A More Complex Issue Than We Originally Thought...

Former Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick had a difficult childhood as a poor, black student  living in a deteriorating housing project in Chicago. But, because he was given the opportunity to receive a quality education, he was able to achieve his dreams. He said, “what great teachers gave me was not just the skills to take advantage of new opportunities, but the ability to imagine what those opportunities could be. For a kid from the South Side of Chicago, that’s huge.”

Up until now, my blog has focused on the educational inequalities in the United States school system. These inequalities have definitely contributed to the ongoing achievement gap between whites and minorities. But, they are not the sole cause of this issue. Some scholars at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) are now suggesting that the home environment of a child may be the most important factor.

Ronald Ferguson, a lecturer at HKS and faculty director of Harvard's Achievement Gap Initiative, believes that the achievement gap is a result of different life experiences. He traces the origins of the gap back to age 2 (before the child has had any former schooling). According to his research, "At age 1, white, Asian, black, and Hispanic children score virtually the same [when] examining objects [and] exploring purposefully. But by age 2, gaps are apparent, with black and Hispanic children scoring lower in expressive vocabulary, listening comprehension, and other indicators of acuity." 

Clearly, at a young age, parental involvement in a child's life is critical. As Ferguson says, "Talking is teaching." If a child is not receiving the right amount of attention and support, they may be set up for failure before they even enter the school system. The difference in achievement between minority and white students stems not just from schools, but from the child's family and neighborhood. The study suggested that the most important factors in a child's success are poverty rates (which are three times higher for blacks than for whites), diminished teacher and school quality, ineffective parenting, personal trauma, and peer group influence. Now, I have already talked about poverty and school quality, so I would like to examine some of the other factors involved.

One of the most interesting factors is the influence of peer groups. Researchers, at the Harvard journal Education Next, have found that when black students perform well in school, they are accused of "acting white." In order to maintain friendships and fit in with society, blacks may change their behavior. This leads to them being less engaged in school, not because they are disinterested or incapable, but because they are afraid that their peers with ostracize them. We need to find ways to change this perception, so that minority students feel confident pursuing academics.

Another factor is personal trauma. Children living in inner-city environments may have experienced family turbulence, street violence, bullying, sexual abuse, or intermittent homelessness. These experiences may leave a child with post-traumatic stress that inhibits their ability to connect. If we work to provide resources for these families, we may be able to succeed in helping minority students get engaged in the classroom. Fortunately, groups like the National Alliance to End Homelessness have designed interventions that can help people recover. 

In addition, parental behavior and interaction has a huge influence on students. Research has shown that involved parenting makes students more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, attend school regularly, have better social skills, and graduate and go on to postsecondary education. But, if students families are not involved in their education, it is likely to have the opposite effect. In order to foster these moments of interaction, a recent initiative by a non-profit called the Family Dinner Project is trying to get families to eat dinner together. 

Researchers from the team have found that "shared mealtimes improve reading skills, spur better grades and larger vocabularies, fuel complex conversations, and provide a learning experience with structure, emotional support, a sense of safety, and family bonding." This group tries to educate parents on the benefits of spending time with their children, so that they can help them grow and thrive in educational environments.

There are many factors that play into a student's educational experience. In order to make change, we need to understand these factors and how we can best address them. Instead of focusing just on schools, we need to create well-rounded approaches that support students at every level and in every possible environment. If more students had the same education and support as former Governor Patrick, we truly would have liberty and justice for all. 

Thanks for reading my civic issues blog this semester!

Photos courtesy of Harvard and Education Next

Education for Everyone = A Better Future for America

According to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the United States placed 27th out of 34 countries in math performance and 20th in science performance. Sixty six percent of all U.S. fourth graders are not reading at grade level (according to the results of the 2013 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading test). And according to the 2012 Nation’s Report Card, average math and reading scores for 17-year-olds have remained relatively stagnant since the 1970s. Based off of this information, it is clear that the United States educational system continues to fall behind other countries. 

What is concerning about this is that a well-educated constituency leads to sustained economic growth, continued ability to compete in the global marketplace, and ongoing support for democracy. Essentially, in order to remain impactful, we have to strengthen our educational system. Now, as I mentioned in my previous blog, there are several ways the government has tried to fix this. Through initiatives like No Child Left Behind, we have sought to create incentives for schools to succeed. But, they have largely failed. 

