"6th graders in the richest school districts are 4 grade levels ahead of children in the poorest districts."

[kubiac]

Is there already a thread discussing this NYT infographic?

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html

 

The poor are screwed and the rich are terrified, as per this Atlantic piece which came out today:
 

"At its core, this relentless drive to spend any money available comes not from a desire to consume more lattes and own nicer cars, but, largely, from the pressure people feel to provide their kids with access to the best schools they can afford (purchased, in most cases, not via tuition but via real estate in a specific public-school district). Breaking the bank for your kids’ education is, to an extent, perfectly reasonable: In a deeply unequal society, the gains to be made by being among the elite are enormous, and the consequences of not being among them are dire. When understood mainly as a consequence of this rush to provide for one’s children, the drive to maximize spending is not some bizarre mystery, nor a sign of massive irresponsibility, but a predictable consequence of severe inequality."

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/american-financial-hell/481107/

[regentrude]

With the 30 million word gap at age 3, before school even starts, the data don't surprise me.

 

ETA: A few weeks ago I heard a report on NPR about increased school funding vs educational success. The conclusion was that it is not as easy as throwing more money at the problem. They had schools that spent twice the national average and had nothing to show for.

Edited May 5, 2016 by regentrude

[JumpyTheFrog]

I like how they did the graphics.

 

I really think someone should look into the outliers, such as the poor districts that still do well. What makes them different?

 

The racial breakdown was pretty similar to the economic one. In the comments, many people were annoyed that no data was included about districts that were highly Asian.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I like how they did the graphics.

 

I really think someone should look into the outliers, such as the poor districts that still do well. What makes them different?

 

The racial breakdown was pretty similar to the economic one. In the comments, many people were annoyed that no data was included about districts that were highly Asian.

 

Although which poor districts still do well?  In other words, does that exist at all?

[Arcadia]

With the 30 million word gap at age 3, before school even starts, the data don't surprise me.

Even in the same local public schools we see that happening. Other than asians, scores within the school correlate strongly with socioeconomic status.

 

Also the time and the money spent afterschooling math per month in k-8 per kid locally can easily be someone else's family grocery budget.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Even in the same local public schools we see that happening. Other than asians, scores within the school correlate strongly with socioeconomic status.

 

Also the time and the money spent afterschooling math per month in k-8 per kid locally can easily be someone else's family grocery budget.

 

It wouldn't have to cost that much.  My guess is that money in that case wouldn't be the biggest factor.

[regentrude]

Even in the same local public schools we see that happening. Other than asians, scores within the school correlate strongly with socioeconomic status.

"Other than Asians".

Playing devil's advocate a bit: If Asians can achieve academic success (more) independently of socioeconomic status, what can't others?

[umsami]

With the 30 million word gap at age 3, before school even starts, the data don't surprise me.

 

ETA: A few weeks ago I heard a report on NPR about increased school funding vs educational success. The conclusion was that it is not as easy as throwing more money at the problem. They had schools that spent twice the national average and had nothing to show for.

 

I heard this story about Kentucky on NPR a few weeks ago.... but it had a different result.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/26/475305022/kentuckys-unprecedented-success-in-school-funding-is-on-the-line

 

"She says the court's decision in 1990 — a sweeping victory for Wolfe County and the other districts — changed the education landscape throughout the Bluegrass State.

 

Lawmakers quickly passed legislation that amounted to a complete overhaul of the K-12 system. And by the mid 1990s, it was paying off. Reading and math scores shot up. More students were graduating and going on to college. A lot more.

 

"What Kentucky did in 26 years' time," says Blom Ramsey, "was bring itself up from the very bottom of the barrel in education rankings to the middle of the pack and above.""

[Laura Corin]

With the 30 million word gap at age 3, before school even starts, the data don't surprise me.

 

 

If it's anything like the UK, it's not just words.  I heard an interview with a head teacher in the East End of London who always takes new pupils (aged 4-5) to the park in the first week.  Because many of them have never been to a park/playground.  Even though there is an enormous safe park right next door.

