Archives for category: Poverty
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Jan Resseger: New Study Shows that Schools Don’t Fix Poverty

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2019 //
33

 

Jan Resseger analyzes a new study by Sean Reardon of Stanford University that demonstrates what has been widely known for decades: Schools alone don’t cure poverty.

Those who insist that they do are either uninformed, selling something (TFA founder Wendy Kopp has claimed that inexperienced teachers can overcome poverty and close achievement gaps caused by poverty), or just don’t want to pay taxes to provide the resources schools need (think the Koch brothers, the Waltons, the DeVos Family, or other billionaires).

She begins:

Here is the succinct conclusion of a complex, technical, and nuanced report released on Monday by Stanford University’s Sean Reardon and a team of researchers, Is Separate Still Unequal? New Evidence on School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps: “We use 8 years of data from all public school districts in the U.S.  We find that racial school segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in 3rd grade, and with the rate at which gaps grow from third to eighth grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement gaps is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty: racial segregation appears to be harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower poverty schools… We find that the effects of school poverty do not appear to be explained by differences in the set of measurable teacher or school characteristics available to us.”

In the report, Reardon defines academic test score gaps: “We examine racial test score gaps because they reflect racial differences in access to educational opportunities. By ‘educational opportunities,’ we mean all experiences in a child’s life, from birth onward, that provide opportunities for her to learn, including experiences in children’s homes, child care settings, neighborhoods, peer groups, and their schools. This implies that test score gaps may result from unequal opportunities either in or out of school; they are not necessarily the result of differences in school quality, resources, or experience. Moreover, in saying that test score gaps reflect differences in opportunities, we also mean that they are not the result of innate group differences in cognitive skills or other genetic endowments… (D)ifferences in average scores should be understood as reflecting opportunity gaps….”

“In sum, our analyses provide evidence that racial school segregation is closely linked to racial inequality in academic performance.  This implies that segregation creates unequal educational opportunities.  Although our analyses do not identify the specific mechanisms through which segregation leads to inequality, they make it clear that the mechanism is linked to differences in schools’ poverty rates, not differences in schools’ racial composition.”

In their review of the academic literature, Reardon and his colleagues emphasize the importance of studies which have demonstrated the importance of public policy that would invest more in schools serving poor children and in making state funding formulas more equitable.  But they conclude finally: “(W)e have no example of a school district where minority students disproportionately attend high poverty schools that does not have a large racial achievement gap. If it were possible to create equal educational opportunity under conditions of segregation and economic inequality, some community—among the thousands of districts in the country—would have done so… If we are serious about reducing racial inequality in educational opportunity, then, we must address racial segregation among schools.”

I am pleased to see Reardon so clearly describe the realities his research exposes, but I am frankly concerned that—in a society his own 2011 research demonstrates is rapidly resegregating economically as families with means move farther and farther into the exurbs—it will be politically difficult to address the concerns his research uncovers.

What is certain is that this new research confirms what many have believed is a catastrophic mistake in two-decades  of “accountability-based school reform.”  This is the test-and-punish regime imposed at the federal level by the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, followed by programs like Race to the Top and policies adopted across the states to punish teachers who were supposed to work harder and smarter to close achievement gaps or their schools would be punished.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Inequity, Injustice, Poverty, Racism, Segregation

Bill Phillis: Ohio Punishes Districts for Enrolling Too Many Poor Children

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2019 //
5

 

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy points out the obvious: State-issued school grades punish schools and districts for enrolling too many poor kids.

Ohio’s school report card grades predict median household income, child poverty rate, level of education attainment of adults
 
An “F” rating on Ohio’s school report card is guaranteed in districts with lowest median household income, highest child poverty rates and lowest level of education attainment by adults.
 
Rich Exner of the Cleveland Plain Dealerdid the numbers. “A” districts on average have the highest median household income and “F” districts have the lowest. Low poverty rates and high education attainment rates are found in “A” rated districts; and high poverty rates and low education attainment rates are found in “F” rated districts.
 
That Ohio’s report card measures demographics and not the aptitude and competence of the board of education and its personnel is obvious; however, state officials blame low report card grades on school district leaders and personnel. Therefore, state officials want to have the state takeover “F” rated school districts. Totally illogical.
 
