Class in the Classroom: Why Middle-Class Students Are Being Left in the Dust

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/class-classroom-why-middle-class-students-are-being-left-dust




While America's rich are getting richer, evidence seem to indicate they are getting smarter—or at least better in school—as well.

Nationwide, until around 1980, middle- and upper-income students performed at around the same level in schools. The gap that existed then was between them and students from low-income families.

Now, though, rich students have pulled away from the middle-income ones—as far away as middle-income students are from their low-income counterparts.

"Just as the incomes of the affluent have grown much more rapidly than those of the middle class over the last few decades, so, too, have most of the gains of educational success accrued to the children of the rich," Sean Reardon, a Stanford professor who's documented this trend, has written.

[KurtNYC]

1. The writer only vaguely defines "middle class" and bases the whole article on what happens in NYC

She then jumps over and says it is (also) about race in the middle of her article.

Stuyvesant and other magnet schools in NYC are open to all students from the greater NYC school system who apply and make the cut. When I worked for the Red Cross we got a lot of kids from Stuyvesant who were prepping for a career in medicine. They were learning triage hands-on from EMTs, helping with blood drives and doing outreach in low income communities. To my knowledge their parents were not rich, certainly not 1% level rich. If anything defined the group it was having parents who were involved and who set high standards. We were right next to LaGuardia HS (the "Fame" magnet school) and those kids were certainly not 1%ers either.

To make the case that any group is being "left in the dust" one would have to show that 1) progress is being made (eg improvement overall in the level of education being attained), and 2) the group in question is not part of the progress. I think this writer did neither.

I would be curious to know how Stuyvesant (free tuition) kids perform against those coming out of Calhoun ($41K/yr) and Trinity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high_schools_in_New_York_City_%E2%80%93_Manhattan

[liberal_at_heart]

2. I know a lot of people are trying to dispel the idea that money can buy an education.

But there is no doubt there is an intentional effort on the part of some people to decrease the funding for public schools while simultaneously increasing accountability. How can this not have an impact on the quality of education our children are getting? If we don't want an achievement gap we must demand more funding for our public education, much more funding than is available now, and we must demand a better approach to evaluating how our teachers and students are doing, a more holistic approach.

[KurtNYC]

3. I agree with what you're saying but the article was about something else.

There is an effort to increase the number of kids going to private schools and to create a pipeline of tax money for them through "vouchers." They are using the term "accountability" to defund schools which are already in trouble.

In this article, which seems to be aimed at wanting the middle class to envy the upper class in yet another way, any alleged gap in achievement is poorly defined and poorly documented. We can't hope to narrow a gap, of whatever size, without better metrics than simply comparing dollars spent to test scores. Better to ask: "What works?" and then "what is the most efficient way to deliver that to as many young students as possible?"

The lack of stats in the article sent me searching for some. Here are SAT scores by income and race and they show a steady climb with income level. The biggest jumps are between $20K and $40K, and between $40K and $60K but again this doesn't look at dollars spent per student or if different methods produce different SAT scores:

http://domesatreview.com/content/sat-test-demographics-income-and-ethnicity

[liberal_at_heart]

4. The public schools are trying to force my special education student to perform at grade level thanks

to Race to the Top and Common Core Curriculum. So if I could put my son in private school right now I would. If democrats don't want parents to use vouchers to send their kids to private school then democrats need to stop supporting Race to the Top and Common Core Curriculum and start fighting for real funding for public schools. I don't see the democrats doing either of those things.