 

http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/469945-victoria-park#ume0Se7ucVoFOmm7.97

 

Without outdoor time, children may not have the physical development to support their own bodies so that they can hold a pencil, not to mention lacking the brain development that is brought on by physical activity.  They also will not have learned that they can regulate their moods and energy by blowing off steam outside.

[SparklyUnicorn]

"Other than Asians".

Playing devil's advocate a bit: If Asians can achieve academic success (more) independently of socioeconomic status, what can't others?

 

I think they could.  I think part of it is people not valuing education.  That could be in part because some people don't see education as helping them in any real way. 

[JumpyTheFrog]

Although which poor districts still do well? In other words, does that exist at all?

I took another look. Let me rephrase. Within each economic group, there is a 2-3 grade spread. At the poor end, there are a few school districts that are just a tad below average rather than 2-3 grades. Why? Are they doing something that can be copied?

 

It was interesting how even the richest black districts generally did worse than poor white ones. Also, why do Latino ones generally do better than black ones, especially considering the percent of students who might still be learning English?

[ChocolateReignRemix]

"Other than Asians".

Playing devil's advocate a bit: If Asians can achieve academic success (more) independently of socioeconomic status, what can't others?

 

My first guess would be Asians in poorer districts tend to be newer immigrants, which means they have not been effected as greatly by generational poverty and racism. I don't have ant data in front of me, but I would also guess their family units tend to be more stable less likely to have children born out of wedlock.  You often find similar success rates among immigrants from Africa.

[regentrude]

If it's anything like the UK, it's not just words.  I heard an interview with a head teacher in the East End of London who always takes new pupils (aged 4-5) to the park in the first week.  Because many of them have never been to a park/playground.  Even though there is an enormous safe park right next door.

 

http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/469945-victoria-park#ume0Se7ucVoFOmm7.97

 

Without outdoor time, children may not have the physical development to support their own bodies so that they can hold a pencil, not to mention lacking the brain development that is brought on by physical activity.  They also will not have learned that they can regulate their moods and energy by blowing off steam outside.

No, it isn't just words. The words are just a symptom.

I have a friend who teaches K. Some kids who enter school never have colored with crayons or held a book.

At 25 ct for a box of crayons and free public library, this is not simply a question of finances, but one of culture..

[umsami]

"Other than Asians".

Playing devil's advocate a bit: If Asians can achieve academic success (more) independently of socioeconomic status, what can't others?

 

Culture plays a part.  Experience as well.  When you come from a country where you're competing with 1 billion people, when you see heartbreaking poverty every day, it's a different motivation.  There was a story recently, about a very poor family in Chinatown.  Even though they were living with 5 people in I want to say 350 square feet.  The kids still did tutoring, etc.  There was a piano under one of their beds.  Education was the priority. 

 

Used to work with a guy who was the director of our company's Indian division.  He said, "My secretary has an MBA from the top school."  When there are so many well qualified people and so much poverty.... education matters. 

 

In countries where college/university is a privilege...with state exams and such.... you prioritize education.

 

In Egypt, it seems like even if you're only middle class (which is nowhere near what our middle class is), you pay for a private school.  It's very common to send your kids to "language schools" which are basically immersion schools.  These are the norm for most private schools.  The expectation that you will at least be fluent in one additional language.   My nephews started school in either French or German plus English.  (Of course, Arabic is there too.)  When they hit I want to say middle school, they add in the other language.  Why? Probably tourism being such a big part of the Egyptian economy... as well as the fact that people often go to the UK, Germany, or France for work.

[Laura Corin]

It was interesting how even the richest black districts generally did worse than poor white ones. Also, why do Latino ones generally do better than black ones, especially considering the percent of students who might still be learning English?

 

That's interesting.  In the UK, it's poor white children who do worst, worse than black or Asian (the latter normally understood to be people with ancestry in the Indian subcontinent).

