Occupy Public Education—Blame the 1% for Low Test Scores

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

The following is a letter to the editor I sent to the S.F. Chronicle in response to their Sunday Insight editorial: "The end of No Child Left Behind."

Sunday’s Insight editorial suggested students and teachers need to work harder to improve educational outcomes, yet they are already working harder than ever. Many now have homework and test prep in kindergarten. Increasing numbers are taking and passing AP classes, including low income and minority students. Teachers are working longer to implement reforms to improve educational outcomes.

Pundits and critics fail to acknowledge that school failure is due far more to socioeconomic factors than teacher quality. Even conservative Hoover Institute researcher Erik Hanushek argues that test scores are only 10% attributable to teachers, while most school success comes from “out-of-school” factors like family income.

The smoking gun is that the achievement gap exists before children even start school. David Burkam and Valerie Lee observed 60% higher cognitive scores among affluent versus low income kindergarteners, while Betty Hart and Todd Risely found similar class-based differences in language development and IQ among three-year olds. The gap only increases over time, as affluent children participate in more enriching afterschool and summer activities; enjoy better attendance, diet, healthcare; and suffer less financial stress.

To see significant improvements in education, we must first close the wealth gap and ensure all students have material security at home.

While the above was submitted to the Chron to comply with their 200 word limit, I found the editorial troubling on several other accounts. The author implies that teachers unions stand in the way of progress by opposing using student test scores to rank schools and evaluate teachers, calling this the “show stopper,” without any reference to the fact that student test scores cannot measure teacher quality and, at best, are a measure of students’ family income or how bought into school they are.

There is no mention in the piece about the $20 billion or so that the state has ripped off from (and still owes to) public education over the past three years. There is no mention that California now has one of the five lowest rates of per pupil spending in the nation. The was no critique of high stakes tests and accountability or suggestion that they are all red herrings, at best, that allow us to continue to blame teachers and ignore the more salient causes of low student achievement.

NCLB and all high stakes testing and accountability regimes need to tossed out the window. If only 10% of school success is attributable to teachers and they are already working harder than ever, it is certainly time to start addressing the other 90% of school success.

Interestingly, since most of this 90% is due to growing poverty and poor school funding, it can be directly linked to the increasing wealth of the 1%, who, by demanding record low income, business, capital gains and inheritance taxes, help ensure  that states lack the revenues to fund education. Their wealth, luxury and security are only possible by keeping their taxes low relative to ours and by keeping their wages and profits high compared to our incomes.

Therefore, while the Occupy movement, the 99%-ers, blame the 1% for their own bleak job prospects and declining standards of living, the 1% is also far more responsible than teachers for declining educational outcomes. Without increased taxes on the richest Americans, schools will continue to be defunded each year. Without increased wages and living standards for workers, poverty will persist or worsen, increasing the numbers of children who come to school malnourished, ill, homeless, and stressed.

Punished For Having Too Many Poor Black and Latino Students

A federal civil rights investigation found that LAUSD has been failing to effectively teach its English Language Learners and black students and, as a result, will lose federal funding if it cannot rectify the problem promptly, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. The school district agreed to sweeping changes in order to remedy the problem, despite its huge budget shortfall.

As usual, policy makers are conflating the symptom with the cause. There is no question that black and Latino children are doing poorly in LAUSD schools, as they are throughout the country. But there is no logical reason to believe that it is the fault of the district or its teachers or that the district is guilty of institutional racism.

Black and Latino children are the poorest in the country (over 35% of whom are living below the poverty line). Poverty and other “out-of-school” factors have a substantially greater influence on student achievement than curriculum, teacher quality, school structure or any other “in-school” factor (see here, here, here, here and here).

Blaming LAUSD for low achievement by these students is misguided, naïve and completely disregards the facts. By ignoring poverty and societal racism and doing nothing to mitigate them, LAUSD will necessarily see continued low performance for the majority of these children and will still lose the federal funds. This shell game does, however, let policy makers and affluent members of society off the hook.

According to the Times, the Department of Education launched its probe last year, to see if English Language Learners (ELLs), the majority of whom were Latino, were receiving adequate instruction. LAUSD has more ELLs (about 195,000, or 29% of its total enrollment) than any other school district in the United States. As a result of pressure by local activists, the investigation was widened to include African American students, who make up about 10% of the district's enrollment.

In order to satisfy the feds, LAUSD agreed to provide students learning English and black students with more “effective” teachers. However, this is just more of the “blame the teacher” game and a continued denial of the socioeconomic, cultural and political influences on the problem.

LAUSD certainly could hire more experienced veteran teachers who have undergone extensive training in English language development and literacy. They could provide greater professional development opportunities for teachers to gain these skills. They could provide smaller class sizes so that teachers can give more attention to struggling students. They could offer additional language and literacy support classes. There are numerous other reforms they could implement, as well. However, all of these reforms cost money, something the district currently lacks, and they do nothing to address the underlying socioeconomic causes of low student achievement.

Arne Duncan visited Los Angeles and joined L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to praise the district’s cooperation. Both are pleased because it gives them another weapon to attack teachers, while doing nothing substantive or effective to help improve schools or support struggling children.

Not surprisingly, student test scores will be used to measure whether the reforms are working. LAUSD is one of the few major school districts in the nation to implement value-added methods for assessing teachers. With the pressure on L.A. schools and teachers to preserve federal funding by improving test scores for black and Latino students, the district will have greater leverage in using value-added measures to fire teachers, despite the inaccuracy and inconsistency of this form of assessment or the fact that teacher quality is only one tiny factor that influences student performance.