Our Impoverished View of Educational Research

Abstract

This analysis is about the role of poverty in school reform. Data from a number of sources are used to make five points. First, that poverty in the United States is greater and of longer duration than in other rich nations. Second, that poverty, particularly among urban minorities, is associated with academic performance that is well below international means on a number of different international assessments. Scores of poor students are also considerably below the scores achieved by white middle-class American students. Third, that poverty restricts the expression of genetic talent at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Among the lowest social classes environmental factors, particularly family and neighborhood influences, not genetics, is strongly associated with academic performance. Among middle-class students it is genetic factors, not family and neighborhood factors, that most influences academic performance. Fourth, compared to middle-class children, severe medical problems affect impoverished youth. This limits their school achievement as well as their life chances. Data on the negative effect of impoverished neighborhoods on the youth who reside there is also presented. Fifth, and of greatest interest, is that small reductions in family poverty lead to increases in positive school behavior and better academic performance. It is argued that poverty places severe limits on what can be accomplished through school reform efforts, particularly those associated with the federal No Child Left Behind law. The data presented in this study suggest that the most powerful policy for improving our nations’ school achievement is a reduction in family and youth poverty.

ICT, Education Transformation, and Economic Development: An Analysis of the US National Educational Technology Plan

“…The future looks particularly bleak for our nation's minority students (Berliner, 2006;DarlingHammond, 2010). In terms of high school graduation, only about 51% of African American high school-age youth and 52% of Hispanic youth graduate from high school, compared with 72% of White youth (Barton, 2005).…”

Doet onderwijssegregatie ertoe?

“…Sterker nog, we moeten ons realiseren dat naar school gaan op zich niet voldoende is voor geslaagde participatie in de samenleving; er komen nog veel meer factoren bij kijken (Bernstein, 1970). Onderwijs-en maatschappelijke kansen worden bepaald door een complexe interactie van uiteenlopende factoren gelegen op het niveau van het kind, het gezin, de school, de buurt en de maatschappij als geheel (Berliner, 2006;Irizarry, 2012). Scholen, sociaal geintegreerd of niet, kunnen weinig voor de betreffende kinderen betekenen als dergelijke factoren hen niet gunstig gezind zijn.…”

Ensino superior de curta duração: a experiência norte-americana dos community colleges

“…At least this is what is suggested by a wealth of literature that is critical of the U.S. educational systems, that is focused on the theme of the American society's structural and unique inequality, unparalleled among the developed nations. In particular, the studies by, among others, David C. Berliner (2005), Jean Anyon (2005), and Norton Grubb & Marvin Lazerson (2004), seem to go to the core of the matter. 2 In their The education gospel..., Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson (2004) pointed to the risk of underestimating the educational effects of a non-educational factor: America's powerless Welfare State.…”

“…(TRAUB, 2000) The strength of this almost hypnotic belief should not be overlooked. Berliner (2005) takes the argument to extremes so as to suggest some form of unthinkable and unthought in American society that would not allow identification of the nature of the trauma and, therefore, of how to go about it, Perhaps we are not doing well enough because our vision of school reform is impoverished. It is impoverished because of our collective views about the proper and improper roles of government in ameliorating the problems that confront us in our schools; our beliefs about the ways in which a market economy is supposed to work; our concerns about what constitutes appropriate tax rates for the nation; our religious views about the elect and the damned; our peculiar American ethos of individualism; and our almost absurd belief that schooling is the cure for whatever ails society.…”