Over time, it has become clear that in order to rise in the international rankings, we must first sort out the inequalities in our own system that prevent ethnic minorities (which are growing into the majority of the U.S. population) from succeeding. Up until now, my blogs have focused on how the problem is perpetuated. Now I would like to explain the potential consequences if we do not change.

So just how dire are the circumstances? What happens if we do nothing to correct the current inequalities? The most immediate effect is that we experience economic divides. Economic analyses conducted by the Pew Research Center found that Millennial college graduates ages 25 to 32 who are working full time earn more annually—about $17,500 more—than employed young adults holding only a high school diploma. This gap in income can also be observed between those who graduate from high school and those who drop out. And what group of Americans is most likely to drop out of school? African-Americans. Additionally, the less educated someone is, the more likely they are to be unemployed. The more people who are unemployed, the more who are on welfare and the weaker  our tax base. This could lead to economic instability.

Another byproduct of our unequal educational system may be the stagnation of American innovation. As Justin Marquis, a researcher interested in language and literacy education states, "That child who quit school in 8th grade because they were bored in a bad school that couldn’t provide the resources and experienced teachers to challenge them, could have been the person that created an entirely new product, solved the fuel crisis, or cured cancer. But we’ll never know, because the circumstances of their home life and schooling deprived them and us of the opportunity to see what they could have done." Up until now, America has differentiated itself on its innovation and creative abilities. If we prevent capable, creative students from achieving, we may lag behind other countries in the one area we have traditionally excelled in.

Finally, our very democracy may be threatened. The basic idea behind democracy is that it relies on people who are independent thinkers, those who will stand up for freedom. But, most importantly, it relies on an educated populace to make informed decisions. We need a nation full of citizens who are prepared to defend their freedoms and to support and help other countries gain liberty. As President John F. Kennedy once said, "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."

So, it's no longer their problem. It's our problem. We need to make educating everyone a priority because in an unequal society, we all suffer. And that starts with making major reforms to our educational system. As Nelson Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." If we can give an education to everyone - rich and poor, black and white - the possibilities are endless. America is supposed to be a place where you can become anyone you want to be. Let's make that a reality.

Minority Children Left Behind

What single word (or acronym) has the power to fill you with dread? Is it Keystone (PA), Regent (NY), PARCC (NJ), SAT, or ACT? If you went to public school, chances are you took a standardized test every few years. And no matter what school you went to, you definitely took the SAT or the ACT to get into college. Our generation grew up with standardized testing. From a young age we learned to bubble in answers on scantron sheets with our number two pencils.

While at the time, we may have seen these tests as only a slight annoyance, for some schools, they are a life or death situation that determines whether they will be able to stay open for another year. This is because of The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which was passed in 2002. No Child Left Behind mandated that every child attending a public school in the U.S. take an annual standardized test. The schools would then be measured on whether they achieved "Adequate Yearly Progress," which means that they would have to have steady improvement among their students (i.e. fifth graders this year have to perform better than fifth graders last year). If they achieved the necessary progress, they were rewarded with funding, but if they did not make the cut, they would be defunded.

The motivation behind NCLB was that it would hold teachers and schools accountable, so they would step up their programs if the students were not doing well. But, as I discussed in my previous blog post, underachieving inner-city schools tend to already be at a deficit compared to their suburban counterparts. This prevents them from having access to good teachers and to basic classroom necessities. Ironically, the schools that need money the most are the ones who are penalized by this program. Instead of improving the educational system, NCLB has maintained the status quo, taking away money from schools that are hurting and compensating schools that are doing well. While NCLB was created to close the achievement gap, it has actually maintained it.

One of the other unintended consequences of this program was that it encouraged teachers to cheat. Faced with the pressure of raising students' test scores, they resorted to going through students' tests afterwards and changing their answers to the correct ones. This most recently happened in April of last year when 11 teachers in the Atlanta school district were convicted of taking part in a standard test-cheating scandal.

