Poverty and Educational Outcomes
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Transcript of Poverty and Educational Outcomes
Poverty and Educational Outcomes
Prof. Bill CarbonaroDept. of SociologyApril 2008
Poverty and Educational Outcomes
OUTCOMES Academic Achievement (How much students
learn) Test scores, grades, cognitive abilities (e.g., literacy,
numeracy, problem solving, IQ)
Educational Attainment (How far students go in school)
High School, GED, Two-Year College, Bachelor’s, Graduate School
Quiz #1: Test Scores and Family Income
TEST
SCORES
INCOME
Poverty
(1) Which line (a, b, or c) looks most correct?
(2) Explain why.
A: Diminishing Returns
B: Linear Relationship
C: Threshold Effect
Income and Test Scores
0
20
40
60
mean of testscores
<$10K 10-15K 15-20K 20-25K 25-35K 35-50K 50-75K75-100K100-200K>200K
Relationship between Income and Test Scores is LINEAR – (1) There is no special penalty for poverty status, and (2) No diminishing returns to income
TENTH GRADE READING/MATH SCORES (2002)
Income and Test ScoresMEAN DIFFERENCES across groups, lots of overlap in the distributions
SES vs. Poverty
Effects of POVERTY are UNDERSTUDIED relative to the effects of SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS (SES)?
Is poverty equivalent to low SES?
SES Parents’ Education Parents’ Income Parents’ Occupation
KEY POINT: Income (and poverty status) is more variable over time; the other components of SES (education and occupation) are more fixed
POVERTY
Table 16-2. Percentage of children who demonstrate specific mathematics knowledge and skills, by child, family, and school characteristics: Spring 5th grade, 2004
Characteristic
Multiplication Place Rate and Area and
and division value measurement Fractions volume
Total 92.4 73.5 42.9 13.2 1.8
Mother’s highest level of education, spring 2004
Less than high school (22.2 % Poor) 80.2 47.0 18.5 3.5 0.5
High school diploma or equiv (9.2%) 90.3 67.5 33.9 7.2 0.8
Some college or vocational technical degree (5.9%) 94.4 76.2 42.9 10.8 1.3
Bachelor’s degree or higher (3.2%) 98.3 90.4 65.8 28.4 4.0
Poverty status,2 kindergarten through spring 2004
Below, all rounds 81.1 44.8 16.1 3.0! 0.2
In and out of poverty 89.6 65.6 31.3 6.2 0.6
At or above, all rounds 96.2 84.0 55.1 19.2 2.7
Education is also strongly related to academic skills
Duration of exposure to poverty (short-term vs. long term poor)
Causal Pathways
POVERTYMEDIATING VARIABLES
???
EDUCATIONALOUTCOMES
Kozol: “Savage Inequalities” Model
POVERTYPOOR
SCHOOLS
POOR EDUCATIONAL
OUTCOMES
CLARIFICATION: The main idea here is that schools CAN COMPENSATE for disadvantages of family life. If we make schools good enough, they can offset the pernicious effects of poverty on achievement and attainment. Kozol argues that our current system reinforces and likely exacerbates pre-existing inequalities in family background.
School Sorting and Income: Class Segregation
School Sorting and Income: Class Segregation
25% Chance5% Chance
School Poverty and Achievement
21.2% 16.7% 23% 18.5% 20.7% =100%
Family Background vs. School Context:
INCOME ACHIEVEMENT
SCHOOL COMPOSITION
HYPOTHESIS 1: RELATIONSHIP IS LARGELY SPURIOUS
Family Background vs. School Context
INCOME ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL
COMPOSITION and SCHOOL
QUALITY
HYPOTHESIS 2: INCOME SORTS STUDENTS INTO DIFFERENT TYPES OF SCHOOLS; SCHOOLS TRANSLATE INCOME DIFFERENCES INTO ACHIEVEMENT DIFFERENCES
Family Background vs. School Context
INCOMEACHIEVEMENT
SCHOOL COMPOSITION and SCHOOL
QUALITY
HYPOTHESIS 3: INCOME HAS BOTH DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS ON ACHIEVEMENT
Quiz #2
Which hypothesis is best supported by the data?