 

ETA: link

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27886925

Edited May 5, 2016 by Laura Corin

[JumpyTheFrog]

I found a chart somewhere in the last year that compared the funding of schools in high vs average vs low poverty districts. It was broken down by state. People are always saying schools in poor areas are severely underfunded, but almost across the board, the chart showed it wasn't true. They were getting statistically the same per student funded as the rest. Now perhaps they need more to hire more remedial/special ed teachers, but the idea that they are spending maybe half of what the rich districts spend doesn't seem to be true.

[FriedClams]

An absolutely fascinating infographic. So well done. Thanks for sharing. 

 

I live in the Deep South and compared to my sibling's kid's schools up north it's what I would expect - about a 2 year gap between our local schools and theirs. I have also looked at the "free lunch" statistics between the two - we run about +65% and they run about 7%. I also live in a university town, so that should skew us higher than normal for our area (and it does - the county schools are worse than the town schools). 

 

I wish there were an easy answer. I think it's a very,very deep issue that will require substantial culture shifting and runs so much deeper than money spent. The longer I live down here the more complications I see beyond "rich" and "poor". I plan on becoming a reading tutor or listener when my kids graduate. I am a big believer that a culture of literacy helps all aspects of education. I know it's probably lame, but maybe I can help one starfish (as the sappy metaphor goes). 

[Bluegoat]

"Other than Asians".

Playing devil's advocate a bit: If Asians can achieve academic success (more) independently of socioeconomic status, what can't others?

 

It's true of some other immigrant groups as well, including from Africa.  As far as I can see it is largely cultural - they want their kids to suceed, they put the time and effort into it, and they expect their kids to work hard to that end.  Doing well is not about self-fulfillment.

 

Apparently the effect disappears after a generation or so though.

 

I think there can be an element of luck too - some of the groups that typically do well have more issues if they happen to end up in a city where the kids of that ethnicity are being lured into gangs.

[JumpyTheFrog]

At 25 ct for a box of crayons and free public library, this is not simply a question of finances, but one of culture..

Unfortunately, if you ever question culture online, you get tend to immediately get branded a racist.

[umsami]

In a similar vein, I saw something on the evening news last night about a nonprofit organization that goes into the inner-city NYC schools and teaches the elementary kids how to ride a bike.  Ride a bike.  Something so basic to most people's childhood is, obviously, not so basic to inner-city kids who don't have a safe place to ride a bike, so they never learn how.  Many of the kids had never been on a bike before.

 

Having lived in Brooklyn, one issue can be storing the bike.  Does your apartment building allow you to store them under the stairs? Is it safe to do so?  Do you have locked storage in the basement?  Or do you have to cart it up to the 4th floor every time you want to use it.    It's so much easier to have bikes in a garage....that you wheel out whenever you want. :)

[regentrude]

Cato Institute on school funding. Interesting report.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa746.pdf

[SparklyUnicorn]

I found a chart somewhere in the last year that compared the funding of schools in high vs average vs low poverty districts. It was broken down by state. People are always saying schools in poor areas are severely underfunded, but almost across the board, the chart showed it wasn't true. They were getting statistically the same per student funded as the rest. Now perhaps they need more to hire more remedial/special ed teachers, but the idea that they are spending maybe half of what the rich districts spend doesn't seem to be true.

 

Oh yeah.  I hear this constantly from our district.  They scream about being underfunded.  The high school in our district is not even 1/2 a mile away from the high school in the neighboring district.  The graduation rate here is under 60%.  The rate in the neighboring district is 98%.  The other district spends quite a bit less per student. 

 

I realize in our district there are so many other factors that they have to deal with that the other district does not.  But how they can claim by comparison they are being underfunded, I don't totally get.  The only thing I can think of is if they are talking about extra funding for the neediest students, maybe the funding for the neediest students in the more well off district is greater than here.  If that is not why, I really have no other guess as to why.

[Bluegoat]

That's interesting.  In the UK, it's poor white children who do worst, worse than black or Asian (the latter normally understood to be people with ancestry in the Indian subcontinent).

 

My impression is that the black population in the UK is rather different than that in the US.

