Achievement disparities are often attributed to socioeconomic factors. According to 2009 data from the Census Bureau, of all children younger than 18 living in families, 15.5 million live in poverty, defined as a family of four with less than $21,947 per year. This includes 4.9 million, or about 10 percent, of non-Hispanic white children, and one in three black and Hispanic children, at 4 million and 5.6 million, respectively (Annie E. Casey Foundation 2011). According to a seminal study of language development in 1995, by age 4, children in poverty have smaller vocabularies and lower language skills than children from middle-income families. Research has also shown that dropout rates tend to be higher for children who live in poverty. According
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In the 1990s, the controversial book, The Bell Curve, claimed that gaps in student achievement were the result of variation in students’ genetic makeup and natural ability—an assertion that has since been widely discredited. Many experts have since asserted that achievement gaps are the result of more subtle environmental factors and “opportunity gaps” in the resources available to poor versus wealthy children. Being raised in a low-income family, for example, often means having fewer educational resources at home, in addition to poor health care and nutrition. At the same time, studies have also found that children in poverty whose parents provide engaging learning environments at home do not start school with the same academic readiness gaps seen among poor children generally (U.S. Department of Education, 2000; Viadero, 2000, Sparks, …show more content…
Analyses by The Education Trust, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, and others have found that students in poverty and those who are members of racial minority groups are overwhelmingly concentrated in the lowest-achieving schools. For example, in California, black students are six times more likely than white students to attend one of the bottom third of schools in the state, and Latino and poor students are nearly four times as likely as white students to attend one of the worst-performing third of schools (EdTrust West, 2010). Likewise, research has shown that good teaching matters (The Teaching Commission, 2004; Hanushek, Kain & Rivkin, 1998), and that poor and minority students tend to have less access to the most effective, experienced teachers with knowledge in their content field. One study of 46 industrialized countries found the United States ranked 42nd in providing equitable distribution of teachers to different groups of students: For example, while 68 percent of upper-income 8th graders in the U.S. study sample had math teachers deemed to be of high-quality, that was true for only 53 percent of low-income students (Braeden,
In the 1990s, the controversial book, The Bell Curve, claimed that gaps in student achievement were the result of variation in students’ genetic makeup and natural ability—an assertion that has since been widely discredited. Many experts have since asserted that achievement gaps are the result of more subtle environmental factors and “opportunity gaps” in the resources available to poor versus wealthy children. Being raised in a low-income family, for example, often means having fewer educational resources at home, in addition to poor health care and nutrition. At the same time, studies have also found that children in poverty whose parents provide engaging learning environments at home do not start school with the same academic readiness gaps seen among poor children generally (U.S. Department of Education, 2000; Viadero, 2000, Sparks, …show more content…
Analyses by The Education Trust, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, and others have found that students in poverty and those who are members of racial minority groups are overwhelmingly concentrated in the lowest-achieving schools. For example, in California, black students are six times more likely than white students to attend one of the bottom third of schools in the state, and Latino and poor students are nearly four times as likely as white students to attend one of the worst-performing third of schools (EdTrust West, 2010). Likewise, research has shown that good teaching matters (The Teaching Commission, 2004; Hanushek, Kain & Rivkin, 1998), and that poor and minority students tend to have less access to the most effective, experienced teachers with knowledge in their content field. One study of 46 industrialized countries found the United States ranked 42nd in providing equitable distribution of teachers to different groups of students: For example, while 68 percent of upper-income 8th graders in the U.S. study sample had math teachers deemed to be of high-quality, that was true for only 53 percent of low-income students (Braeden,