Great post by Valerie Strauss. A succinct explanation of the most important problem facing American children today.
If we halved the child poverty rate, test scores would soar because children would arrive in school well fed, healthy, and ready to learn.
Pasi Sahlberg, the great expert on education in Finland, here examines the founding myths of the corporate reform movement.
Reformers search for the teacher who can generate high test scores. They like the idea that teachers compete for rewards tied to scores. Sahlberg points out that a school is a team, not a competitive individual sport. Teachers must work together towards common goal.
Another fallacy is the “no excuses” claim that great teachers overcome all obstacles. Sahlberg reminds us that the influence of the family and student motivation is far greater than the efforts of teachers in determining outcomes.
A corollary to this fallacy is the belief that three or four great teachers in a row eliminates all social and economic disadvantage.
Sahlberg maintains that teacher education requires high standards and even standardization to produce highly skilled teachers. Once the pipeline is improved, teachers should have a high degree of personal autonomy. He notes that there is no Teach for Finland. All teachers go through a highly selective process and are well educated and prepared for their profession.
All in all, a great post.
Send it to your legislators and leaders.
The Forward Institute of Wisconsin released a new study of education policy in the state.
This is a statement made by the Institute’s Chair, Scott Wittkopf:
Wisconsin has always been a leader in K-12 public education because we have long valued the right of every child to receive a quality public education. The fundamental nature of our values is reflected in the State Constitution, which guarantees all children equal access to educational opportunity in our public schools. That constitutional right is now being systematically eroded and defunded. The research presented in this report shows that current fiscal policy and education funding are depriving our poorest students access to a sound public education. Public schools are not failing our children, Wisconsin legislators and policymakers are failing the public schools that serve our children.
Our comprehensive report documents in detail that the resources being afforded schools and students of poverty are insufficient, and facing further reduction. Moreover, the resources being diverted from schools of poverty into non-traditional alternative education programs are producing questionable results with little to no accountability for the state funding they receive.
The following seven points highlight critical findings of our study:
1. The number of students in poverty has nearly doubled since 1997, increasing from 24% of all students to 42% (Reference Poster Figure 1). At the same time, inflation-adjusted state funding of public education has fallen to its lowest level in over 17 years. On average, schools with higher poverty enrollment levels have experienced per-pupil funding cuts over 2 times the cuts in the most affluent districts.
2. Analyzing state testing data revealed a paradox within economically disadvantaged (ED) students scoring proficient or advanced. As ED enrollment increased, the percentage of ED students scoring proficient or advanced also increased. Our analysis discovered that as more children dropped into ED due to economic circumstances, they brought their typically higher test scores into the ED group. This has resulted in the false perception that poorer students’ test proficiency rates have been rising. Further, as ED enrollment approaches 50%, we are seeing a plateau and beginning of a downward trend in ED scores. A student who begins in poverty does not have previously higher scores to bring into a cohort, as we observed over the past decade. Therefore, we can expect to see a growing achievement gap between ED and non-ED test scores in the coming decade.
3. If the Walker proposal to increase voucher school funding is adopted, over $2,000 more will go to a K-8 voucher student than a public school student. A voucher high school student will receive nearly $3000 more in state aid than a public school student (Reference Poster Figure #2). When controlling for inflation, K-8 voucher schools will have seen a $400 increase, and voucher high schools a $1000 increase in per student funding from the 1999 school year. In comparison, public schools will have seen a $1000 per student decrease from the 1999 level. The economic disparities in state funding between voucher and public schools are important in the education funding debate. As we will demonstrate, there is evidence that voucher schools have no positive effect on student graduation/attainment levels or test scores. This raises the question, is there sufficient evidence to support the claim of voucher advocates that voucher schools afford a better educational opportunity to students? Based on the data, we conclude the evidence does not support this claim.
4. The new School Report Card scores released by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) have a strong correlation to the level of poverty in any given school and school district (reference poster figure #3). Nearly half of the school-to-school difference in Report Card Scores can be explained by the difference in poverty level from school to school. When compared to other factors at the school district level such as teacher experience, racial demographics, and per pupil revenue limits, poverty still accounts for 44% of the school district difference in Report Card scores. This fact makes any use of the DPI School Report Cards for significant funding or incentive decisions poor public policy.
5. The Walker budget proposes to expand voucher schools into districts where School Report Card scores “fail to meet expectations.” This proposal will assure that more schools and school districts of high poverty will lose resources. As we have shown, School Report Card scores are directly correlated to level of poverty, and districts with underperforming schools are therefore districts with schools of higher poverty. Funding to operate the voucher school expansion will come directly out of those public schools of highest poverty.