 

Where I am there is a real division as far as sucess within two similar elements.  The largest part of the black population is historically the same as the American population - they mostly came from the US after the Revolution, they have the same history until then, almost the same ethnicity, and the same religious background.

 

Their history here has in many ways mirrored that in the US, though it isn't identical.

 

There is a smaller black population with origins in Africa and the Caribbean that has arrived more recently.  They often live in the areas that are historically black here especially if they are first generation, but they still are far more likely to have higher education, be in a profession, or be small business owners.  (For example, I personally know two black doctors, both with origins in the Caribbean.)

 

I think blacks in the UK are more like the second group?

[pinkmint]

For my money I'm betting it has a lot to do with the students home lives. All the school funding in the world still can't deal with the realities that poverty often bring like lack of parental involvement, instability etc.

[SparklyUnicorn]

TBH, I don't blame some groups of people believing education is useless.  Because the fact of the matter is, the education provided is often useless.  It's a well known fact among certain people that just going to school is in and of itself not enough to have access to the most opportunities in the future.  So if parents know that and have the money to help with that, it can make a huge difference.  If you go to school and do everything you are told, chances are high that you aren't going to walk out of there with the same number of opportunities.  So imagine you went to school thinking this was your ticket out of that, and it wasn't at all...why bother.  Generation after generation of that...again, why bother.

[FaithManor]

With the 30 million word gap at age 3, before school even starts, the data don't surprise me.

 

ETA: A few weeks ago I heard a report on NPR about increased school funding vs educational success. The conclusion was that it is not as easy as throwing more money at the problem. They had schools that spent twice the national average and had nothing to show for.

This is very true. In the Highland Park school district (Detroit area) funding has been very, very high to try to combat the problem. However, education spending is probably not what is needed, but instead economic relief, community investment, family investment. They have a HUGE problem with crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, you name it, crumbling infrastructure, lack of economic opportunity, and it translates to not a lot of energy in the home for educational issues. The average kindergarten students begins school with a working vocabulary of a mind bogglingly low 25-100 words. That's it. Some do not speak in full sentences. These are not children who necessarily have learning disabilities or speech impediments either. These are children who are not having conversations in their homes, hearing conversations, being engaged in conversations, and most certainly not being read to during their formative years. These are homes in which it is entirely likely that children's books aren't even owned. These are homes in which five year olds do not know the difference between a horse and a cow, and may not recognize a picture of one, but the teacher is supposed to meet specific reading goals, writing goals, math goals...children who can't count to ten, don't know their own birthdays, but they need to count to 100 and recognize those numbers by the end of the first six weeks of school.

 

So yah, the outcome is pretty bleak. Of course the ACLU's answer to this a few years ago was to sue the teachers for not teaching kids to read. Yup...because that will make the whole thing better.  :banghead:  :banghead:  :banghead:

 

Giving more money to the school will not fix the home environment.

 

Meanwhile the parents that can manage to scrape together the means, get their kids the heck out of Dodge (as the saying goes), and think nothing of the sacrifices they have to make in order for their kids to get a better education.

[Arcadia]

Apparently the effect disappears after a generation or so though.

 

I think there can be an element of luck too - some of the groups that typically do well have more issues if they happen to end up in a city where the kids of that ethnicity are being lured into gangs.

The immigrant effect does reduce a lot one generation down until they find their kids not getting into academic lottery schools. Then the parents start questioning how much to push.

 

Gang issue is real among asians too. Quite a few asians we know move house to a smaller home with less gang activity area. Hubby has worked with many that are the boat people. They will move however often they need to provide as safe an environment as possible.

[regentrude]

TBH, I don't blame some groups of people believing education is useless.  Because the fact of the matter is, the education provided is often useless.  It's a well known fact among certain people that just going to school is in and of itself not enough to have access to the most opportunities in the future.  So if parents know that and have the money to help with that, it can make a huge difference.  If you go to school and do everything you are told, chances are high that you aren't going to walk out of there with the same number of opportunities.  So imagine you went to school thinking this was your ticket out of that, and it wasn't at all...why bother.  Generation after generation of that...again, why bother.

