Poverty and Public Education

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A editorial on what could be the real problem of US public education.

http://www.alternet.org/education/us-department-education-releases-study-schools-and-poverty-rate?paging=off

The article is full of Vitriol and rhetoric. would someone please extract the "bullet points" and post them here?

Something to support the idea that "Poor kids do poorly in school solely because they're poor".

Evidence, please?

I'm tired of the fluff.

Yes, funding to schools does offer more options for the kids who go there, but some of the smartest people in history didn't have all we give kids today. It's the effort the student makes and the parents make, not how much money a school gets.

Straw man- that isn't what the article is claiming.

The article says that one of the most significant of several factors that affect educational outcomes is poverty.

It cites this report from Stanford University: http://cepa.stanford.edu/content/wideni ... d-possible which shows that family income is highly predictive and determining.

It also cites this article by Joanne Barkham, which itself is very fact-based: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_a ... t-teachers

It also cites another article by Barkham, which cites the IMMSS and PIRLS results for 2006, which show correlation between the US between poverty and attainment. This article by the Institute of Education Sciences summarises the IMMSS statistics for 2009: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/analysis/2009-sb3.asp
... and Fig 5 on page 15 of this report shows correlation between poverty and PIRLS scores: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013010rev.pdf

The ECLS data also showed a correlation between poverty levels and academic achievement (Source: Steven D. Levitt, "Freakonomics", Pengiun Books, 2006)

Of course, correlation is not causation, but given the Stanford study seems pretty definitive, and when your sample sizes are so large it is safe to assume there is some variety of causal link. Children's educational performance cannot plausibly affect parental income, and the direct correlation between educational performance and parental income is stronger than the correlation between educational performance and many of the other factors you might assume are related to both income and educational performance, with the exception of parental education. For example, moving to a better neighbourhood does not improve test scores.

Oh. Thanks.

Sometimes I need a different perspective.

Sorry, but thats simply the problem? How many effort can you have for school if you need to focus on getting something to eat today? And how much effort can you have as a parent to help your kid with the math-homework about the features of triangulation of sinus, cosinus and tangence, when you dont even knew, that these words existed? When kids have the same chance on focusing their effort on school, and the same chance of getting help for homework after school, then the success of an student depends on his effort. Beside the fact, that a kid should not be punished for his parents showing no effort. If someone else does a crime, it is not justified to punish you as well.

And because of that we should give up the benefits, someone can has for a society? There is no misadvantage in someone becoming a good education, with some normal help for homework or schoolfood as example. There is only an misadvantage in not doing so.

Poverty certainly plays a huge factor in academic underachievement. How can you expect a child to do home work in a chaotic home environment? How can you expect a parent to be involved in any positive way in their child's education if they're struggling to just get by? Substance abuse, run ins with the law, and violence can be issues facing their parents too and even if a child born into poverty is blessed enough to be born into loving stable home, they'll be surrounded by this poison regardless. These societal issues that effect education cannot be solved by throwing money and reforms at them.