6. Milwaukee voucher program students underperform Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students on statewide tests, with a lower percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced. In the Milwaukee voucher program (based on two years’ (2010-2012) data) over 20 children graduate for every child testing proficient in 10th grade reading. The statewide ratio is about 1:1. The MPS ratio is about 2:1. In mathematics, the statewide ratio is about 1:1, MPS ratio is about 3:1, and the voucher student ratio is over 50:1.That means over 20 voucher students graduate for every voucher student proficient in 10th grade reading, and over 50 voucher students graduate for every voucher student proficient in 10th grade mathematics. This translates into a much higher cost in state aid for a voucher student to become proficient or advanced than an MPS or high poverty statewide student to become proficient or advanced (reference poster figure #4). This provides a stark illustration of the high cost to taxpayers for low student proficiency in the voucher program, and raises a significant question of educational adequacy for voucher schools, as the expectation should be for a high school graduate to be proficient in reading and math.
7. As a result of recent budget decisions resulting in education austerity, there is strong evidence that the current public education funding and delivery system in Wisconsin is unconstitutional. When compared to their more affluent peers, students of poverty are not receiving an adequate public education as defined by State Supreme Court precedent, statutes, and the State Constitution. Further, the system has created two distinct classes of students, those of poverty and non-poverty. Both groups have predictable outcomes based on level of poverty. Recent budgeting decisions are exacerbating this dichotomy.
Based on our conclusions, we present the following 5 policy recommendations:
1. Fair Funding – The Legislature should approve, and the Governor should sign, Dr. Tony Evers’ “Fair Funding” formula into law. This would be a first step toward addressing the increasing needs of rural and urban districts most affected by poverty.
2. Address Issues of Poverty and Education – The two greatest challenges to ensuring a prosperous and vibrant Wisconsin for future generations are poverty and education. The Governor should join with non-partisan, bi-partisan, broad-based constituent groups to appoint a “Blue Ribbon Commission.” This commission should be charged with a one-year mission to develop a statewide plan bringing parents and communities (rural and urban) impacted by poverty together for the purpose of implementing an intervention plan to address poverty and education issues. There are already successful models in communities that address the external poverty issues that have negative effects on education. Achievement gaps are largely attributable to factors outside of school walls. If Wisconsin is to substantially narrow these gaps, education policy must incorporate health and nutrition supports and after-school enrichment to address barriers to learning that are driven by child poverty.
3. Voucher Program Sunset – The twenty-year Milwaukee and one-year Racine private school voucher experiment should be sunsetted by the Legislature in 2024. The voucher experiment can show no positive voucher school effects on student outcomes and attainment, beyond what already can be attributed to the voucher schools’ select student demographic and parental factors. Taxpayers should not be forced to fund a second statewide school district, nor an expensive entitlement program, when the public schools are not failing. It is, in fact, the state of Wisconsin that is failing public schools and the children they serve. Dividing resources between two statewide school districts exacerbates this growing problem in the face of increasing poverty rates.
4. Charter Schools – Charter schools eligible for state aid should be allowed only under the auspices and as an instrumentality of an existing public school district to ensure public accountability in fiscal, academic, staff, and student functions.
5. School Report Cards – School Report Cards issued by DPI should be used as part of the big picture to measure overall school and student performance along with other standards and measures, balancing “input” (educational access, quality, services, resources, etc.) and “output” (student results). It should be acknowledged that the use of School Report Cards exclusively for reward, incentive, funding, penalty, or other fiscal consequence is improper, poor public policy, and would further erode access to educational opportunity.
This report demonstrates in detail that the resources being afforded schools and students of poverty are insufficient, and indeed are facing further reduction. Moreover, the resources being diverted from schools of poverty into non-traditional alternative education programs are producing questionable results with little to no accountability for the funding they receive. The failure of Wisconsin policy makers to acknowledge and address these issues is creating a generation of economically disadvantaged students that will lag far behind their more fortunate peers.
Public schools are not failing Wisconsin’s students, the state of Wisconsin is failing the public schools which serve these students.
The full report can be accessed here:
Wisconsin Budget Policy and Poverty in Education 2013
The full data will be posted within two days on our “Research” page.
Mike Petrilli of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute just posted his first blog exchange with Deborah Meier. Mike argues that the key to closing the opportunity gap between rich and poor children is to close the vocabulary gap. He cites the work of E.D. Hirsch to support his contention.
