"Failing" schools, poverty and libraries
S.Krashen: www. sdkrashen.com; twitter = skrashen; skrashen.blogspot.com
Presentation at Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, Board of Education, LAUSD
December 6, 2016
"Failing" schools, poverty, and libraries: "We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.” (Martin Luther King, 1967) Why Dr. King was right:
1. Evidence for failure? Scores on international tests.
But: Raw scores not horrible – when poverty controlled statistically, US scores near top of the world.
Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13;Berliner, D. 2011. The Context for Interpreting PISA Results in the USA: Negativism, Chauvinism, Misunderstanding, and the Potential to Distort the Educational Systems of Nations. In Pereyra, M., Kottoff, H-G., & Cowan, R. (Eds.). PISA under examination: Changing knowledge, changing tests, and changingschools. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers. Tienken, C. 2010. Common core state standards: I wonder? Kappa Delta Phi Record 47 (1): 14-17. Carnoy, M and Rothstein, R. 2013, What Do International Tests Really Show Us about U.S. Student Performance. Washington DC: Economic Policy Institute. 2012.http://www.epi.org/).
2. The US has a very high percentage of children living in poverty: 21%. Highest of all industrialized countries. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre 2012, ‘Measuring Child Poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world’s rich countries’, Innocenti Report Card 10, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence. Inner city (LAUSD) = 80% Finland = 4%.
- The problem is poverty. NOT: teaching, schools of ed, unions, parents, lack of national standards/tests
http://home.lausd.net/apps/news/article/344072
3. Devastating effects of poverty on school achievement (Berliner, 2009)
a. Food deprivation/nutrition
b. Lack of health care (eg school nurses in high and low poverty schools)
c. Lack of access to books (1) home; (2) school: classroom libraries, school libraries; (3) community: public libraries, bookstores
Beverly Hills/Watts study: (Smith, Constantino & Krashen)
Available books in the home: BH = 200; Watts = .4; Classroom libraries: BH = 400; Watts = 5 Philadelphia study (Neuman & Celano): middle-class children "deluged" with books, high poverty have difficulty getting any access
Part of the cure: libraries and librarians.
THE PIRLS Study: 4th graders in 40 countries, tested in their own language
Krashen, Lee and McQuillan (2012)
Multiple Regression Analysis: predictors of achievement PIRLS 2006 reading test
Predictor | Beta | P |
SES | 0.41 | 0.005 |
independent reading | 0.16 | 0.143 |
library: 500 books | 0.35 | 0.005 |
Instruction | -0.19 | 0.085 |
r2 = .61
Children of poverty: Library is their only source of books.
Better access to public libraries > more recreational reading
Children get many of their books for recreational reading from libraries.SKrashen: "Failing" schools, poverty and libraries: