Sorting out the effects of inequality and poverty, teachers and schooling, on America’s youth

Recently, Diane Ravitch posted a chapter written by David Berliner on the effects of wealth inequality and how they impact education.  It's a fairly long piece with a lot of information.  What follows are some notes and annotations touching on the main of the article.

Notes on Berliner article

Our schools are not failing, it's our policies which are failing.  General, one-size-fits-all policies are being created to address the specific needs of specific communities.  These policies are being created to address the wrong problem.

• --teacher not the greatest impact on student
• --general case: poor stay poor, teachers cannot change that 
• --only 9% of poor achieve college degrees (pre-recession)
• --NCLB & extra testing as stick to motivate the lazy is failed policy

Negative side effects of high stakes testing

• --1/3 all schools failed to make ayp 08-09
• --2012 estimates 80% not make ayp
• --2014 goal of 100% students at grade level is unattainable
• --PISA (Program for International Student Assessment): nations with high-stakes testing have generally gone down in scores from 2000 to 2003 and then further in 2006.
• --Finland (no high stakes testing) shows growth & improvement
• --we compare results with Finns but not policies (all social policies, not just educational)

Impact of Out of School effects

• --school effects account for 20% of variance in scores, teachers are a part of that 20%
• --out of school effects account for 60% of variance
• --according to PISA, socioeconomic factors explained 17% of variance in USA
• --Less than 10% in Norway, Japan, Finland, Canada
• --policies can be created to help students from impoverished communities do well 

Examination of US education achievement

• --less than 10% free lunch = great scores (highest in the world in math & science)
• --10-24.9%=quite high still
• --only 4 other nations in the world beat this group
• --25-49.9% (three groups make up over 1/2 of all US students) still do well
• --Over 50% free lunch do poorly

• --almost 20% of students attend school where over 75% of students are free lunch
• --these schools are funded differently-- poor schools get less money
• --scores on PISA are lower than every OECD country except Mexico
• --price of housing leads to segregated communities
• --40% of black & hispanic students attend schools that are 90 to 100% minority (whites=under 1%)
• --pervasive myth: schools with 90% minority & 90% poor can achieve 90% passing if there are competent educators.

Effects of income inequality

• --poverty in the midst of wealth may make the negative effects of poverty more powerful
• --USA has greatest income inequality in the world
• --THE LEVEL OF INEQUALITY WITHIN A NATION STRONGLY PREDICTS POOR PERFORMANCE (If CT has the greatest inequality then it makes sense it would have the greatest gap)
• Effects of inequality:
• --Child well-being
• --Mental health
• --Illegal drug use
• --Infant & Maternal mortality
• --School Dropouts
• --social mobility
• --school achievement 
• --teen pregnancy
• --Abuse
• --rates of imprisonment (in CT for every 11 white males, 254 black & 125 hispanic)

Policies which would have positive impact

• --Living wage
• --higher taxes
• --early childhood education programs (7% to 10% return on investment through savings in prisions, health care, remedial education)
• --small class size
• --summer educational opportunities (academic & cultural)
• --retention policies for failure
• --reduce teacher 'churn' (turnover?) in poor communities
• --wrap-around policies
• --adult education programs

Conclusion

• WWII to 1979=wealth convergence, spread more evenly
• "Certainly poverty should never be an excuse for schools to do little, but poverty is a powerful explanation for why they cannot do much!"
• School and economic policies are not independent of each other