In his article, he refers to me as one of the people who say that nothing can be done until we fix poverty. To be sure I don’t misquote him, as he misquotes me, here is the relevant paragraph:
“Still, the message that comes through in Professors Reardon’s and Carter’s work—and from others on the left, including Diane Ravitch and Richard Rothstein—is that there’s not much schools can do about these gaps. They are visible before kids even enter kindergarten; they don’t grow much, if at all, while children are in the K-12 system; and they are fundamentally related to our country’s economic and political system. We’ll never make much progress until we get serious about redistributing income, or reviving labor unions, or raising the minimum wage, etc.”
Actually, I have never said that. I do believe that the dramatic income inequality in this country burdens children, nearly a quarter of whom live in poverty. I do think it is a national scandal that our nation has a higher proportion of children in poverty (about 23%) than any other advanced nation.
But I have never said that schools can do nothing to improve the education of poor children until we redistribute income or raise the minimum wage, etc. I have said and written on many occasions that we must improve schools and improve the lives of children at the same time.
There are many things that schools can do to help poor kids succeed in school. Start with reducing class size. If we were serious about helping poor kids, they would be in classes no larger than 12-15, just like the classes at Exeter and Deerfield Academy and Spence. Why do the richest kids get what the poorest kids need, while the neediest kids get stuffed into classes of 35-40 and do not get the individual attention they need? Would Petrilli agree?
Poor kids need schools that have a rich program in the arts and physical education, as well as other essential subjects, like foreign languages, history, and the sciences. They need beautiful facilities and playing fields, laboratories and libraries. Instead, they are invariably crammed into worn buildings that have few of those facilities, buildings that rich parents would never permit their children to attend.
Poor kids need teachers who have excellent and deep preparation to teach, with the training to help children with disabilities and English language learners. Instead they get the newest teachers, who have little or no preparation for the work they are expected to do. This cheats poor kids.
To suggest that poverty doesn’t matter is simply wishful thinking. Poor children miss more days of school because they are likelier than their advantaged peers to get sick, and likelier not to get the medical care they need. They are less likely to see a dentist or have their vision tested. They are subject to many burdens imposed by poverty, and those burdens affect their school performance. Being sick and hungry interferes with one’s school work. Being homeless interferes with one’s school work.
Yes, schools matter a lot. They can change lives. Yes, teachers make a difference. They change the lives of children every day.
But poverty matters too. Anyone who is serious about changing the lives of children in this nation will insist that poor kids have equality of educational opportunity. Not harsh discipline; not threats and punishments tied to test scores. Not a Race to the Top.
Just equality of educational opportunity.
That is a good starting point.
Richard R. Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Indiana University, compiled the following reading list to help others understand the root causes of low academic performance:
Professor Hake writes:
“Penny” commented: ”We know that poorer (lower socioeconomic) students tend to do poorer in school. How about looking at the true root cause.”
For the “true root cause” see the REFERENCE list below containing poverty-related references from my *complete* post “The Contentious Common Core Controversy” at http://bit.ly/Y7ocMv
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
REFERENCES
Berliner, D.C. 2009. “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success.” Education and Public Interest Center (Univ. of Colorado) and Education Policy Research Unit, (Arizona State University); online as a 729 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA. In his abstract Berliner states: “This brief details six Out of School Factors (OSFs) common among the poor that significantly affect the health and learning opportunities of children, and accordingly limit what schools can accomplish *on their own*: (1) low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children; (2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance; (3) food insecurity; (4) environmental pollutants; (5) family relations and family stress; and (6) neighborhood characteristics. These OSFs are related to a host of poverty-induced physical, sociological, and psychological problems that children often bring to school, ranging from neurological damage and attention disorders to excessive absenteeism, linguistic underdevelopment, and oppositional behavior.”
Brady, M. 2012. “Eight problems with Common Core Standards,” in Valerie Strauss’ “Answer Sheet,” Washington Post, 21 August; online at http://wapo.st/15Z4kTg. Note especially Brady’s crucial problem #4: “So much orchestrated attention is being showered on the Common Core Standards, the main reason for poor student performance is being ignored-a level of childhood poverty the consequences of which no amount of schooling can effectively counter” – see e.g., Berliner (2009), Duncan & Murnane (2011), Kristof (2013), Marder (2012), Neuman & Celano (2012), and my 14 blog entries on the overriding influence of poverty on children’s educational achievement at .
Duncan, G.J. & R. Murnane, eds. 2011. “Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances.” Russell Sage Foundation, publisher’s information at http://bit.ly/nCkmKv. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/r3MrCh.
