The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement - Redux

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement – Redux”
[Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Among the 263 Comments (as of 4 March 2013 15:27-0800) on Diane Ravitch's (2013) blog entry “Why I Cannot Support the Common Core Standards” at http://bit.ly/XGpEpK was one by “Penny”" who wrote on 3 March 2013: “We know that poorer (lower socioeconomic) students tend to do poorer in school. How about looking at the true root cause.”

To look at the “true root cause” see, e.g., the poverty-related references from my complete post “The Contentious Common Core Controversy” [Hake 2013)] at http://bit.ly/Y7ocMv:

1. "Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success"[Berliner (2009)] at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

2. "Eight problems with Common Core Standards" [Brady (2012)] at http://wapo.st/15Z4kTg;

3. "The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement" [Hake (2011)] at http://bit.ly/tUU65W;

4. "For Obama's New Term, Start Here" [Kristof (2013)] at http://nyti.ms/WnEhU2;

5. "Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics" [Marder (2012)] at http://bit.ly/KPitWM (scroll down);

6. "Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance: Poverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital" [Neuman & Celano (2012)] at http://bit.ly/ZVCsil
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Google Scholar http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm

“So much orchestrated attention is being showered on the Common Core Standards, the main reason for poor student performance is being ignored - a level of childhood poverty the consequences of which no amount of schooling can effectively counter.”
- Marion Brady (2012) at http://wapo.st/15Z4kTg.

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 04 March 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement – Redux,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/XHnEzS. Post of 4 Mar 2013 15:38:45-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.




:

Effects of Poverty on U.S. Children’s Educational Achievement Redux

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Effects of Poverty on U.S. Children’s Educational Achievement Redux” [Hake (2013b)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Barriers to Better K-12 Math Education: Poverty and the Inadequate Undergraduate Education of Prospective K-12 Teachers” [Hake (2013a)] at http://bit.ly/V6azOZ. Ed Wall (2013b), in his Math-Learn post at http://yhoo.it/10CO8af, made 2 points: (1) My statement that Wall implied that the dumbing down of elementary school mathematics in the U.S. is due to Math Education Researcher's preoccupation with the secondary years is “more than a little un-thoughtful.” (2) His post “Re: Do We Learn All the Math We Need For Ordinary Life Before 5th Grade?” [Wall (2013a)] at http://yhoo.it/W6fn5y had more to do with (a) his agreement with David Hawkins - see signature quote - which Wall assumes I have refuted, and (b) people such as myself who “ ‘imply’ that children are less than capable because of their socioeconomic status.” [Non-subscribers to Math-Learn can access Wall’s post by taking a minute to “Join this List” at the Math-Learn archives http://yhoo.it/fF6D9w.]

Here I refute Wall’s 2 points with emphasis on Wall’s incorrect point 2b: “people such as myself ‘imply’ that children are less than capable because of their socioeconomic status.” On the contrary, I implied that children in poverty are less capable of academic achievement than children not in poverty.

I think that children in poverty are probably just as inherently capable as children not in poverty, but societal and home factors conspire against their academic achievement. For example many of them: (a) are subjected to poor teaching, (b) attend dilapidated schools with high student and teacher turnover, (c) have academically uninvolved parents, (d) partake of few out-of-school enrichment activities, (e) have limited access to books, (f) receive inadequate nutrition, (g) live in slums, (h) come from broken families, (i) are threatened by gang violence, (j) have few academic role models, and (k) suffer from environmental hazards such as lead poisoning.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52

“. . .I will look primarily at our traditions and practices of early schooling through the age of twelve or so. There is little to come after, whether of joys or miseries, that is not prefigured in these years.”
- David Hawkins (2001) in The Roots of Literacy, p. 3.

“Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that more than 40 percent of the variation in average reading scores and 46 percent of the variation in average math scores across states is associated with variation in child poverty rates. . . . . Can anyone credibly believe that the mediocre overall performance of American students on international tests is unrelated to the fact that one-fifth of American children live in poverty”
- Ladd & Fiske (2011)

“For the short term, preparing teachers in mathematics and science is a wise and useful step toward improving schools. As quickly as possible, we must understand the link between poverty and educational outcomes in the U.S., devise solutions, and finally test and implement them. . . . . I hope that proponents of teacher quality and charter schools will recognize the weakness of a single-minded approach before it is too late, and that we will not damage public education, let down our most vulnerable students, and lose technical leadership we take for granted.”
- Michael Marder (2012)


REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 19 Jan 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013a. “Barriers to Better K-12 Math Education: Poverty and the Inadequate Undergraduate Education of Prospective K-12 Teachers,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/V6azOZ. Post of 16 Jan 2013 15:40:33 -0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/SPOkQ8 with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2013b. “Effects of Poverty on U.S. Children's Educational Achievement Redux,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/VC0jza. Post of 19 Jan 2013 09:49:56-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Hawkins, D. 2001. The Roots of Literacy. University of Colorado Press. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/h3cbtf.

Ladd, H.E. & E.B. Fiske. 2011. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” New York Times Opinion Piece, 11 Dec.; online at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub.

Marder, M. 2012. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics,” Journal of Scholarship and Practice 9(1): 8-25; the entire issue is online as a 2.7 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/KPitWM, scroll down to page 8.

Re: The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post “Re: The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty” [Hake (2012)]. An abstract is:

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ABSTRACT:
Diane Ravitch in her hard hitting "Diane Ravitch's blog" http://dianeravitch.net/ wrote in an entry "The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty" at http://bit.ly/RfuGY4:

“Poverty. Lots of talk about the middle class. Tax cuts for the middle class. Saving the middle class. Doing more for the middle class. Not one word about poverty. No mention that nearly 25% of the children in the world's richest nation live in poverty. Not one word.”

The overriding influence of poverty on educational achievement has been noted in, e.g. (alphabetical order by author):

1. “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” [Berliner (2005)], at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj;

2. "Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success" [Berliner (2009)] at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

3. “Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances” [Duncan & Murnane (2011a)] at http://bit.ly/nCkmKv;

4. “Economic inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem,” [Duncan & Murnane (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/rv3rMO.

5. “To Improve Schools, Fight Poverty, Education Expert Says” [Gosier (2011)], online at http://bit.ly/qyrBSL - the expert is Stephen Krashen http://bit.ly/Ui9xm1;

6. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2” [Hake (2011a)] at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn;

7. “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain?” [Hake (2011b)], online at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ;

8. "Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? #3” [Hake (2011c)], online at http://bit.ly/jy61UB;

9. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” [Ladd & Fiske (2011)] at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub;

10. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data” [Marder (2011)] at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF;

11. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics” [Marder (2012)] at http://bit.ly/KPitWM;

12. “The hard bigotry of low expectations and low priorities” [Ravani (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/sUZ17T;

13. “Unaddressed Link Between Poverty & Education” [Schaffer (2011)] at http://bit.ly/tbckql.
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To access the complete 8 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/QJWvds.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52

“Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that more than 40 percent of the variation in average reading scores and 46 percent of the variation in average math scores across states is associated with variation in child poverty rates.”
- Ladd & Fiske (2011)

REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 04 Oct 2012.
Hake, R.R. 2012. “Re: The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty,” online on the OPEN AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/QJWvds. Post of 4 Oct 2012 12:56:14-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. An abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists..

Ladd, H.F. & E.B. Fiske. 2011. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” New York Times, Opinion Piece, online at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub.

The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post
“The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement” [Hake (2011)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Why Minnesotans Excel at Math and Other Mysteries of the Nation's Report Card” [Hake (2011)], EDDRA2’s Gary Ravani wrote (paraphrasing): “That children in Minnesota and Massachusetts excel at math could be explained by the fact that those two states have child poverty rates (14% and 15% respectively) well below the national rate of 22%.”

The overriding influence of poverty on educational achievement has recently been noted in, e.g. (alphabetical order by author):

a. Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances [Duncan & Murnane (2011)] at http://bit.ly/nCkmKv;

b. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2” [Hake (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn;

c. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” [Ladd & Fiske (2011)] at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub;

d. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality” [Marder (2011a)] at http://bit.ly/fjUquC;

e. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data” [Marder (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF;

f. “The hard bigotry of low expectations and low priorities” [Ravani (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/sUZ17T;

g. “Unaddressed Link Between Poverty & Education” [Schaffer (2011)] at http://bit.ly/tbckql.
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To access the complete 9 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/tUU65W.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“. . .let's not pretend that family background does not matter and can be overlooked. Let's agree that we know a lot about how to address the ways in which poverty undermines student learning. Whether we choose to face up to that reality is ultimately a moral question.”
Ladd & Fiske (2011)

REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 14 Dec 2011.]
Hake, R.R. 2011. “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/tUU65W. Post of 14 Dec 2011 09:56:02-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Ladd, H.E. & E.B. Fiske. 2011. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” New York Times Opinion Piece, 11 Dec; online at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2

Some blog followers might be interested in “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems” [Hake (2011)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: ARN-L’s Bob Schaeffer (2011) in a post “Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems” alluded to a Chicago Tribune Op. Ed. http://bit.ly/rv3rMO of that title by Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane (2011a), drawn from a book http://bit.ly/nCkmKv Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances [Duncan & Murnane (2011)].

Regarding the influence of economic inequality on K-12 education, some subscribers might also be interested in these six items:

1. “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” [Berliner (2005)], online as an 872 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj ;

2. “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success” [Berliner (2009)], online as a 729 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

3. “To Improve Schools, Fight Poverty, Education Expert Says” [Gosier (2011)], online at http://bit.ly/qyrBSL - the expert is Stephen Krashen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Krashen ;

4. “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? ” [Hake (2011a,b)], online at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ and http://bit.ly/jy61UB;

5. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality” [Marder (2011a)], online as a 3.3 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/fjUquC;

6. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data, ” online at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF [Marder (2011b)], online at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF.

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To access the complete 15 kB article please click on http://bit.ly/ozuZEn.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi
http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com
http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“For the short term, preparing teachers in mathematics and science is a wise and useful step toward improving schools. . . . . .[But]. . . As quickly as possible, we must understand the link between poverty and educational outcomes in the US, devise solutions, and test and implement them. Britain briefly tried to substitute public relations for aircraft safety and paid with the loss of its commercial aviation sector. I hope the United States can avoid a similar error, that proponents of teacher quality and charter schools will recognize the weakness of the evidence before it is too late, that we will not damage public education, let down our most vulnerable students, and lose technical leadership we take for granted.”
Michael Marder (2011)


REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 12 Oct 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn. Post of 11 Oct 2011 19:59:34-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists.

Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain? #3

Some blog followers might be interested in discussion-list post “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? #3” [Hake (2011b)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In a previous post titled “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain?” I pointed to the analyses of physicists Michael Marder and Dhruv Bansal (2009) at http://bit.ly/hYbbLe, which suggested that “educational outcomes for students from wealthy and poor families are very different in Texas.”

More recently Reeve Hamilton (2011) in a recent report in the Texas Tribune titled “Is Poverty the Key Factor in Student Outcomes?” http://bit.ly/mpkki0 did an excellent job of showcasing Marder's (2011) work by means of an interview and video clips of Marder explaining his graphs of mathematics achievement vs poverty concentration in Texas.

Hamilton wrote: “[Marder] sat down with the Tribune to talk about the role of poverty in educational outcomes, why he thinks charter schools are not necessarily the answer, and why he likes to think of the public education system as a Boeing airplane. . . . .[[more accurately, the dysfunctional British de Havilland Comet whose malfunction, like the malfunction of the U.S. K-12 educational system, was continually misdiagnosed - see Marder (2011) at http://bit.ly/fjUquC.]]. . . .

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To access the complete 15 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/jy61UB.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University

Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands

President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which

Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi

http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com

http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“For the short term, preparing teachers in mathematics and science is a wise and useful step toward improving schools. . . . . .[But]. . . As quickly as possible, we must understand the link between poverty and educational outcomes in the US, devise solutions, and test and implement them. Britain briefly tried to substitute public relations for aircraft safety and paid with the loss of its commercial aviation sector. I hope the United States can avoid a similar error, that proponents of teacher quality and charter schools will recognize the weakness of the evidence before it is too late, that we will not damage public education, let down our most vulnerable students, and lose technical leadership we take for granted.”

Michael Marder (2011)

REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 3 May 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “Is the 'Teacher Effect' the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ. Post of 7 Apr 2011 17:51:59-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/ifvkSz.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Is the 'Teacher Effect' the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” #3” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/jy61UB. Post of 3 May 2011 13:02:37-0700. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.

Marder, M. 2011. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality,” to be submitted, online as a 3.3 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/fjUquC. See also Marder & Bansal (2009).