I recently had a conversation with a friend who is just beginning to engage on the topic of education reform and he asked me the following:
I've looked at the data for the schools in my city and there's a lockstep correlation between the percentage of children who receive free lunches and academic failure, so I guess the solution is to stop giving kids free lunches, as it's obviously impairing their ability to learn.
He was kidding, of course, and we both laughed, but then he continued:
Seriously, the poverty level of children correlates very highly with their academic performance, however you measure it: test scores, grades, dropout rates, college completion, etc. In addition, if one looks at the international results on the PISA reading test of 15-year-olds, while the U.S. overall ranks 15th in the world, U.S. Asian girls rank #1, beating even Shanghai, Korea and Finland, and girls as a whole rank #8. It is boys, low-income students, and black and Latino students who drag our average down. So, is it really fair to blame our educational system? Isn't the real issue poverty plus the problems boys and minorities are having?
It's a fair question -- and a point made often by the teachers unions and others who defend the current educational system in our country. So I look the time to answer him. Here's what I wrote:
You are correct that today, demography is destiny for most kids. In my slide presentation, A Right Denied, page 46 shows that virtually all kids from high-income families earn four-year college degrees, while few other kids do -- a mere 8% of kids from low-income families -- and the gap has widened dramatically over time.
In an increasingly knowledge-based world, getting a good education -- in particular, earning a four-year college degree -- has become more and more important (see median real earnings over time on page 5 of my presentation), yet only children in high-income families have responded by earning more college degrees -- everyone else, especially the poor, have largely stagnated.
The key question is why? Are poor kids (especially poor black and Latino kids) failing our schools, or are schools failing our poor, minority kids? At first glance, you might think the former, given the tight correlation between family background (most importantly, wealth/income) and educational outcomes.
But not so fast. The story is much more complex.
First of all, even our highest-scoring and wealthiest students do poorly when compared to their international peers, ranking 23rd of 29 nations in math among 15-year-olds (see pages 190-91).
As for the poor academic performance of low-income and minority students in the U.S., there are many reasons for this -- most beyond the control of schools. There is no doubt that children from troubled communities and families, in which few people have completed high school, much less college, are a challenge to educate. So let's be clear: parents and family background matter -- a lot! So much so that today, sadly, demography is destiny for most children.
In fact, if I could fix either all of the parents (broadly defined, meaning ending childhood poverty, making sure every child had plenty of books and both parents in the home, etc.) or all of the schools in America, I'd choose the former in a heartbeat. But I'm not sure it's possible to fix the parents -- and I know it's possible to fix the schools.
Here is the key thing to understand: if you take 1,000 disadvantaged kids and put them in mediocre (or worse) schools with mediocre (or worse) teachers, they will follow their parents' life trajectory in lockstep. However, if you take the same 1,000 kids and put them in a high-quality school with excellent teachers, you can dramatically improve the life outcomes of a large number of these children.
20 years ago, I couldn't prove this because, other than a few classrooms with teachers like Jaime Escalante, there were no examples of a large number of disadvantaged kids doing well thanks to their school.
But today I can prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, both with statistics and with my own eyes, as I've visited over 100 schools that are generating extraordinary academic success with the most disadvantaged children. Most are public charter schools that select students by lottery, have comparable students and spend roughly the same per pupil as nearby chronically failing schools, and, in fact, sometimes share the same building.
For example, I've been on the board of KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) in New York City for a decade. Over that time, KIPP has grown from two schools to 109, educating 32,000 students -- 95% black or Latino, 85% poor -- in 40 communities in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Approximately 95% of our 8th grade completers nationwide finish high school and over 85% enroll in college. These numbers far exceed the national averages for all students across all demographics. Additionally, 33% of the early KIPPsters have earned their bachelor's degree and another 5% have earned associate's degrees -- the rate earning bachelor's degrees is 4x the rate for students from low-income families and above the national rate for students across all demographics. There are now over 1,800 KIPPsters in college -- and by 2015, there will be over 10,000.
How do KIPP and a handful of other (mostly charter) schools succeed with the same students who are failing in regular public schools?