The state takeovers in Youngstown and Lorain have failed to produce positive results; however, some members of the Senate Education Committee want to continue down the path of this failed strategy. How asinine.
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Ohio, Poverty

Jersey Jazzman Dissects the Camden, New Jersey, Story Line

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2019 //
15

 

Jersey Jazzman knows that the leaders of the Disruption Movement are always on the hunt for proof that their theories work. One model district after another has had its moment in the sun, then sinks into oblivion.

The district of the moment, he writes, is Camden, possibly the poorest in the state. Most people might look at Camden and think that what’s needed most is jobs and good wages. Disrupters have a different answer: Charter Schools.

In an earlier post, he explained how charters “cream” the students they want to get better results and wow naive editorial writers.

In this post, he wrote that Camden was supposed to prove that charters can take every child in the district and succeed. They would not select only the ones they wanted.

Because Camden was going to be the proof point that finally showed the creaming naysayers were wrong with a new hybrid model of schooling: the renaissance school. These schools would be run by the same organizations that managed charter schools in Newark and Philadelphia. The district would turn over dilapidated school properties to charter management organizations (CMOs); they would, in turn, renovate the facilities, using funds the district claimed it didn’t have and would never get.

But most importantly: these schools would be required to take all of the children within the school’s neighborhood (formally defined as its “catchment”). Creaming couldn’t occur, because everyone from the neighborhood would be admitted to the school. Charter schools would finally prove that they did, indeed, have a formula for success that could be replicated for all children.

It turned out not to be true, however. He calls Camden “the very big lie.”

In the third post about Camden, Jersey Jazzman gives his readers a lesson about the limitations of the CREDO methodology.

He starts here:

I and others have written a great deal over the years about the inherent limitations and flaws in CREDO’s methodology. A quick summary:

— The CREDO reports rely on data that is too crude to do the job properly. At the heart of CREDOs methodology is their supposed ability to virtually “match” students who do and don’t attend charter schools, and compare their progress. The match is made on two factors: first, student characteristics, including whether students qualify for free lunch, whether they are classified as English language learners (in New Jersey, the designation is “LEP,” or “limited English proficient”), whether they have a special education disability, race/ethnicity, and gender.

The problem is that these classifications are not finely-grained enough to make a useful match. There is, for example, a huge difference between a student who is emotionally disturbed and one who has a speech impairment; yet both would be “matched” as having a special education need. In a city like Camden, where childhood poverty is extremely high, nearly all children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL), which requires a family income below 185 percent of the poverty line. Yet there is a world of difference between a child just below that line and a child who is homeless. If charter schools enroll more students at the upper end of this range — and there is evidence that in at least some instances they do — the estimates of the effect of charter schools on student learning growth very likely will be overstated….

A “study” like the Camden CREDO report attempts to compare similar students in charters and public district schools by matching students based on crude variables. Again, these variables aren’t up to the job — but just as important, students can’t be matched on unmeasured characteristics like parental involvement. Which means the results of the Camden CREDO report must be taken with great caution.

And again: when outcomes suddenly shift from year-to-year, there’s even more reason to suspect the effects of charter and renaissance schools are not due to factors such as better instruction.

One more thing: any positive effects found in the CREDO study are a fraction of what is needed to close the opportunity gap with students in more affluent communities. There is simply no basis to believe that anything the charter or renaissance schools are doing will make up for the effects of chronic poverty, segregation, and institutional racism from which Camden students suffer.

This is a richly argued and documented critique that deserves your full attention.

Underneath the search for miracles is the wish that equality can be purchased on the cheap. This satisfies the needs of politicians who want desperately believe there are easy answers to tough problems. JJ reminds us that there are not.

If politicians stopped looking for quick fixes, miracles, and secret sauce, it might be possible to have serious discussions about our problems and how to solve them.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, Deregulation, Education Reform, New Jersey, Poverty, Privatization

Jan Resseger: Will Raj Chetty Revive the American Dream?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2019 //
37

Jan Resseger writes here about Raj Chetty’s return to Harvard to start a new project, reviving the American dream. l

In the past, we have known Raj as the prime author of a widely doubted study that concluded that one effective teacher (who raised test scores) would have a significant impact on lifetime earnings, pregnancy rates, and other important life outcomes. In the years since that study was published, the efforts to apply its lessons have universally failed, because–as social scientists have long known–the influence of teachers on student test scores is small as compared to the influence of the family, its income, its level of education, its devotion to education.

