Leave no unwealthy child behind
How does growing economic inequality affect student achievement? Here to discuss it is Mike Rose, a highly respected professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and author of several books. His latest book is “Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education.By Mike Rose
Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon wrote an important opinion piece for The New York Times last week, “No Rich Child Left Behind,” and I would like to add a few thoughts to it. Growing economic inequality between the wealthy and just about everyone else has been in the news for some time now. What Reardon does is offer data that demonstrates how that economic inequality is being reflected in educational achievement.
Examining math and reading test scores over the past 50 years, Reardon found that “the rich-poor gap in test scores is about 40 percent larger now than it was 30 years ago.” Other researchers are finding that “the proportion of students from upper-income families who earn a bachelor’s degree has increased by 18 percentage points over a 20-year period, while the completion rate of poor students has grown by only 4 points.” And it’s not just low-income kids who are being left behind; one of Reardon’s striking findings is that “the rich now outperform the middle class by as much as the middle class outperform the poor.” It’s not that poor or middle-class kids (of any racial or ethnic background) are doing worse;
What schools need and what they don’t need
Veteran educator and education blogger Anthony Cody wrote a piece on his Education Week blog, Living in Dialogue, about a new proposal by Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, to postpone for a year the high … Continue reading →