Given that we now know with certainty that very high quality schools and teachers can raise the academic performance of poor, minority kids to almost the level of wealthy kids, why isn't it happening more broadly?
The answer is that it's really hard. Money isn't the biggest obstacle -- some of the worst school districts in America spend nearly twice the national average per pupil. Rather, it's the way the system is structured -- largely to serve the needs of the adults, rather than the kids. There's nothing that KIPP is doing that couldn't be done by every school and school district in America, but it would really disrupt a system that, while failing millions of children, works very well for the adults. Witness, for example, the current fight in Chicago to extend the ultra-short school day by 90 minutes.
Over the past 40+ years, there have been five clear trends for the adults in the system: more jobs, higher pay, better benefits, fewer hours worked, and greater job security. And it's not just teachers who are benefiting; it's principals, administrators, custodians, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc. In addition, the school system is the largest employer in most cities, so it's a huge source of jobs, money, patronage and political power.
Another major issue is teacher talent. Places like Singapore and Finland only select teachers from the top 10% of college grads, while increasingly, our teachers are drawn from the bottom 1/3 (see pages 65-69).
A related problem is that teacher quality isn't random, which explains in part why poor, minority kids are doing so poorly. Wealthy kids get the best teachers, both based on which schools they attend, but also which teachers they get within each school, whereas poor kids get the short end of the stock (see pages 72-77). On average, poor, minority kids are much more likely to be taught by teachers who:
Thus, we must reject a "blame the victim" mentality: children are not failing our schools; rather, our schools are failing far too many children.
However, given that many low-income, minority children enter school with two strikes against them, they need the best schools and teachers to change their life trajectories -- but instead our educational system gives them the worst. They overwhelmingly get the lowest quality teachers and schools.
In summary, the color of your skin and your zip code are almost entirely determinative of the quality of the public education this nation provides. This is deeply, profoundly wrong and is contrary to everything this nation stands for.
John Thompson: Extending the School Day
What about children living in poverty who don't have those parents? Where do they go? They cannot be turned away, nor should they be. They have a right to an equal education to anyone else in our country, which KIPP doesn't provide when they choose/lottery interested families and dismiss children/families who don't follow the rules. Why don't you address this in these comments? Please explain.
To prove the point that KIPP does well with children living in poverty, who also have parents who are involved on a daily basis with their children's education, than compare KIPP with schools with same population of parents and rules to abide by (and special ed services), and expound on that.
When KIPP takes in everyone in their neighborhood, including special education students and children with parents who could care less about school, and doesn't kick anyone out, and succeeds in educating poor and minority children, then you have my full attention and credibility. Until then, you really need to address these elephants in the KIPP room.
The achievement gap exists LONG BEFORE a kid starts school. Run classes for parents of newborns-five years old. Support job training and child care for young, uneducated parents who NEED to provide and lay an educational foundation for their own kids if they want to break the cycle of poverty. Teach basic cooking skills of inexpensive ingredients, importance of reading to your children, involvement in school, going to the library, taking advantage of the free museum in most urban areas. Teach them to advocate and support their own kids. If anyone is living in public housing, collecting welfare, food stamps or WIC - I don't see why we can't require them to take classes so they can provide for themselves and eventually be self-sufficient.
I cannot stress enough that the achievement gap is evident by the time kids are two or three. Stop asking the schools to undo something they did not create.
My vote would be to try to replicate that model for public schools in tough neighborhoods because the likelihood of kids succeeding without parental commitment is next to none.
Put things in perspective. KIPP and other charters are providing an answer to many families. They are not providing the answer to education as a whole, but providing important choices to that all affluent families have.
BTW, can you please explain how both KIPP and HCZ can get away with tossing out half their classes so they can brag about a 100% college acceptance rate and still not be questioned?
Btw, great username.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/
Didn't Al Franken write a book about lying liars? We don't defend the current system.
The current system is designed to highlight & exacerbate failure. Test & punish, narrow the curriculum, put low skilled kids in the classes that least interest them, double their math & reading time, so they're miserable and drop out.