Jan’s post begins:

Raj Chetty, the superstar, big-data economist, has returned to Harvard from Stanford to establish his own Opportunity Insights research and policy institute, a project seeded with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. Chetty’s research has created an Opportunity Atlas, which maps neighborhoods of opportunity and other neighborhoods where children are unable to move up the economic ladder.

After reviewing some of his ideas, Jan asks why Gates and CZI don’t advocate for a higher minimum wage, which doesn’t need a lot of new research to establish the premise that the best way to reduce poverty is to increase family incomes.

This is a good opportunity to recommend two very valuable books about the paradox of super-rich people saving the world:

Anand Girihiradhas, Winners Take All

Michael Edwards: Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World

Edwards makes this salient point: Why ask capitalists (or philanthrocapitalists, as he calls them) to fix the problems created by capitalism?

Categories Education Reform, Poverty

Steven Singer: American Public Schools Are Great!

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2019 //
14

 

Steven Singer wrote this last year, but it remains pertinent and on the money. He says that there is a narrative spun by Disrupters that American schools are in “crisis” and are “failing.” He says this is baloney, or bologna, whichever spelling you prefer.

Singer says that American public schools are among the best in the world.

He writes:

Critics argue that our scores on international tests don’t justify such a claim. But they’re wrong before you even look at the numbers. They’re comparing apples to pears. You simply can’t compare the United States to countries that leave hundreds of thousands of rural and poor children without any education whatsoever. The Bates Motel may have the softest pillows in town, but it’s immediately disqualified because of the high chance of being murdered in the shower.

No school system of this size anywhere in the world exceeds the United States in providing free access to education for everyone. And that, alone, makes us one of the best.

It doesn’t mean our system is problem free. There are plenty of ways we could improve. We’re still incredibly segregated by race and class. Our funding formulas are often regressive and inadequate. Schools serving mostly poor students don’t have nearly the resources of those serving rich students. But at least at the very outset what we’re trying to do is better than what most of the world takes on. You can’t achieve equity if it isn’t even on the menu.

The important thing to know about the international test scores is that we were never #1. Never. When the first international test of mathematics was offered in the mid-1960s, we came in last.

What holds us back is our high rates of child poverty. If we reduced poverty, we would improve our schools because children would arrive in school ready to learn, and would not lose days of instruction due to illness and lack of medical attention.

The biggest problem in American education, aside from our national indifference to the well-being of students, is that we have a crazy federal law that makes test scores the goal of education. That’s backwards. Test scores are supposed to be a measure, not a goal.

We should aim to be more like Finland, which not only has high test scores without test prep, but has been rated the happiest country in the world. Less testing, more time for the arts and more attention to creativity and divergent thinking. Teachers with autonomy and a love of teaching. Students encouraged to do their best but not measured by standardized tests. You know where Finland got these ideas? They borrowed them from the U.S., and we forgot them and went for standardization. As Albert Einstein said many decades ago, standardization is for automobiles, not for people.

 

Categories Accountability, Creativity, International, Poverty, Teachers

Rochester, NY: State Takeover Is Not the Answer

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2019 //
12

 

Civil rights icon Jitu Brown and Rochester activist Rosemary Rivera write that state takeover of the Rochester public schools is a bad idea. 

They write:


We know that Rochester residents want the same thing: excellent public schools where it is a joy to teach and learn. The fact that this vision hasn’t been realized on a district-wide basis is painful, and there’s a growing sentiment that something has to be done, anything, to turn the tide. However, dissolving a democratically elected school board takes Rochester further from its goal and disempowers the very community it should be lifting up….

To pin the problems in the RCSD on the school board is misguided. There is no quick fix for school performance when large numbers of children are struggling with poverty, hunger, and housing insecurity….

We have failed to fully contend with the role of structural racism in education outcomes. Students of color face disproportionately high rates of suspension and excessive discipline. When students are suspended for weeks at a time, they fall behind and their academic performance suffers.

Schools like Enrico Fermi School 17 have emphasized restorative practices to repair school relationships and keep students engaged in the classroom… The strides made by School 17 should serve as a model for the rest of the Rochester City School District.

Enrico Fermi is a community school that provides wraparound services, including an on-site recreation center with after-school programs and meals for children. The board is strongly in favor of expanding the community school model and restorative practices, but these programs require investment. Addressing the problems faced by students and families in poverty takes a “whole student” approach.