Explain why
Achievement by School SES Composition
Higher SES families appear more sensitive to school SES
Variation in Achievement by School SES
50%
Lots of variation within schools; achievement distributions for different types of schools overlap substantially
The Coleman Report (1966)
MAIN FINDINGSFamily Background is the STRONGEST
predictor of student achievement Most of the variation in achievement is
WITHIN (80%), not BETWEEN (20%) schoolsOnly a few school characteristics mattered for
achievement YES: Race and SES composition, teacher quality
(verbal ability) NO: School spending, resources, etc.
Beyond the Coleman Report
Subsequent Research has supported the main conclusions of Coleman’s research
SOME CAVEATS While most of the variation in achievement
levels is WITHIN schools, most of the variation in achievement GROWTH is BETWEEN schools, not WITHIN Different in rates of achievement GROWTH are largely explained differences in school factors
More recent evidence suggest that SCHOOL SPENDING is modestly related to achievement
Family Background vs. School Context
INCOME
(SES)
ACHIEVEMENT
SCHOOL COMPOSITION and SCHOOL
QUALITY
HYPOTHESIS 3 (DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS) HAS THE MOST SUPPORT
+++
+ +
** SES has much stronger effects that simply income alone (apart from parents’ education and occupation)
How Can we Explain Kozol?
EXTREME OUTLIERS TRUE: The most disadvantaged groups are in very
bad shape, and they desperately need our attention ALSO TRUE: they are a small part of a much larger
problem Long term, inner city poor make up a small portion of the poor in America (7-15%)
BUT, THE POOR ARE A HETERGENEOUS POPULATION Being “income poor” does NOT necessarily mean that
you are low on other aspects of SES This heterogeneity weakens the overall relationship
between poverty and achievement
** KOZOL is right – these schools are very bad, and the students in them desperately need our help
A Theory of Student Learning
THREE KEY INGREDIENTS1. OTL (Opportunities to Learn)
Structure (Malleable, but not by students) Between and within: schools, families, neighborhoods, peer
groups
2. EFFORT Agency (within our control) . . . But also sensitive to social context via expectations family,
peers, teachers, neighborhoods, etc.
3. ABILITY Learning Rate vs. Capacity Innate vs. Learned
SES and poverty affect ALL THREE
OTL: Spending across DistrictsSpending between low and high poverty districts not that different on average
Spending may NOT be the best measure of school based OTL
OTL: School Conditions and School Poverty
OVERALL – Most schools are in reasonably good condition. High Poverty schools slightly more likely to be in bad shape.
OTL: Resources ConstraintsLearning hindered by: poor building conditions, poor heat/light/air, poor fine arts facilities, poor science labs, lack of space, poor library, lack of texts, few computers, lack of multimedia, lack of discipline, and vocational facilities.
OTL: Teacher Quality and School PovertyTable 15-2. Percentage of public school 4th-graders, by percentage of students in the school eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and selected teacher and school characteristics: 2005
Students in school eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch
Teacher or school characteristic
10 percent 11–25 26–50 51–75 More than 75
or less percent percent percent percent
Total 100 100 100 100 100
Number of years spent teaching
4 or less 17 17 18 22 28
5–9 26 24 23 24 31
10–19 29 28 28 27 24
20 or more 28 31 31 27 18
PROB: “Years teaching” not a great measure of teacher quality
OTL: Teacher Quality and School Poverty
OUT OF FIELD TEACHING (Much better measure of teacher quality)
OTL: Teacher Quality and School Poverty
NATIONAL TEACHER EXAMS IN NEW YORK CITY
Highest School Poverty Quintile
42% of Elementary School Teachers failed AT LEAST ONCE
Lowest School Poverty Quintile
16% of elementary School Teachers EVER FAILED
** TEACHER TESTS ARE VERY GOOD PREDICTORS OF TEACHERS QUALITY
OTL: Home EnvironmentFamily risk factors include living below the poverty level, primary home language was non-English, mother’s highest education was less than a high school diploma/GED, and living in a single-parent household, as measured in kindergarten.