Kristof, N.D. 2013. “For Obama’s New Term, Start Here.” New York Times OP-ED, 23 Jan, online at http://nyti.ms/WnEhU2. Kristof wrote: “Something is profoundly wrong when we can point to 2-year-olds in this country and make a plausible bet about their long-term outcomes – not based on their brains and capabilities, but on their ZIP codes. President Obama spoke movingly in his second Inaugural Address of making equality a practice as well as a principle. So, Mr. President, how about using your second term to tackle this most fundamental inequality?”
Marder, M. 2012. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics,” Journal of Scholarship and Practice 9(1): 8-25; the entire issue is online as a 2.7 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/KPitWM, scroll down to page 8. Marder wrote: “The collection of nationwide data do point to a primary cause of school failure, but it is poverty, not teacher quality. As the concentration of low-income children increases in a school, the challenges to teachers and administrators increase so that ultimately the educational quality of the school suffers. Challenges include students moving from one school to another within the school year, frequency of illness, lack of stable supportive homes with quiet places to study, concentration of students who are angry or disobedient, probability of students disappearing from school altogether, and difficulty of attracting and retaining strong teachers. Most people who see the connection between poverty and educational outcomes are confident that low-income students in a sufficiently supportive environment will learn as much in a school year as students in well-off communities.”
Neuman, S.B. & D.C. Celano. 2012. “Giving Our Children a Fighting ChancePoverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital,” Teachers College Press, publishers information at http://bit.ly/ZVCsil. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/VVml0G, note the searchable “Look Inside” feature. The publisher states: “This is a compelling, eye-opening portrait of two communities in Philadelphia with drastically different economic resources. Over the course of their 10-year investigation, the authors of this important new work came to understand that this disparity between affluence and poverty has created a *knowledge gap* – far more important than mere achievement scores – with serious implications for students’ economic prosperity and social mobility. At the heart of this knowledge gap is the limited ability of students from poor communities to develop *information capital.* This moving book takes you into the communities in question to meet the students and their families, and by doing so provides powerful insights into the role that literacy can play in giving low-income students a fighting chance.”
In a terrific opinion piece that was prominently featured in the Sunday New York Times, Sean Reardon of Stanford University wrote that the gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor has grown by 40% in the past 30 years.
Reardon puts to rest virtually every reformer myth: schools don’t cause inequality; schools don’t cure inequality: the achievement gap(s) begin before the first day of school. Stop blaming schools for conditions beyond their control. Poverty matters.
Reardon writes : “We are still talking about this despite decades of clucking about the crisis in American education and wave after wave of school reform.Whatever we’ve been doing in our schools, it hasn’t reduced educational inequality between children from upper- and lower-income families.”
What have we been doing for the past 30 years? Relying on standards and testing to close the gaps. It hasn’t worked.
Are schools to blame for the growing gap? Reardon says no: “It may seem counterintuitive, but schools don’t seem to produce much of the disparity in test scores between high- and low-income students. We know this because children from rich and poor families score very differently on school readiness tests when they enter kindergarten, and this gap grows by less than 10 percent between kindergarten and high school.”
If the schools are not to blame, what is: Reardon says that growing income inequality is an important cause of the growing education gap.
But that’s not all. Rich families invest heir income in cognitively enriching activities: “It’s not clear what we should do about all this. Partly that’s because much of our public conversation about education is focused on the wrong culprits: we blame failing schools and the behavior of the poor for trends that are really the result of deepening income inequality and the behavior of the rich.”
What can we do? Reardon says, parent education, early intervention, support for children before the GPS grow wide: “The more we do to ensure that all children have similar cognitively stimulating early childhood experiences, the less we will have to worry about failing schools. This in turn will enable us to let our schools focus on teaching the skills — how to solve complex problems, how to think critically and how to collaborate — essential to a growing economy and a lively democracy.”
I don’t understand this story.
It says that “civil rights groups” demand that Arne Duncan turn down a request for a waiver from a group of districts in California.
Since high-stakes testing invariably ends up with poor and minority kids at the bottom of the bell curve, it is hard for me to understand why civil rights groups would demand more of it.
Since accountability typically means that schools enrolling the neediest kids get closed, why would civil rights groups want more of it?
Since high stakes accountability invariably means that those who teach the most vulnerable children are likely to be fired, why would civil rights groups want more of it?
One possible answer to the puzzle is that Democrats for Education Reform is listed as a “civil rights group.” DFER is an organization created by Wall Street hedge fund managers to promote more charter schools and more testing (but not necessarily for those who teach in charter schools). Just recently, the California Democratic Party singled out DFER and StudentsFirst as fronts for Republicans and corporations.
Maybe this letter to Duncan is DFER’s revenge on California. (DFER recommended Duncan to Obama for his job as Secretary of Education.)
