Class and the Classroom
There is a timely article, Class and the Classroom, in the cover story of this month’s American School Board Journal. It ties right in with my post in response to Nancy’s post about testing. The author, Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a visiting professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. The author examines the ways social class affects learning and the achievement gap. He believes that even the best schools can’t close the race achievement gap. He says our confusion stems from failing to examine the concrete ways that social class actually affects learning. He states that the achievement gap can be substantially narrowed only when school improvement is combined with social and economic reform.
He points out the inability of schools to overcome the disadvantage of less-literate homes is not a peculiar American failing but a universal reality. The number of books in students’ homes, for example, consistently predicts their test scores in almost every country.
He made an interesting point about how urging less-educated parents to read to children can’t fully compensate for differences in school readiness. Children who see their parents read to solve their own problems or for entertainment are more likely to read themselves. Also, how parents read to their children figures in with this. More educated parents read aloud differently. Working-class parents are more likely to tell children to pay attention without interruptions. They are more likely to ask factual questions. Parents who are more literate are more likely to ask questions that are creative, interpretive, or connective.
He talks about the conversation gap, the role model gap and the health and housing gaps.
Richard Rothstein says that narrowing the gaps is what is crucial here and since the gap is already huge at age 3; the most important new investment should be in early childhood programs.
I like the author’s closing:
“Calling attention to this link is not to make excuses for poor school performance. It is only to be honest about the social support schools require if they are to fulfill the public’s expectation that the achievement gap will disappear.”
October 10th, 2004 at 1:24 am
Before I started reading your post, I was reading the article „learning and conversation‰ by Baker, Jensen and Kolb (2002). They made several interesting points on the importance of conversation in learning. Specifically, they pointed out the importance of family conversation. I would like to quote couple sentences in relation to Richard Rothstein‚s article:
„To be deprived of good conversation can be devastating. While Nobel laureates and large proportion of other successful people come from families that talked around the dinner table, many children today have no one to talk with and often no dinner table‰ (p.5).
Baker A. C., Kolb D. A. & Jensen P. J. (2002). Learning and conversation. In Ann C. Baker, David A. Kolb, Patricia J. Jensen (Eds.), Coversational Learning. Westport: Quorum Books.
October 11th, 2004 at 12:01 pm
This article seems to make NCLB very misguided. To be honest, I don’t know all the details about it, only what you hear in general: that schools are held to relatively high achievement standards, that they can lose federal funding if they fail to meet those standards, and that they are supposed to use research based methods of instruction. I also know that it is criticized as being an unfunded mandate, which is curious since I understand that Bush increased the education budget by something like 40 Billion dollars. I’d like to know why it exists in the face of such opposition. Someone in the educational community and not just government must be in favor of it!
But that is not why I’m responding. I thought the article was very insightful and enjoyed this comment in particular: “In human affairs where multiple causation is typical, causes are not disproved by exceptions.” The authors point is very well-taken. Addressing our educational problems requires a much more systemic approach than to only set goals and require scientfically validated methods of instruction, because children are affected by so many external factors. Even though some will rise above the social or economic standing, the average child will still struggle.