The Education and the Public Interest Center at the school of education at CU Boulder has fired the latest salvo in the ongoing debate between the “factors outside of school matter most” faction and the “no excuses — schools alone can close gaps” group.
As usual in these debates, both sides make cogent arguments and both sides are right in places and wrong in places.
The current study, Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, does not provide startling new evidence or break much new ground. Rather, it argues, a la Richard Rothstein, that out-of-school factors do more to create and exacerbate achievement gaps than anything going on within schools.
David Berliner, the study’s author argues that
(1) low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children; (2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance; (3) food insecurity; (4) environmental pollutants; (5) family relations and family stress; and (6) neighborhood characteristics
“limit what schools can accomplish. ”
Berliner also argues that KIPP and similar schools are being held up as The Answer when they are nothing of the sort:
The occasional school that overcomes the effects of academically detrimental inputs-high rates of food insecurity, single heads of households, family and neighborhood violence, homelessness and transiency, illnesses and dental needs that are not medically insured, special education needs, language minority populations, and so forth-has allowed some advocates to declare that schools, virtually alone, can ensure the high achievement of impoverished youth. This point is made by Chenoweth in a book documenting schools that “beat the odds,” and it is the point made repeatedly by Kati Haycock, the influential head of the Education Trust, and other organizations like hers.
But these successes should not be used as a cudgel to attack other educators and schools. And they should certainly never be used to excuse societal neglect of the very causes of the obstacles that extraordinary educators must overcome. It is a poor policy indeed that erects huge barriers to the success of millions of students, cherry-picks and praises a few schools that appear to clear those barriers, and then blames the other schools for their failure to do the same.
So, ladies and gentlemen, your thoughts, please…
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Based on these findings perhaps we shoud use the stimulus monies targeted towards education and put them towards prenatal care and adequate dental and health care.
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I confess I find this study (and argument) exasperating.
Berliner looks at education versus six Out-Of-School Factors (“OSFs”). The question should not be what is more effective (the single factor of education vs. six other factors) but which factor has the biggest impact, with some examination of the difference is cost-effectiveness.
His OSF are: “(1) low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children; (2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance; (3) food insecurity; (4) environmental pollutants; (5) family relations and family stress; and (6) neighborhood characteristics.”
My question is this: we know how to make better schools (perhaps we don’t but accept this premise for the sake of this comment). I don’t think we know how to improve many of the OSFs to the same extent, particularly on a effective cost basis. Nor do I have much idea on ways we could measure these in comparison with each other. The argument in public education is how to better spend the money that is already in public education — there is lots of money in health that can also be redeployed better as well, but is this really an argument against changing the way we do public education?
And, if we were to take Mark’s comment to its logical end, all committed teachers should quit and start doing social services and healthcare.
Lastly, I continue to argue that the either/or approach is false: we do not have to either fix all OSF or do education – we can work on education while also addressing the many needs for better services. http://ednewscolorado.org/blog/index.php/2008-08-25/the-logical-fallacy-of-broader-bolder/
I don’t think becoming a social or health care worker is the logical conclusion. And I’d argue that many schools are doing health care and social work.
I think we know how to do #1-4 pretty well – they are pretty straightforward, but they do need more resources. But we know that they can work.
#5 and #6 – family and neighborhood – of course are the really hard one, and probably the most important ones. We do know that peer effects matter, but as a society we aren’t committed to busing or residential desegregation to achieve them, though evidence suggests that they would work, at least up to a point. #5 is the real challenge and far less clear how to overcome family problems related to poverty.
The right appoach, as Alex notes, would be to balance the marginal benefits of each of these strategies against the marginal costs. But, we don’t know enough about how to do that right.
Alexander, I agree with your point about the false dichotomy. But so does David Berliner. And so does the “Broader, Bolder” project (which is probably why Arne Duncan signed that statement along with the statement of the “Education Equality Project”).
I also agree that cost effectiveness analysis makes a great deal of sense. Economists have in fact conducted so-called “production function” analyses, to try to figure out whether a dollar spent on school reform is more effective than a dollar spent on alleviating poverty. EPI’s Richard Rothstein has written a great deal about such work (his book “Class and Schools” is a great primer on the overall subject — http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/books_class_and_schools/)
I think your exasperation may be due to hearing an argument (either “school reform is important” or “alleviating poverty is important”) and thinking the speaker is rejecting the other argument. But keep in mind that David Berliner has spent his career investigating how students learn best in schools. His Education Psychology textbook (Gage & Berliner) is a classic in the field. His contention is not that schools aren’t important — it’s that we’re fools if deny that these out-of-school factors can have a huge impact on the likelihood of students’ doing well in school.
For me, what’s exasperating is reading his well-documented discussion of these 6 factors and their impact and thinking that, in all likelihood, we’ll be able to re-read it in a few decades and find that it rings just as true then.
I also get fairly exasperated listening to these discussions. It seems the “broader, bolder” folks mostly want to talk about everything but the stuff we have the most control over in public education. I’m a huge supporter of universal health coverage and more ECE but I doubt these are going to have much impact on achievement given all the problems with the current public education system.
I want to know the details from the BB about what they like or want to change in our current urban school systems. It often sounds like they think ECE and better health will do the trick.
The BB folks remind me of the current Republican leadership. It’s easier to say “no” than to design a detailed proposal to fix public education or the economy. For the record, I signed the BB letter though I think they only have a solution for everything but teaching and learning.
I appreciate Kevin’s points and helpful link. Two small replies:
Arne Duncan may have had some political motivations to belong to both groups, so I don’t take his BB membership as particularly authentic.
Despite his long and distinguished record, Berliner not just argues for alleviating poverty, but after lip service to the importance of different models, he fairly explicitly rejects the accountability movement and the idea that individual schools can solve problems. Berliner is very anti-testing (and NCLB), even anti-media education reporting (see “The Lamentable Alliance Between the Media and School Critics”). I do not consider these arguments or tactics as an attempt to improve public education (either in ways in which I personally agree or disagree).
I find the topic of concern because the essential value of education is that it elevates the deprived along with the favored. It is those most in need who have the most to gain — or lose — in this convoluted process. We’ve already relinquished quality of health care, now we’ll have to see whether those at the top are able to achieve educational prosperity while those at the bottom continue to go without.
Instead of seeing these issues in conflict or even in tandem, I prefer to view education as the remedy so it’s a Chicken-and-Egg question. Children need to feel well enough, physically and inwardly, to attend. But from there, it’s the process that should be nourishing, and they should understand that what they are receiving is uniquely and exclusively their own, the one thing that neither famine nor poor health can touch.
In the best world, the drumbeat of the school regime itself is a relieving contrast to chaotic conditions the children have to deal with in their private lives.
Possibly we should initiate a further test: one that is not disclosed to anyone except students. Then they might better appreciate that the biggest and last grade-giver is not at the front of the classroom with a piece of chalk. And, it might be more clear that adults understand that too.