Moments of crisis can lead us to take rash actions. The Chamber of Commerce and pro-business groups will use this crisis as an opportunity to push privatization and charter expansion – an approach we’ve already seen fail in New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit. These are the same groups that have worsened the crisis through the shameless promotion of austerity budgets and anti-worker policies that keep people trapped in poverty.

A recent study by the Education Justice Network shows that countries that invest in public education with a focus on equity outperform countries that have privatized their education systems. Canada outperforms the United States, Cuba outperforms Chile, and Finland outperforms Sweden. What children in New York and other urban communities across the United States need is equity.

Progress in our schools has been slow and uneven, but we know what works. Our focus should be on expanding the successful programs we see at Enrico Fermi School 17, Francis Parker School 23, World of Inquiry School 58, and many other outstanding schools in the district. Taking away the voice of voters and community members isn’t the answer.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Equity, Justice, New York, Poverty, Racism

A Billionaire Declares: Better Public Schools Won’t Fix America

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2019 //
160

 

Nick Hanauer was a big supporter of charter schools. As he explains in this fascinating article, he swallowed the Corporate Reform Dogma whole. He believed that America’s “failing public schools” were the cause of poverty and inequality. Fix the schools and—poof—poverty and inequality will disappear.

He writes:

Taken with this story line, I embraced education as both a philanthropic cause and a civic mission. I co-founded the League of Education Voters, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public education. I joined Bill Gates, Alice Walton, and Paul Allen in giving more than $1 million each to an effort to pass a ballot measure that established Washington State’s first charter schools. All told, I have devoted countless hours and millions of dollars to the simple idea that if we improved our schools—if we modernized our curricula and our teaching methods, substantially increased school funding, rooted out bad teachers, and opened enough charter schools—American children, especially those in low-income and working-class communities, would start learning again. Graduation rates and wages would increase, poverty and inequality would decrease, and public commitment to democracy would be restored.

But after decades of organizing and giving, I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I was wrong. And I hate being wrong.

What I’ve realized, decades late, is that educationism is tragically misguided. American workers are struggling in large part because they are underpaid—and they are underpaid because 40 years of trickle-down policies have rigged the economy in favor of wealthy people like me. Americans are more highly educated than ever before, but despite that, and despite nearly record-low unemployment, most American workers—at all levels of educational attainment—have seen little if any wage growth since 2000.

To be clear: We should do everything we can to improve our public schools. But our education system can’t compensate for the ways our economic system is failing Americans. Even the most thoughtful and well-intentioned school-reform program can’t improve educational outcomes if it ignores the single greatest driver of student achievement: household income.

For all the genuine flaws of the American education system, the nation still has many high-achieving public-school districts. Nearly all of them are united by a thriving community of economically secure middle-class families with sufficient political power to demand great schools, the time and resources to participate in those schools, and the tax money to amply fund them. In short, great public schools are the product of a thriving middle class, not the other way around. Pay people enough to afford dignified middle-class lives, and high-quality public schools will follow. But allow economic inequality to grow, and educational inequality will inevitably grow with it.

By distracting us from these truths, educationism is part of the problem.

Oh, my God! Did he read Reign of Error?

I wrote exactly that! I demonstrated that the graduation rates of every group were the highest ever, the dropout rates were the lowest ever, we were never number one on international tests but consistently mediocre or less because of high child poverty rates, etc etc etc. I said that test scores were a reflection of family income and education, not a cause of poverty.

Could I be dreaming?

Then he wrote:

Whenever i talk with my wealthy friends about the dangers of rising economic inequality, those who don’t stare down at their shoes invariably push back with something about the woeful state of our public schools. This belief is so entrenched among the philanthropic elite that of America’s 50 largest family foundations—a clique that manages $144 billion in tax-exempt charitable assets—40 declare education as a key issue.

Well, of course. These are the billionaires who want to privatize public schools without the permission of the families and children who like their public schools.

Here is the kicker: Educationism appeals to the wealthy and powerful because it tells us what we want to hear: that we can help restore shared prosperity without sharing our wealth or power.

Well, this is an article you must read.

I wonder if Nick Hanauer would join the Network for Public Education and help us push back against the powerful elites that he now understands so well. Then he could join with those who understand what he has happily recognized.

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform, Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

What Will Happen to the Public Schools in Rochester, N.Y.? 56% of the Children Are Poor!

