Last week, Rudy Crew and Pedro Noguera published an article titled “What It Takes to Truly Leave No Child Behind” in the ASCD Newsletter. Rudy Crew is a professor at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California and previously served as the Chancellor of New York City Schools from 1995-2000. Pedro Noguera is the Distinguished Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA.
Crew and Noguera write,
“Although it’s not often acknowledged as such, poverty is an educational issue. Children from households in poverty frequently underachieve in school and are less likely to graduate from high school and to enroll in college (Reardon, 2013). These patterns are not new. In fact, they are so deeply entrenched in American society that they’ve been normalized and accepted as inevitable.”
“However, it is important to note that poor children frequently underperform academically not because they are inherently incapable of learning, but because they typically have other needs that make learning and concentrating in school more difficult. For this reason, several scholars and advocacy organizations have urged policymakers to reframe the problem of disparities in educational outcomes as one caused by gaps in opportunity rather than gaps in achievement (Education Trust, 2021). By calling attention to the lack of opportunities for children in poverty, we are better able to identify gross and blatant inequities in their experiences. For example, compared to more affluent children, kids living in poverty are more likely to experience food and housing insecurity, more likely to have unmet health needs, and more likely to be exposed to violence and suffer from adverse childhood experiences (O’Day & Smith, 2016). All these challenges have educational implications because they often undermine a child’s ability to concentrate or attend school on a regular basis.”
“To make matters worse and more complicated, poor children are most likely to attend school with other poor children (Noguera, 2022). Throughout the United States, children who live in poverty tend to be concentrated in schools that lack the resources required to address their academic and social needs. Poor children, especially poor Black, Latino, and Native American children, are less likely to be taught by qualified teachers; less likely to attend schools equipped with libraries, laboratories, music programs or school nurses; and less likely to attend schools where Advanced Placement courses are offered (Bishop & Noguera, 2019). The concentration of poverty in America’s schools, combined with the array of social and academic needs that are common among poor children, generally makes the task of addressing their educational needs more difficult.”
“For all these reasons, the challenges facing students in poverty and the schools they attend can be characterized as an ‘accumulation of disadvantages’ that severely limits their opportunities within and outside of school.”
“When the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted in 2001, with great fanfare and bipartisan support, many skeptics, particularly those of us who had worked for many years in America’s urban schools, questioned whether its focus on academic standards and professional accountability would be enough to significantly improve outcomes for children in poverty. Our skepticism was rooted in an understanding that poor children needed much more than the law provided. From our knowledge of the research and our direct experience, we knew that the harsh social conditions in most of America’s cities, where poverty is concentrated and pervasive, mean that children need both a challenging, academically enriched education and a variety of social supports. These supports include high-quality preschool and after-school programs; arts, music, and sports programs; and supplemental nutrition, healthcare, and counseling. Neither NCLB nor successor federal initiatives such as Race to the Top and The Every Student Succeeds Act have offered these to high-poverty schools (Hill, Jeffries, & Murray, 2017).”
“The failure of U.S. education policy to address poverty has contributed to the lack of progress that has become glaringly evident. A 2021 report by the Children’s Defense Fund found:
Less than half of children born into household and neighborhood poverty are ready for school at age five, compared with 78 percent of their wealthier peers.
More than 75 percent of lower-income 4th and 8th grade public school students were not proficient in reading or math in 2019, compared with less than 50 percent of high-income 4th grade and less than 55 percent of high-income 8th grade students.
More than 77 percent of Hispanic and more than 79 percent of Black 4th and 8th grade public school students were not proficient in reading or math in 2019, compared with less than 60 percent of white students.
During the 2017-18 school year, 19 percent of Black, 21 percent of Hispanic, and more than 26 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native public school students did not graduate on time, compared with only 11 percent of white students.
Today, dropout rates for students 16- to 24-years-old who come from low-income families are seven times higher than those from families with higher incomes.”
“Recent data from the National Assessment of Education Progress shows that the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing disparities in student achievement, and that poor children again experienced the greatest losses (Modan, 2022). This makes the problem all the more urgent. To meet the challenges of the present moment, our country need vision, institutional engagement, collaboration across the sectors, political leverage, and incentives to truly leave no child behind. To produce the writers, technologists, scientists, musicians, plumbers, farmers, entrepreneurs, and untapped talent that our economy needs, we have to go all-in to fight poverty.”
A sobering picture indeed!
And the fact that our public school system has never been successful in making poor learners smarter and stronger over the long term makes the picture dimmer than what Crew and Noguera present.
What’s the answer? That will be our focus in tomorrow’s column.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
Leave a comment