What causes gaps

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

What?s causing the gap?
Who or what is to blame for lagging performance 
by minority students? Richard Rothstein and 
Russlynn Ali continue their weeklong debate on the achievement gap.
November 28, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-dustup28nov28,0,813168,full.story

Today, Rothstein and Ali look for causes of the 
achievement gap. Previously, they debated whether 
it's worth trying to close the gap and assessed 
the value of the No Child Left Behind Act. Later 
in the week, they'll discuss reforms to boost students' performance and more.

*

A symptom of other inequalities
By Richard Rothstein

Disadvantaged students' low performance has many 
mutually reinforcing causes. We're the most 
unequal society in the industrialized world; it 
would be silly to expect academic performance to 
be equal when nothing else is. Every 
industrialized society has achievement gaps. Ours 
are bigger because our economic system is more unequal.

Educational debates are corrupted by insistence 
that schools alone can close achievement gaps. 
Certainly, better schools would lift achievement. 
Groups trying to improve schools, train better 
teachers and principals, improve curriculum and 
raise standards are essential. But, Russlynn, 
when you assert that such improvements alone can 
close achievement gaps, you harm the very cause 
of equality you hope to advance.

Closing gaps requires combining better schools 
with greater social and economic equality.

On Monday, I gave one example of why better 
schools alone can't do it, describing how 
low-income children have more frequent asthma, 
resulting in more school absence. Imagine two 
groups of children, identical except that one has 
high absenteeism from untreated asthma. When 
children in this group do come to school, they 
are often drowsy from being awake at night. 
Without proper medical care, they can't suppress 
symptoms with inhalants, as more fortunate 
children do. The second group has adequate 
medical care and less absenteeism. If both groups 
have great teachers, curriculum and standards, 
they will still differ in average learning.

Of course, good teachers will get higher average 
achievement from children who are frequently 
absent than will inadequate teachers. But will 
good teachers get the same average achievement 
from the frequently absent that they get from 
healthier students? Certainly not.

Because of normal human variation, some students 
with great absenteeism do have higher achievement 
than typical healthy children. And some healthy 
children have lower achievement than typical 
children with great absenteeism. But on average, 
the two groups must have an achievement gap.

Add to asthma the many other health differences 
between disadvantaged and middle-class children. 
Low-income children have more lead poisoning 
(they live in poorly maintained homes with 
peeling paint) and iron deficiency anemia; both 
of those lower IQ. The U.S. surgeon general 
reports that one-third of low-income children 
have untreated dental cavities; they're more 
likely to be distracted in class by toothaches. 
Low-income children have twice the rate of vision 
difficulties as middle-class children. You can't 
read well if you can't see well. All contribute 
to achievement gaps. (Readers wanting references 
to research that documents these claims should e-mail me at riroth@epi.org.)

It's not only health differences. Consider the 
intellectual environments of children whose 
parents are well educated and those whose parents 
are not. Children in the first group listen to 
complex language with larger vocabularies and are 
read to more often. They then attend school more 
ready to learn. Students from less literate homes 
will learn more from better teachers than from 
worse teachers. But will they achieve, on 
average, as much as children from more literate 
homes? Of course not. To believe otherwise is to 
think that learning during non-school hours has no effect whatsoever.

Consider other economic factors such as housing. 
Because urban rents have risen more rapidly than 
wages of working parents, low-income families 
move more than middle-class families. Some Los 
Angeles schools serving disadvantaged children 
have 100% mobility (twice as many children pass 
through the school annually as the school's 
capacity). These schools are frequently disrupted 
by reorganizing classes; teachers have less time 
to learn students' individual strengths and 
weaknesses. Teachers must repeat lessons for 
newcomers who've missed school while their home 
lives were disrupted. Of course, good teachers 
can get higher achievement from transient 
students than inadequate teachers could. But can 
good teachers get the same average achievement 
from transient as from stable students? Of course not.

Statistical analyses attribute about 15% of the 
black-white achievement gap to differences in 
residential mobility and 25% to differences to a 
few health factors. Other socioeconomic 
inequalities and differences in school quality also contribute.

Russlynn, you acknowledge differences in 
educationally important socioeconomic conditions. 
But you would have us keep them secret, hiding 
them from teachers. On Monday, you wrote that 
"there is great danger in sending messages to 
education stakeholders that the achievement gap 
cannot be closed. Teachers and administrators 
will hear leaders decry the sheer impossibility 
of closing gaps and ask why they should even try 
to teach poor and minority kids to high levels." 
This underestimates teachers' intelligence and 
dedication. Teachers do not conclude that if they 
alone can't fully close gaps, they must be on a 
"fool's errand," as you claimed. Good teachers 
try mightily to spur poor and minority children's 
learning, and they succeed more than inadequate 
teachers do. But good teachers also understand 
that instruction, to succeed further, needs 
greater support from social and economic policy.

Some school reformers fear that any mention of 
socioeconomic influences on learning will be used 
as "excuses" for poor teaching. But we can't 
avoid excuses by promoting simplistic myths about 
educational processes. Instead, those making 
excuses for poor performance should be 
challenged, corrected or, if necessary, removed.

The alternative ? pretending that more effective 
schools can close achievement gaps on their own ? 
promises the impossible, setting schools and 
teachers up for failure. Why shouldn't the public 
conclude that schools are incompetent if 
educators cannot achieve what some foolishly promise?

I am often accused of letting schools "off the 
hook" by making this argument. Not at all ? both 
schools and social policy need improvement. But 
claims that schools alone can close achievement 
gaps let politicians and business leaders "off 
the hook." We let them claim one day that it's 
too expensive to provide health insurance to all 
children, and on the next pose as advocates for 
minorities by demanding that schools close the gap.

If schools alone could really equalize young 
people's opportunities, there truly would be 
little role for other policy to play.

Rarely a day goes by without news reports of 
schools or teachers somewhere who "beat the odds" 
by getting consistently high achievement from the 
most disadvantaged students. These claims 
invariably are based on statistical flukes or sleights of hand.

Russlynn, you properly state that educators can't 
improve social conditions while they can do much 
to improve schools. But educators are also 
citizens, and they have unique insight into the 
socioeconomic challenges faced by children they 
teach. At work, teachers should concentrate on 
getting higher classroom achievement. But as 
citizens, they should be outspoken about the 
support they need from social policy without fear 
of being accused of "making excuses."

These are not either/or choices. We need not 
believe either in improving schools or in 
providing healthcare, housing supports, 
high-quality early childhood programs or greater 
economic security. We need do all of these, if we 
are truly committed to greater equality.

Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the 
Economic Policy Institute in Washington and 
author of "Class and Schools: Using Social, 
Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the 
Black-White Achievement Gap." He was formerly the 
national education columnist for the New York Times.

*

Disadvantaged students can achieve too
By Russlynn Ali

Exactly, Richard: It's not an either-or choice. 
Our nation can and must address the outrageous 
conditions under which too many of our children 
are growing up and simultaneously work to ensure 
that they have the intellectual tools they need 
to contribute to and benefit from our economic, social and cultural mainstream.

I think our only argument is around sequencing.

You seem to believe that we cannot close the 
achievement gap until we end poverty. I am 
convinced that we cannot end poverty without 
closing the gap. Moreover, I know to a certainty 
that low-income kids absolutely can achieve at 
high levels ? levels just as high as their more 
affluent peers ? though I would not argue for a 
second that this is easy nor that it can be done 
at scale without dramatic changes in how we "do school" in America.

MORE at 
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-dustup28nov28,0,813168,full.story

George Sheridan