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2019 //
70

The Mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren, has called upon the New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents to take over the city’s public schools, oust the elected board, and appoint a different board of its choosing. She claims that Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has a plan, but apparently this is not the case. To say this is incoherent is an understatement. The state has not expressed a desire to take control of Rochester city schools. Mayor Warren apparently has decided to throw them under the bus, abandon local control, and let the state take responsibility.

THIS MATTERS: 56% of the children in Rochester live in poverty, the third highest rate in the nation! Only Gary, Indiana, and Flint, Michigan, have higher  rates of child poverty.

What is Mayor Lovely Warren doing about it?

Here is another point of view, from journalist Rachel Barnhardt. She explains that the negative and misinformed attitudes of public officials guarantee that the children will not get the support they need to succeed in school.

She writes:

We don’t blame the mayor for poverty, so why do we blame the school board?

The Rochester City School District is the worst in the state. It’s also the district with the highest concentration of children who live in poverty. The research is clear: poverty impacts educational outcomes.

Mayor Lovely Warren says poverty is no excuse. Poor children can learn. Black children can learn. We must do something.

She’s right.

We must solve poverty.

No one has been able to figure out how to solve poverty. We’ve been nibbling around the edges with various programs and initiatives, none of which has been transformative.

In the meantime, we must figure out what to do right now. The crisis is urgent. (It’s been urgent since I attended city schools in the early ‘90s.)

Warren does not offer a clear path and stops short of asking for mayoral control. She has been an ardent advocate of charter schools. The mayor also sees community schools, where extra resources are dedicated to addressing issues related to poverty, trauma and education, as a potential solution.

Community schools, however, show mixed results. School 17 has a chronic absenteeism rate of 40 percent and fewer than 10 percent of children are proficient in reading and math. Charter schools siphon money and students away from the district, and don’t always succeed.

Warren also offered another solution, one parents like her have been implementing for decades: abandon the district.

In her State of the City address, Warren said parents who send their kids to city schools are “sacrificing” children. If you can pull your kids from the district, she counseled a friend, you should do so.

That’s what got us into this mess. We have a segregated school system because of the wholesale disinvestment in our schools. We have children denied opportunities because of where they were born.

What would happen, Barnhardt asks, if all parents returned to the public schools instead of abandoning them? What would happen if everyone acknowledged that we have a common fate and we must stand together?

She bravely concludes:

We will never fix the schools long as we refuse to acknowledge that separate is not equal.

Categories Charter Schools, Civil Rights, New York, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Stuart Egan: Graphics That Demonstrate the War on Public Schools in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2019 //
4

 

Stuart Egan has gathered some powerful graphics that demonstrate the war on public schools and their teachers in North Carolina. 

You will see, for example, that school grades are not a measure of school quality. They are quite decisively a measure of the affluence or poverty of the students who attend the school.

The schools are underfunded, teachers are underpaid, and fraudulent measures are used to assess students, teachers, and schools.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, North Carolina, Poverty, Testing

Steve Nelson: Excellent Communities Produce “Excellent” Schools

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2019 //
33

 

We have lived through more than two decades of shaming schools with low test scores, blaming and shaming their teachers and principals for scores that are primarily the result of poverty, poor housing, poor health, poor nutrition.

One reader asserted that excellent schools attract wealthy families.

He was corrected by Steve Nelson, who wrote First Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk.

When I read anything he writes, I find myself nodding vigorously in agreement.

He wrote here that excellent communities create excellent schools, not the other way around.

“You still misstate the cause and effect by writing, “When a neighborhood has excellent schools.” The schools are not excellent. The neighborhood is “excellent.”

“It is, to be sure, a subtle point, but in my book I refer to my own public high school. It was “rated” among America’s best. Graduates went to college at high rates and won prizes of all kinds. The orchestra was considered among the 2 or 3 best in the country. But the teachers and classes were dull and uninspired. The orchestra was good because the kids were privileged and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The parents were either affluent or in higher education or medicine or both.

“The community did not have excellent schools. The schools had an excellent community.

“The schools in the adjacent, poverty-riddled neighborhood were just as good in terms of dedicated teachers and curriculum. The community? Not so lucky.”

Many schools closed because of low test scores were excellent schools filled with dedicated teachers. They were serving the neediest kids and were punished for it.

Categories Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Propaganda, Race to the Top
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