SES achievement gaps are already present when students start kindergarten
And they get bigger as students progress through school
Summer Learning vs. School Learning
AC
HIE
VE
ME
NT
K G1 G2 G3Summer Summer Summer Summer
HIGH SES
LOW SES
Both high and low SES experience higher rates of achievement growth during the school year
Students in these studies are tested at the beginning and end of each school year
Summer Learning vs. School Learning
ACHIEVEMENT GAP BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW SES STUDENTS FROM GRADES 1-5
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Summer Gap School Gap
Math
Reading
The SES gap is almost entirely attributable to unequal rates of growth during the summer
High and low SES student learn at roughly the same rate during the school year.
Home Environment
Measured at Nine Months Old
Home EnvironmentEARLY LITERACY ACTIVITIES: Percentage of prekindergarten children ages 3–5 who participated in home literacy activities with a family member three or more times in the preceding week, by poverty status: 1993 and 2005
A More Nuanced View: Duration of Exposure and Timing of Poverty Duration of poverty and outcomes
The longer the exposure to poverty, the more negative the effect on students outcomes
** Since most poverty is short-term, the overall effects are small for most of the distribution
A More Nuanced View: The Timing of Poverty and its Effects EARLY (Pre-K and Elementary)
Significant effect on student ability (i.e., how fast they learn and process information)
Likely due to interactions between genes and the environment
LATE (Middle School and Adolescence) Significant affects on achievement (i.e., school based
learning) Likely due to access to learning opportunities in
school and student effort
Peers, Neighborhoods, and Poverty
Friends, Peers, and “the Crowd”
ADOLESCENTS are influenced more heavily by friends, peers, and “the crowd” than their families
HOWEVER – families are often instrumental in DETERMINING their children’s friends/peers
Peers, Neighborhoods, and Poverty
FAMILIES shape friends, peers via:
Choice of residence, neighborhoods
Choice of school Shaping students’ tastes,
expectations Monitoring, supervision of
activities
POVERTY (and SES) IMPOSES CONSTRAINTS ON ALL OF THESE
Poverty and Educational Attainment EDUCATION is the best
defense against POVERTY as an adult
SES Quartiles and College Attainment
00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9
1
No PSE Some PSE BA or More
Low SES-Q
Middle SES-Q
High SES-Q
Enormous SES differences in post-secondary education (PSE)
Attainment and SES
BACHELORS
Low-achieving/high SES students and high achieving/low SES students have the same chance of getting a BA!
Low SES students: Chances of BA attainment much more sensitive to school experiences
How Does Poverty Affect Educational Attainment?
DIRECTLY – Insufficient resources to pay for college
INDIRECTLY – Through low achievement and self-selection out of the college pipeline
Thinking about Poverty and Educational Outcomes
It’s all about probabilitistic (NOT DETERMINISTIC) relationships!
IMAGINE A GAME OF CARDS
POVERTY DECK
16 P
84 N-P
P
N-P
HOME ENVIRON
MENT
P
HOME ENVIRON
MENT
N-P
FRIENDS, PEERS
N-P
FRIENDS, PEERS
P
SCHOOL N-P
SCHOOL
P
RESOURCE DECKS
Thinking about Poverty and Educational Outcomes
If you draw a “P” card, the resource decks are stacked against you; if you draw a N-P, they are stacked in your favor
Our EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES are shaped by how we all play the game:
(1) How you play your hand matters (choices), but (2) So does the HAND that you are DEALT (structure)!
Students in poverty can succeed, but the odds are stacked against them.
What to Do?
CHANGE THE RULES OF THE GAME
POVERTY DECK
16 P
84 N-P
P
N-P
HOME ENVIRON
MENT
FRIENDS, PEERS SCHOOL
RESOURCE DECKS
CHANGE THE ODDS
Make everyone pick from the same deck
What to Do?
1. Prevent families from falling into poverty in the first place (Changes in labor markets, family support systems)
2. Avoid SES segregation of students; concentrations of students in poverty (by school or neighborhood) should be avoided
3. Provide extra resources to help poor students succeed in K-12 (More instructional time, more time with high quality teachers, tutoring, etc.)
4. Give poor students HOPE: (a) labor market opportunities and (b) vocational and post-secondary schooling opportunities
What to Do?
HOW DO WE ACCOMPLISH ITEMS 1-4?!?
A reasonable first step: Persuade the public that high levels of inequality are bad for the economy.
GOOD NEWS an easy case to make!