The current system is woefully underfunded; teachers, principals & other school workers are stressed and the system is about to crack. Just in time for a wave of retirements. Will your 2 year TFA resume builders be able to replace these folks? Nope, they'll just perform their mercenary role, get out & say the system needs reform.
That's not to say that some of the money we're currently wasting on ridiculous amounts of testing couldn't be re-allocated to mitigate those problems, but the education part of the education system is absolutely underfunded.
The KIPP approach is not shown by the available evidence at this point to be both scalable and demonstrably superior.
By the way, just looking at poverty is not enough. New immigrants from cultures that value education and hard work are going to confound the econometric statistics - even if they have language issues. This will be particularly true if they have intact families. If you do not correct for this in your evaluations, you can have sizable systematic changes that will be misinterpreted.
There are a few outliers which perform as the KIPP schools Mr. Whitney uses as examples, but the commenters are correct in pointing out that KIPP "creams" the best performing and "pushes out" the disruptive or worst performing students which non-charter schools cannot do. It's also worth looking at teacher turnover rate at KIPP and other charters. In Chicago charters have significantly higher teacher turn-over rates than non-charters.
The schools that seem to be "working miracles" with the most deprived students are often unsustainable. Unless we are willing to invest in smaller classes and wrap-around social services for the lowest income kids, we can't scale up these sorts of schools.
It's true that our students aren't failing us, but it is our society that is failing our students by depriving them of the schools they deserve. Of course we need great teachers, but if you put a great teacher into an overcrowded and under-resourced school full of kids who have been deprived since the moment of their conception that great teacher will struggle to help their students achieve a year of academic growth... let alone make up for the prior decade of weaker growth.
Whitney sez that minority kids are much more likely to be taught by teachers who:
Didn't major or minor in the field they are teaching
Well this is every single person coming out of Teach For America. On this point I'll agree with Whitney. Out with all TFA teachers!! I can;t think of one TFA teacher that majored in Russian Literature that is teaching that subject now in the inner city.
Are inexperienced
See above. Not one single Teach For America teacher has had any experience. Please remove all TFA's from teaching immediately.
Did poorly on SATs and other standardized tests
Doing well on SAT's and standardized tests means jack. Show us proof of this.
Got poor grades in high school and college
What are poor grades? Perhaps those with poor grades had rotten teachers? Not really. Perhaps those with poor grades came from dysfunctional homes? Perhaps, those with poor grades were just immature and teenagers.
Attended noncompetitive colleges
Non-competitive colleges? What exactly does this mean? Is SUNY-New Paltz acceptable? Is Mercy College OK? Or should all teachers come from Harvard as you did Whitney? Please do elaborate.
However, I will say that it is unfortunate that when compared to other countries the US Educational sector does a horrible job at recruiting smart and academically successful college students. Corporate America snags them before we even have a chance. Primarily some of these issues come to play because we do not actually esteem and respect the job of teaching. It is somehow considered a Plan B, for most who cannot accomplish their Plan A. strongschoolculture.wordpress.com
Most PLA schools in New York City are "low achieving" because they turn no one away, whether it's on lottery day (lottery means not everyone wins) or mid-year, over-age and under-credited. It's convenient for readers of this article to think families come in one of three or four sizes, but in fact it's much much sloppier than that. For example: hundreds and hundreds of students who come from poor "families" may not even have a "family", they may be living with a cousin, in a shelter, or they may be estranged from their blood relatives.
There are answers. There are solutions. I'm not sure the last decade of reform has brought either.
Let us remember that you DO profit from the charter school movement. See David Sirota's excellent article that reminds us of the self-interests on both sides (teachers and corporate reformers): http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/09/12/reformmoney Corporate reformers are making serious money, claiming schools alone can eradicate poverty shifts any personal responsibility from discussing the real issue of poverty in America, and the support of charter schools supports corporate America's desire to break unions everywhere. Teacher's interests, while self-serving, are far more aligned with students' needs since they ask for better working conditions (=learning conditions) and better compensation so schools can actually attract those best and brightest you talk about.
Show me you care about the poor and minority students in this country by supporting, not bashing, the teachers who serve them.