But if you look at the average incomes of high school dropouts vs people who at least finished high school, it would be obvious that going to school is not useless.

[TranquilMind]

"Other than Asians".

Playing devil's advocate a bit: If Asians can achieve academic success (more) independently of socioeconomic status, what can't others?

That's a good question.  What are lower income Asians doing that others are not?

[Shellydon]

It is all about the family/parents.  Schools cannot fix parents that do not care and do not do anything at all to help their children.

[SparklyUnicorn]

But if you look at the average incomes of high school dropouts vs people who at least finished high school, it would be obvious that going to school is not useless.

 

I don't know the stats on that. 

[JumpyTheFrog]

The district where I grew up, as of two years ago, was spending $17,000 per student, and it is a moderate COL area, not a high one.

 

ETA: My 3rd grade gym teacher makes over $90,000.

Edited May 5, 2016 by HoppyTheToad

[poppy]

It is all about the family/parents.  Schools cannot fix parents that do not care and do not do anything at all to help their children.

 

Do you think wealthy parents care more about their children? Or more about education?

[Bluegoat]

Do you think wealthy parents care more about their children? Or more about education?

 

I think a big part may be stability, but valuing education is a big one too.

[LucyStoner]

My niece and nephew- parents doing drugs and drinking before, during and after pregnancy. Printed material in the house from ages 0-5 limited to what was sent by me and my other brother and never read to them. Bedtime was laying on the floor or the couch in front of TVs instead of brushing teeth, getting in pajamas, reading a book and singing a song. Breakfast of snack cakes or fast food, often also in front of the TV. Homelessness, frequent moves and exposure to domestic violence. None of this merited loss of parental custody, per state authorities.

 

My brother grew up in the same culture as me. He endured no more or less hardship and poverty as me. It's more than culture. My SIL has relatives that are functional and don't live the way my niece and nephew were raised. It's addiction, mental illness, poverty, abuse dynamics and dysfunctional relationships.

 

Even with years of help and now qualifying for the honors English class, my 14 year old niece who is quite smart and talented, has a vocabulary which is smaller than my 7 year old son. I don't think my sons were born with any gifts my niece and nephew lack. They were just raised in a child centered, loving, educationally enriched environment with games, books, music and parents who weren't using or beating on anyone.

 

The educational attainment of the parents is a key predictor of the size of a 5 year olds vocabulary. Very little has been shown effective in closing that gap.

[MistyMountain]

Wow that is a huge gap! I recently read that they tracked school kids in Baltimore based on achievement and income. The kids actually made similar gains during the school year. The poor kids did gain skills in school but after returning from the summer the poor kids had a big slide in their skills and went down grade levels and the wealthy kids gained skills. They did start with less skills but the lag from the summers made a much bigger difference in the long run.

 

Kids who parents are wealthy can do lots of afterschool activities that are enriching, their parents can afford tutoring if need be, they can take additional academic classes and in the summer they continue with enriching activities and gain skills. Being in classes where higher achievement is expected also helps any student gain skills.

 

Another problem is that we have really bad neighborhoods that are highly segregated by income. In poor neighborhoods you cannot get a mortgage easily and that further holds the neighborhood back. Anyone who manages to better themselves leaves the neighborhood. The neighborhoods are cut off by highways so it is hard to get to jobs. The cultural organizations that existed in previously more mixed income neighborhoods leave. It becomes a neighborhood that does not function well with a lot of people out of work which also contributes to higher single parent families. Drugs become a way to make money in the neighborhood and to escape a bad reality. Then those drugs get longer sentences and bigger charges then comparable drugs that people with more money tend to use. It is also easier to catch people in those neighborhoods. It is a very vicious cycle.

 

It really makes me sad how pronounced the income gap is and how segregated we are here. The achievement gap between different incomes is too high. I do like what those few outlier schools mentioned do. I bet year round school and community cultural programs would help a lot. Any efforts to have more mixed neighborhoods and to build quality housing and improve access in bad neighborhoods would also help.

