Saturday, February 11, 2012

Occupy Kindergarten: The Rich-Poor Divide Starts With Education - Jordan Weissmann - Business - The Atlantic

Occupy Kindergarten: The Rich-Poor Divide Starts With Education - Jordan Weissmann - Business - The Atlantic:

Occupy Kindergarten: The Rich-Poor Divide Starts With Education

FEB 11 2012, 9:00 AM ET 1

New research shows that a family's money matters ever more when it comes to their childrens' education

615_Child_Classroom_Studying.jpgReuters

Economic class is increasingly becoming the great dividing line of American education.

The New York Times has published a roundup of recent research showing the growing academic achievement gap between rich and poor students. It prominently features a paper by Stanford sociologist Sean F. Reardon, which found that, since the 1960s, the difference in test scores between affluent and underprivileged students has grown 40%, and is now double gap between black and white students. (Graph courtesy of the Times.)

Times_Graph_Reardon.pngThe children of the wealthy are pulling away from their lower-class peers -- the same way their parents are pulling away from their peers' parents. When it comes to college completion rates, the rich-poor gulf has grown by 50% since the 1980s. Upper