The indictment stated "Over time, the unreasonable pressure to meet annual APS [Atlanta Public Schools] targets led some employees to cheat on the CRCT [Criterion Referenced Competency Tests]. The refusal of [the Superintendent] and her top administrators to accept anything other than satisfying targets created an environment where achieving the desired end result was more important than the students’ education."

The worst part of this is that the people who are ultimately hurt the most are minority students who already start life off at a disadvantage compared to their white counterparts. In a report published by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, it was found that "since NCLB, the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps in...reading and math scores have not closed significantly." In fact, many areas have seen significant decreases in proficiency since the creation of the tests (see the maps below that map out areas of Connecticut that were struggling in 1999 and compare it to those struggling in the early 2000s).

Furthermore, areas that have a large population of minorities are more likely to be failing. See the below maps for clarification:

So, NCLB not only failed to close the gap, but it may have actually widened it. The problem we see with this and other programs is that they are (sometimes unintentionally) written for a predominantly white and wealthy middle class student. It has gotten to the point where, today, the best predictor of a students' SAT scores is the student's family income. And another good predictor - you guessed it - race.

 

Now, since 2002, NCLB has been modified in an effort to help it better achieve its goals. But, its unclear whether those changes have significantly improved the situation. There have also been other attempts to close the gap, including President Obama's Race to the Top Initiative. Time will tell if these new initiatives succeed. Either way, we must continue taking steps to equalize the education playing field, so that all students have a chance to succeed.

 

Image courtesy of biologycorner on Flickr

What's the Magic Word? Money.

In my last post, I described how schools across America have dramatic differences in the quality of education they deliver to their students. Public schools in Philadelphia located only half a mile from the elite magnet school Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School (ranked #1 in Pennsylvania by U.S. News and World Report Rankings) look like they may as well have been in another country.

How can it be that schools in the same city have such a difference in their educational quality? The answer may be found crumpled up in your wallet. Money.

According to U.S. Census data many suburban schools spend upwards of $20,000 per pupil, while other schools in neighboring cities may spend as little as $6,000 or less towards their students' education. Now, this is not to say that an education can be judged solely by the amount of money invested in a student, but the reality is that schools with more money can attract more teachers, purchase more books, and invest in educational resources like student laptops or tablets.

You may be thinking, "These are all public schools, how can one have so much funding compared to the other?" The answer may be found not in the schools, but in the surrounding area.

When you own a house in an area, you pay property taxes. This money goes to your local government and is allocated towards your community. Your money will probably go to fund local libraries, snow plows, street cleaners, post offices, and, most importantly, schools. In fact, nearly half of all property tax revenue is used for public elementary and secondary school education.

Based on what I have told you, you may be thinking that property tax rates in suburban areas must be much higher than they are in cities. But, in fact, the opposite is true. In many places, inner-city residents pay significantly higher property tax rates than their suburban counterparts.

So how is it that suburban schools end up with more money?

Because their property is worth more. They pay lower taxes, but on higher property values, leading to a greater total. For example, the average person in Philadelphia county pays $1,326 in property taxes per year while the average person in neighboring Montgomery county pays $3,834 in property taxes. This means that Montgomery county schools could be collecting as much as 3 times the amount of money that Philadelphia schools collect. Also, Philadelphia has a more densely-populated area, so the money is spread out across many schools instead of being concentrated in a few.

It would be one thing if the differences were relatively small. It's unlikely that every school district in the United States will one day have an identical budget, but the disparities are so huge that they cannot be bridged without substantial change.

"Some districts - including Reading, Allentown, and Philadelphia - are highly unlikely to rise to the top in spending. They simply cannot generate the local revenue. Philadelphia's local property tax rates are relatively average, but its spending for metropolitan areas is low. Reading's local property tax rate is actually quite high, yet...it can hardly generate sufficient local revenue per pupil. Meanwhile, Radnor and Lower Merion have relatively low local property tax rates and, despite receiving very little state aid, manage to substantially outspend most districts in the state."
- Center for American Progress

I would like to highlight the fact that the affluent districts mentioned in the last sentence (Lower Merion and Radnor) receive very little state aid. So, even though these more disadvantaged school districts are receiving more aid, they are still miles behind their neighboring school communities. This is especially concerning because the state gives aid, not to even out school districts, but to try and help those areas that require more funding due to poverty and hardship.