The market-based reforms of the past dozen years have failed. Now they are the status quo, imposed on the nation by NCLB and Race to the Top, will hurt our nation’s children and undermine public education for all children.
The Bush-Obama policies are bad for children, ad for teachers, bad for principals, bad for schools, bad for the quality of education, and threaten the future of public education in the United States.
WARNING TO OTHER NATIONS: DO NOT COPY US.
The question is: Will the zealous reformers listen? Or will they continue their path of destruction.
The Broader Bolder Approach to Education reviewed the academic progress in the cities that aggressively adopted market reforms–New York City, D.C., and Chicago–and found that these districts UNDERPERFORMED in comparison to other urban districts.
The “reforms” imposed by Michelle Rhee, Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, and Arne Duncan actually harmed children who needed help the most. They are not “reform.” They are misguided, inappropriate interventions, like using an axe to butter your bread or shave.
Here are excerpts from the BBA report:
“Pressure from federal education policies such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, bolstered by organized advocacy efforts, is making a popular set of market-oriented education “reforms” look more like the new status quo than real reform.
“Reformers assert that test-based teacher evaluation, increased school “choice” through expanded access to charter schools, and the closure of “failing” and underenrolled schools will boost falling student achievement and narrow longstanding race- and income-based achievement gaps. This report examines these assertions by assessing the impacts of these reforms in three large urban school districts: Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. These districts were studied because all enjoy the benefit of mayoral control, produce reliable district-level test score data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and were led by vocal reformers who im- plemented versions of this agenda.
“KEY FINDINGS
“The reforms deliver few benefits and in some cases harm the students they purport to help, while drawing attention and resources away from policies with real promise to address poverty-related barriers to school success:
*Test scores increased less, and achievement gaps grew more, in “reform” cities than in other urban districts.
*Reported successes for targeted students evaporated upon closer examination.
*Test-based accountability prompted churn that thinned the ranks of experienced teachers, but not necessarily bad teachers.
*School closures did not send students to better schools or save school districts money.
*Charter schools further disrupted the districts while providing mixed benefits, particularly for the highest-needs students.
*Emphasis on the widely touted market-oriented reforms drew attention and resources from initiatives with greater promise.
*The reforms missed a critical factor driving achievement gaps: the influence of poverty on academic performance. Real, sustained change requires strategies that are more realistic, patient, and multipronged.
For the full report, please visit
boldapproach.org/rhetoric-trumps-reality
Kay McSpadden writes frequently about education issues in North Carolina. Here she explains why the Tennessee bill to cut welfare benefits to families if their children didn’t get high test scores was a disaster. Fortunately, key Republican legislators put a halt to it and it never came to a vote.
I try not to read comments on blogs, other than this one, where I read them all.
But I couldn’t help read the ones that followed Kay’s compassionate post and was appalled by several, especially this one:
“I’m not going to profess to be a Christian scholar Joe, but would you cite for me one passage where Jesus calls on people to forsake their own family in order to take care of someone else’s family?”
Wasn’t there something called the Golden Rule?
North Carolina has some awful legislation of its own, hurtling toward passage. Right now, there is one that will remove any due process protections for teachers (aka, “tenure”). Who will dare to teach about evolution or anything controversial? The angry commenters will drive them out.
Believe it or not, the Chicago Tribune published one of the best articles I have read about the disaster that is called education “reform,” but in fact is education destruction.
I say, believe it or not, because the Tribune has been one of the nation’s loudest cheerleaders for the policies that this column decries.
Robert C. Koehler is a syndicated columnist, not an education specialist, but he sees clearly the damage that the education destruction movement–NCLB and Race to the Top–is doing to students and our society.
His column is titled “The Warping of Public Education.”
He writes:
“…high-stakes testing, in tandem with “zero tolerance,” militarized security and sadistic underfunding, has succeeded in warping public education beyond recognition, especially in low-income, zero-political-clout neighborhoods. And the result is kids in prison, kids on the streets, kids with no future.”
And he concludes:
“The time has come to declare an end to this entire era — of militarized racism, violent solutions to everything, the ever-widening schism between “us” and “them.” Any politician who kowtows to this simplistic agenda, or “bargains” with it, has made himself or herself irrelevant to a sustainable and healthy future, and should be declared thus.
“We have to undo the damage that has turned public education into a crisis. That means dumping the pretend science of high-stakes testing and valuing rather than criminalizing students of color; it also means moving from punishment- to healing-based systems of maintaining order, taking police and armed security guards out of the hallways and learning to value and respect young people more than we value metal detectors and surveillance cameras.
“Before we can do anything else, we have to get our future out of the pipeline.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 