Edited May 5, 2016 by MistyMountain

[Dmmetler]

The 90/90/90 schools research is interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be easily transferable to other schools, and there is some evidence that the 90 cutoff for "high performing" is really more like "90% mastering a reasonable amount of content", but not at a level that would be considered high performing in other settings.

 

 

http://www.nsbsd.org/Page/705

[umsami]

It is all about the family/parents.  Schools cannot fix parents that do not care and do not do anything at all to help their children.

 

One issue is that parents who themselves did not receive a good education are often intimidated by schools/teachers/etc.  So that makes it even more unlikely that they will advocate on behalf of their children.

 

Then you add to the fact that if their education was lacking, do they feel comfortable helping their own child with homework.

[kubiac]

In a similar vein, I saw something on the evening news last night about a nonprofit organization that goes into the inner-city NYC schools and teaches the elementary kids how to ride a bike.  Ride a bike.  Something so basic to most people's childhood is, obviously, not so basic to inner-city kids who don't have a safe place to ride a bike, so they never learn how.  Many of the kids had never been on a bike before.

 

It also costs money to, you know, buy a bike. Not as much as a car, but enough that the new bike a kid might grow out of soon plus helmet and lock are significant expenses. 

 

Another "inequality of experience" story: My dad is a docent at the Getty Villa. The Getty Foundation pays for school buses to bring kids in for field trips. A meaningful number of the kids come up Pacific Coast Highway and say, "Wow, I've never seen the ocean before." They live in SoCal, but the ocean is so foreign to them they might as well live in Saskatchewan.

[Arcadia]

At 25 ct for a box of crayons and free public library, this is not simply a question of finances, but one of culture..

Crayons are free to used at the library. Just need to walk up to the librarian and ask. The librarians usually have a stockpile of coloring sheets too for the under 5 crowd. My kids were given many free books by the library just for showing up at library events.

 

However there is an element of finances when it comes to making full use of a library. I am at the library now with my kids. The younger kids at the library for storytime and other events are with moms, grandparents or nannies with an occasional WAHD.

While some events are on Saturdays, some people work on those days too.

 

I have a library I can walk too and many I can take a bus or light rail too. My public schools librarians pay comes from a bond measure so kids has access to a library at school. Libraries in dense city areas tend to be open six or seven days a week but we have seen libraries who are open twice a week due to funding issues. The bookmobiles to schools help with reaching more people who can just walk toddlers to the school grounds on bookmobile day.

 

There are African Americans who do very well in public school and those I know have stable incomes and grandparents helping with childcare. However there aren't enough of them in any of my local public schools to pull up the profile by race.

[kubiac]

I found a chart somewhere in the last year that compared the funding of schools in high vs average vs low poverty districts. It was broken down by state. People are always saying schools in poor areas are severely underfunded, but almost across the board, the chart showed it wasn't true. They were getting statistically the same per student funded as the rest. Now perhaps they need more to hire more remedial/special ed teachers, but the idea that they are spending maybe half of what the rich districts spend doesn't seem to be true.

 

I've always wondered what, besides corruption/graft/incompetence, is the sitaution at school districts with much higher spending-per-pupil but terribly low results. Is it the spending on assistants for many children with high needs, reading tutors, speech therapists and psychologists? Or something else? The money just doesn't seem to go as far but where does it go?

[zoobie]

I found a chart somewhere in the last year that compared the funding of schools in high vs average vs low poverty districts. It was broken down by state. People are always saying schools in poor areas are severely underfunded, but almost across the board, the chart showed it wasn't true. They were getting statistically the same per student funded as the rest. Now perhaps they need more to hire more remedial/special ed teachers, but the idea that they are spending maybe half of what the rich districts spend doesn't seem to be true.

