Schools exacerbate the growing achievement gap between rich and poor, a 33-country study finds
Rich kids get steered into more demanding math classes while poor kids get less challenging content
The dark blue bars show how much differences in educational content in schools are adding to the achievement gap between rich and poor students. The light blue bars quantify how much of the achievement gap is explained by family background. (Source: PowerPoint Slide from William H. Schmidt. SES = Socioeconomic status. OTL = Opportunity To Learn, a measure of math content differences)
ntral to the American dream is the notion that any kid, even one from the poorest of backgrounds, can study hard, do well in school and make it in our society. But many of us fear that the schoolhouse is no longer a path to the middle class. That fear grows with the rising number of U.S. schoolchildren in poverty, and the growing achievement gap in school between them and their wealthier peers.
A recent study examined how much of the achievement gap in math between rich and poor 15-year-old students can be attributed to what material the kids are learning in school, and it found, across 33 countries, that schools are teaching rich kids vastly different math content than poor kids. The researchers calculated that this educational content difference accounts for a third of the achievement gap, on average. (The remainder of the achievement gap is explained by socio-economic factors at home, such as family income and parental education.)
“In every society, we want school to be the great equalizer, to help students overcome poverty,” said William H. Schmidt of Michigan State University, the lead author of the study. “In effect, this study says that schooling is making things worse.”
Schooling, or differences in what different children are taught, exacerbates the achievement gap in some countries more than in others. For example, in the Netherlands, schooling accounts for 58 percent of the achievement gap between rich and poor. Korea, Australia and the United Kingdom are also among the “top” nations in which access or exposure to educational content is worsening the achievement gap. In many of these countries, top students, who tend to come from richer families, get steered to elite schools with more rigorous curriculums.
The United States is above the middle of the pack, with 37 percent of the achievement gap between rich and poor explained by differences in curriculum.
Some systems, such as Iceland and Greece, are better at educating poor kids, with less than 20 percent of the rich-poor gap attributable to schooling.
Sweden was the only country studied where schooling wasn’t compounding the achievement gap between rich and poor. There’s still a large achievement gap in Sweden, however, with students in the top quarter of the socioeconomic ladder scoring Schools exacerbate the growing achievement gap between rich and poor, a 33-country study finds - The Hechinger Report:
Countries ranked by how much differences in curriculum are worsening the achievement gap between rich and poor. (Source: AERA Press Release, Sept. 30, 2015)
