Blame for School Achievement Gap Misplaced
New report urges policymakers to address poverty in order to increase
student learning
Contact: Teri Battaglieri – (517) 203-2940;
greatlakescenter@greatlakescenter.org
David Berliner – (480) 861-0484; berliner@asu.edu
EAST LANSING, Mich., (March 9, 2009) – A new report argues that
out-of-school factors related to poverty are the major cause of the
achievement gap that exists between poor and minority students and the
rest of the student population. This is in direct contrast to current
federal education policies that are based on the belief that public
schools should shoulder the blame for lack of achievement on the part
of impoverished students.
“Schools are told to fix problems that largely lie outside their
zone of influence,” says David Berliner, Regents Professor of
Education at Arizona State University and author of the report Poverty
and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, which was
released today by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and
Practice.
Berliner’s report comes as debate continues over the renewal of
the No Child Left Behind Act, which imposes stiff accountability
measures on schools in return for federal aid. NCLB requires public
schools to demonstrate “adequate yearly
progress” toward the eventual elimination of gaps in achievement
among all demographic groups of students and imposes a variety of
sanctions if they fall short.
Berliner says that NCLB’s accountability system is “fatally
flawed” because it holds schools accountable for student
achievement without regard for the out-of-school factors that affect it.
“This report provides exactly the type of information that should
guide education policy,” says Teri Battaglieri, Director of the
Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. “It
clearly explains why poverty must be directly addressed by those
interested in closing the achievement gap, and it makes the case for
spending our resources on strategies that will significantly impact
student learning.”
Berliner’s report reviews six out-of-school factors that have
been clearly linked to lower achievement among poor and minority-group
students: birth weight and non-genetic parental influences; medical
care; food insecurity; environmental pollution; family breakdown and
stress; and neighborhood norms and conditions. In addition, he notes a
seventh factor: extended learning opportunities in the form of summer
programs, after-school programs, and preschool programs. Access to
these resources by poor and minority students could help mitigate the
effects of the other six factors.
Because of the extraordinary influence of the six factors identified in
the report, Berliner cautions that “increased spending on
schools, as beneficial as that might be, will probably come up short in
closing the gaps.” Instead, he calls for an approach to school
improvement that would demand “a reasonable level of societal
accountability for children’s physical and mental health and
safety.”
“At that point,” he concludes, “maybe we can sensibly
and productively demand that schools be accountable for comparable
levels of academic achievement for all America’s children.”
Find David Berliner’s report, Poverty and Potential:
Out-of-School Factors and School Success, on the Web at:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org.
About The Great Lakes Center
The mission of the Great Lakes Center is to improve public education
for all students in the Great Lakes region through the support and
dissemination of high quality, academically sound research on education
policy and practices.
Visit the Great Lakes Center Web Site at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org.
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Lansing, MI 48826-1263 United States