That's only looking at state funding. One of my best friends lives in a top-ranked school district. Her elementary school is the only one with a minority white population. Their district doesn't fund aides for example. These salaries are paid for by PTO funds. Her school's PTO raised $24K, which wasn't enough to pay for even one aide. Other schools in her district raise hundreds of thousands. They have 25 kids in a K classroom with 1 teacher and no aides. The "rich" schools have 25 kids in a classroom with 1 teacher and 1 "aide" who also has a masters in early childhood education.

 

The disparity in outside funding is really apparent some districts in my state too, just from driving by the schools. There are city of Atlanta schools that look like they need to be condemned vs ones in the rich neighborhoods that look like posh private campuses. Same state funding.

[pinkmint]

There's a lot of reasons school funding doesn't mean much when the students live in poverty. Going to school hungry for one thing. I know this one from experience. It's hard to care about learning when your most basic needs are not met. Free or reduced lunch? You need a parent who cares enough to sign you up for it.

 

I'm not saying that poor parents are all neglectful but for whatever sad depressing reason it happens a lot.

[FaithManor]

Do you think wealthy parents care more about their children? Or more about education?

I think that is a complicated question. In terms of the Highland Park situation, I would not choose to categorize it as not caring about their kids. It is more of an issue of it requiring so much mental and emotional energy to just merely survive that there isn't anything necessarily left for worrying about things like education, reading aloud, buying good toys, having books in the house, finding time to get to a library (if that is even an option because for some there simply isn't money to make the journey outside their district to pay the fees to get a library card to return books every week to.....), or engage in educational play, etc. What would probably be the biggest benefit would be to make surviving a little easier on these parents so there is something left at the end of the day to put towards intentional parenting, education preparation. I mean if you can't afford a car and public transportation is dangerous to use or non-existent, you aren't taking your kids to the nice park, the nice library, the nice community center, five miles over.

 

The children then arrive at school in survival mode, things not being so great at home, and it takes most of their mental and emotional energy just to manage to deal with the chaos of their lives and that doesn't leave a whole lot of energy left for learning. It is a very vicious cycle.

[Murphy101]

But if you look at the average incomes of high school dropouts vs people who at least finished high school, it would be obvious that going to school is not useless.

But just trying to graduate is not getting an actual education.

 

That's just doing time until they can get out.

[regentrude]

I don't know the stats on that.

very quick search found this from 2012 (no time for thorough search now):

 

The average dropout can expect to earn an annual income of $20,241, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (PDF). That’s a full $10,386 less than the typical high school graduate, and $36,424 less than someone with a bachelor’s degree.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/by-the-numbers-dropping-out-of-high-school/

[regentrude]

Unfortunately, if you ever question culture online, you get tend to immediately get branded a racist.

Good that my post was about my local school district: our county is 91% white.

[Laura Corin]

 

There is a smaller black population with origins in Africa and the Caribbean that has arrived more recently.  They often live in the areas that are historically black here especially if they are first generation, but they still are far more likely to have higher education, be in a profession, or be small business owners.  (For example, I personally know two black doctors, both with origins in the Caribbean.)

 

I think blacks in the UK are more like the second group?

 

Most Black British people are descended from immigrants who came after WWII from the Caribbean to fill jobs such as nursing and rubbish collection, so there is not necessarily a family history of higher education.

 

More recently, there has been some immigration from Africa.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_British#History

[Arcadia]

That's a good question. What are lower income Asians doing that others are not?

Nag a lot (not kidding). Being "helicopter parents" when it comes to school work so when kids get a C at any age, they get help by asking relatives, paying for tutors, bartering for tutoring services.

 

It is not only lower income asians that are doing so. Lower income hispanic/latinos have been turning up at the libraries for homework help with volunteer tutors or using the library computer to access the free homework help service. A parent or relative drive or walk the children there. The parents also make full use of whatever free ESL services provided at the library for their kids. They turn up for spanish-english bilingual storytime and for summer reading programs. However its always the same families and local schools are about 1/3 hispanic/latino. My local K-8 school has about a thousand kids which means more than 300 kids declare as hispanic/latino. So its still a drop in the ocean but improving.

[regentrude]

dp

Edited May 5, 2016 by regentrude