Just whose Children Are Not Being Taught to Read Well?

There has been much discussion of late, and many articles in The New York Times, about the state of education in this country; often about how well children are being taught to read. However, contrary to much of what is said about American education, in fact, most students, 73% to be exact, are taught their basic skills well, including reading.

We can celebrate that 73%.? We know who they are: most of those in private schools, of course; most Asian American children (particularly those whose families are from the Indian subcontinent); children in families prosperous enough for them to be ineligible for the National School Lunch Program; children of college-educated parents and Hispanic children who are not English-language learners.

Is that good enough?? It depends on your point of view, whether it is that of those who are in the seventy-three percent or those who are not.

To adapt Hemingway’s remark, the families of those students who are doing well are different from the others, they have more money and are better educated. Children who do not benefit from what Phil Schlechty used to call “pre-conception IQ,” children who were not born into those privileged families, depend on the schools for their education, depend, for example, on their schools teaching them how to? read. As we are interested in the quality of education available to all students from schools, not only that available at home, we are concerned with the educational progress of the 27% of eighth grade students who have not been taught to read well.? Theirs is the most meaningful point of view from which to consider the condition of American public education, as most children depend on school for their education.

There is a tool available to help us understand this issue:? The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a U.S. Department of Education initiative, often called “the gold standard” of educational testing.? Every two years, NAEP surveys student performance in each state, and some school districts, in Reading and Mathematics—those essential basic skills—and a few other subjects, at grades four, eight and twelve.? NAEP considers its “Basic” level as the point at which students had been educated well enough to read and write at the level standard for their grade in school

NAEP is particularly useful as it provides not only an over-all determination, but also a variety of specific analyses, such as family income (determined by eligibility for the National School Lunch Program, approximately $55,500); status as an English Language Learner; Parental Education level and race/ethnicity. (It is important to note that data concerning Hispanic outcomes vary enormously based on whether or not English Language Learners are included. That should be obvious, but is not often considered.)?

The focus here will be on student reading achievement in eighth grade, as by then students will have benefitted from many years of education in addition to what may—or may not—have been provided by the home environment before beginning school and relatively few students have dropped out. NAEP eighth grade achievement levels also change little by twelfth grade and using eighth grade data rather than twelfth grade data avoids problems with “senioritis” and such contaminants.

Nearly half of Black students in eighth grade, 46%, ?have not been taught to read grade-level material (NAEP’s “Basic” and better), nor have 42% of American Indian/Alaska Native students, 28% of Hispanic students, 22% of White students and 9% of Asian/Pacific Islander students.

If we include English Language Learners when projecting those eighth grade achievement percentages k-12, we can estimate that of the slightly less than 50 million k-12 students in the United States, 13.3 million, including 5 million White students, 3.4 million Black students and 3.9 million Hispanic students, are not taught the basic skill of reading to the level needed to understand their school work well enough to prepare them for college and careers.

Who are they?

If we consider only students from lower income families, those who are eligible for the National School Lunch program, those with incomes under $55,500, who are not English Language Learners, slightly more than half, 52%, of Black students and one-third of that group of White and Hispanic students are left below the Basic level in eighth grade, as are 14% of Asian/Pacific Islander students.? Most Black students are eligible for the National School Lunch program.

Relatively poor White and Hispanic students and most Black students are not taught to read well enough to read and fully understand their school assignments?

Why is that?

Part of the reason is money: The American property-tax basis for funding education, which is nearly unique among developed countries, is made even more inequitable by the enormous variation from one school district’s to another’s economic level. Almost everywhere that urban schools, in particular, are failing, socioeconomically similar children are being taught much more effectively in the nearest more prosperous suburban districts.

In many other countries school funding is need-based, in the U.S. it is, in effect, family-income-based, which matters as education expenditure is associated with educational achievement. Further, family income is often a product of parental education: college educated adults, with higher incomes, can supplement the education provided by their good neighborhood schools with after-school, weekend and summer extra-curricular educational resources.? Lower income adults, with lower levels of education themselves, cannot. In particular, Black adults have lower incomes than White adults for the same jobs and are less likely than White adults, with equal qualifications, to be hired for high paying careers.

For Black students another part of the reason for lesser achievement is racism; not the racism of attitudes, but that of decisions, administrative decisions: placing the best teachers in schools with the “best” students; equipping schools, in effect, in accordance with parental income; offering more gifted and talented classes to White students. These are common decisions by administrators who may deny that they are racist, who may, indeed, be supporters of the NAACP, and yet who make those “realistic,” racist decisions.

Our schools are staffed with many wonderful, dedicated, teachers and many are led by equally dedicated principals.? In districts across the country they are all too often working against the grain, as it were, of a structurally racist system.

#education #reading #racism