Arne Duncan, Former United States Education Secretary, explains, "The point of that money was to supplement, recognizing that poor children and English language learners and students with disabilities come to school with additional challenges... This is about trying to get additional resources to children and communities who everyone knows need additional help."

Instead, this money has gone towards building a bridge to close the gap in inequality. The only problem: they only built it half-way. There is still a long way to go towards equaling out our education system.

The Inequalities in Our Educational System

The Pledge of Allegiance promises the citizens of the United States "liberty and justice for all." Yet, everyday, in thousands of schools across the country, students recite this pledge to our nation while standing in a classroom that, by design, deprives them of the same rights they were promised.

In 1896, in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court found that segregation was acceptable as long as the institutions abided by the doctrine: "separate but equal." In theory, it seemed like segregating students would not affect their education, but in reality, the system perpetuated the unfair treatment of minority students. While white students had easy access to the best schools, students of color were forced to trek across town to the poorly funded schools.

Many of those schools lacked access to basic supplies, textbooks, and staff. Some could not even provide classroom necessities like chairs and desks. Meanwhile, white students attended schools that boasted small student-to-teacher ratios and endless opportunities to engage in learning inside and outside of school. When the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson in 1954, many people viewed it as the end of a divided system. Students would finally have equal educational opportunities.

Segregation, however, did not go away overnight. The court's decision was not enforced until ten years later when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. Even then, integration was implemented at a slow rate. This delay gave the American public plenty of time to forget about its past.

Today, despite the fact that segregation was ruled unconstitutional 62 years ago, it is still very much a part of our educational school system. In fact, segregation of black children is at its highest levels since 1968.

The biggest place this can be seen is in inner city schools, which tend to be homogenous not only in race, but also in socioeconomic background. Take the Philadelphia School District (minorities account for 86% percent of the student body), which only two years ago had a huge financial crisis that put over 23 schools in jeopardy due to a $1.35 billion deficit in their budget. That summer, as students in the nearby suburbs were purchasing their graphing calculators and notebooks, students in the Philadelphia schools were not even sure they would be attending.

When the remaining schools finally did open for the year, it was after the district had closed 23 schools and laid off a substantial amount of teaching and support staff. According to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, no school with fewer than 600 students has a counselor. Only one counselor is assigned to a school with 600 or more students. And only those schools with more than 1,500 students receive more than one counselor. In total, 60% of Philadelphia schools have no counseling staff.

The irony of it all is that these students are the people who most need these support systems. A majority of inner-city public school attendees live in poverty. Many are forced to deal with violence and instability in their communities. Education is supposed to be the one thing that equals the playing field. With an education, anyone can become anything. But, that is not a reality for minority students today.

The problem is that as a society, we have decided it's no longer our responsibility to fight for justice. We all recognize that these students deserve a chance, but no one is willing to personally sacrifice to make a change. For example, last October there was a proposal on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to rezone the school district. The suggested change would have resulted in moving some of the students who attended the affluent PS 199 school to the impoverished PS 191 school.

The differences between the two schools are almost comedic: PS 199 is 67% white students, while 88% of the student body at PS 191 is black or Hispanic. PS 199 students scored 72% proficient on state English tests in 2014, and 81% in math. PS 191 scored 10% proficient in English and 9% proficient in Math last year. The difference in demographics and academics between these schools encapsulates the modern day segregation struggle.

As you may have guessed, the proposal was shot down. Parents from PS 199 protested that integrating the schools would drag their students down and prevent them from doing well. I ask them, what about the students that are already at the bottom? Don't they deserve a chance too?

The worst part of this story is that it's not unique. It happens every year in school districts across the United States. What can we do to break the cycle? How can we eradicate something that is so deeply ingrained in the American educational system?

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It is clear that this problem is multifaceted and that it may require a complex solution. Throughout the rest of my blog this semester, I plan to explore this problem and what we, as informed citizens, can do to fix it.

Please feel free to comment below if you have any insights into how we can tackle this problem and give everyone the right to a fair education.

Image courtesy of USA Today