6% go on to earn a 2 year, 4 or more college education.
And yet, the child poverty rate in the U.S. is about 24% compared to 4.17% in Finland, and 8.2% in Singapore.
But in the U.S. by age 25, almost 90% have earned a HS degree or its equivalent (last year 80% graduated on time) and nearly 40 percent of working-aged Americans now hold a college degree, according to a new report from the Lumina Foundation. In 2012, 39.4 percent of Americans between 25 and 64 had at least a two-year college degree.
In addition, I understand that California’s tested minimum competency requirements are among the highest in the country. I’ve read that Texas set them at 4th grade when G. W. Bush was governor—and he sure bragged about the improvement in HS graduation rates in Texas when he ran for president without mentioning the minimum competency requirement being set so low..
Then, until GWB’s NCLB, K to 12 was never expected to do the impossible that no other country on the planet has ever achieved and graduate all high school students on time to be college and/or career ready.
The best any schools can do with the total population of students is work to get their literacy and basic math skills as high as possible. That’s it considering what comes through the classroom door and the U.S. is not the Soviet Union or the 3rd Reich.
What defines a career—could someone who tends bar for 45 years could be considered working a career as a bar tender? How about washing cars, pumping gas, waiting tables, mowing laws, driving a FedEx truck?
In fact, about a third of the jobs in this country required a college degree and 26 percent don’t even required a HS degree.
You may find some info on HS graduation requirements for each state in the following report.
Click to access el_197704_pipho.pdf