The Why of Student Inequality

It’s understandable why newspapers are having problems these days. Their subscribers can get whatever they need from the Internet. And for those of us who browse it daily, it’s impressive what’s there to be found.

Just a few days ago I visited the site of Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a non-profit research and grantmaking organization claiming to be dedicated to advancing evidence-backed ideas and policies promoting strong, stable, and broad-based economic growth, where I happened upon their article titled “Income inequality affects our children’s educational opportunities.” From this I learned:

“One of the clearest manifestations of growing economic inequality in our nation today is the widening educational achievement gap between the children of the wealthiest and the children of everyone else … wealthier families are able to afford expensive private schools, or homes in wealthy public school districts with more educational resources … wealth and income largely define the educational gap today … how can we prepare every child, not just those most affluent ones, to be productive members of society? We must invest in children’s early childhood educational opportunities … in short, we can narrow the socioeconomic education gap through public policies that help parents of all incomes provide enriching educational opportunities for their children in the way that only affluent parents can do today.”

Though I understand what the Washington Center is advocating, something just doesn’t seem right. The implication is by simply pumping money to our less affluent citizens, the educational abilities of their progeny will somehow improve to match that of the offspring of the wealthier members of society.

I can only think back to the 2009 Race to the Top program of President Obama wherein 5-year grants ranging from $75 million to $700 million were instituted as a part of the educational policies promoted by the administration to accomplish precisely the same thing. They proved to be as ineffectual as did President George W. Bush’s 2001 No Child Left Behind endeavor.

Although there’s no doubt the scholastic performance of the more favored socioeconomic members of society outpace those at the lower end, I nonetheless question whether there’s a direct relationship between affluence and intellectual ability.

I recollect an earlier time in America, known as the Great Depression of the 1930s, when I attended Ramsey Elementary School in St. Paul, Minnesota. I can recall only one of my classmates, Carlton West, whose father headed the legal publishing firm West Publishing Company, qualified as extremely well-to-do; the rest of us huddled together in the same unfunded boat.

Several families got by on the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal project, Works Progress Administration (WPA), at 25¢ per hour. Many others eked out a living as best they could. I’m told my father sold needles and thread door-to-door, to put food on the table. Nonetheless, most of we kids attended to our studies, and some of us did remarkably well.

Incidentally, as for my good friend Carlton, he performed mostly on a par with the rest of us. It became clear to me at the time a student’s academic performance is not something related to the parents’ net worth.

As for the why of student inequality, we’re in luck. Someone spent much of a lifetime involved in just this quagmire. His name: Matthew Lynch. He’s the Dean of the School of Education, Psychology, & Interdisciplinary Studies and an Associate Professor of Education at Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia.

With a bachelor’s degree in psychology from University of Southern Mississippi, and both master’s and PhD in education from Jackson State University, Dr. Lynch spent a number of years teaching both social studies and special education in Mississippi – an experience giving him a view of the challenges facing education inequality. He authored and edited a number of books on school reform and his articles and op-eds appear regularly in various publications.

What are Dr. Lynch’s views on this matter? He acknowledges the socioeconomic status of children and their families has a profound effect on the children’s education, but due to ramifications far more complex than simple deprivation of money.

Children living in the lowest socioeconomic homes regularly come to school without having had enough sleep, or sufficient breakfast. They often experience family violence, abuse, secondhand smoke, neglect, and inadequate clothing.

These circumstances reduce the child’s readiness for school because it leads to poor physical health and motor skills, diminishes a child’s ability to concentrate and remember information, and reduces attentiveness, curiosity, and motivation. Dr. Lynch then describes – in the following graphic manner – how these factors result in what we’ve come to recognize as the poor performance of a large portion of American youth.

“Many low-socioeconomic status children face emotional and social instability. Typically, the weak or anxious attachments formed by these infants become the basis for full-blown insecurity during the early childhood years. Very young children require healthy learning and exploration for optimal brain development. Unfortunately, in these families there tends to be a higher prevalence of such adverse factors as teen motherhood, depression, and inadequate health care, all of which lead to decreased sensitivity toward the infant and, later, poor school performance and behavior on the child’s part.

Children raised in such families are much less likely to have these crucial needs met than their more affluent peers are and, as a result, are subject to grave consequences. Deficits in these areas inhibit the production of new brain cells, alter the path of maturation, and rework the healthy neural circuitry in children’s brains, thereby undermining emotional and social development and predisposing them to emotional dysfunction.”

As you see, Dr. Lynch views the educational inequities among the economic groups as little more than a side issue. If his analysis is even partially correct, simply throwing government money at the problem indiscriminately will never begin to correct the inherent defects.

Perhaps, more to the point, this is a societal dilemma where there may be no practicable solution. If so, then we have an equally irresolvable political dilemma, inasmuch as the quest for student equality is now an epic contest in which huge sums of money are involved. Whether or not allocation of funds results in scholastic improvement is of no concern.

The groups involved – credentialed instructors, The American Federation of Government Employees, professional lobbyists, nonprofit educational organizations, charter school advocates, as well as many others – are politically powerful and they want no cessation of programs offering student equality. Although it’s unlikely any of them care a whit whether the students whose well-being they appear to be championing actually benefit in any way, they quite understandably want a continuation of the money flow.

You may be interested to note certain other nations manage to operate their schools without experiencing the problems we do. One is Finland, which establishes no mandatory standardized tests except at the conclusion of the final year. In addition their school days are shorter and there’s little homework assigned. Nonetheless, their nation’s scores and rankings consistently outperform ours.

The same is true for both Singapore and South Korea, whose students do better than ours while their cost per student per year remains less. There are obviously factors at play other than how the lessons are taught or how many dollars are devoted to each student.

A final thought: During the years I served as a classroom instructor, I discovered the educational process requires almost no expenditure of funds. I assigned lessons for the students to learn; the students’ primary task was one of comprehension; my job was to assist in the learning process with whatever expertise I might offer; and the final step was testing to see if the students succeeded in mastering the material assigned.

Schooling is nothing more than this; whatever else is added is not a part of education.

Al Jacobs, a professional investor for nearly a half-century, issues weekly financial articles in which he shares his financial knowledge and experience. Al can be contacted at al@abjacobs.com.