Poverty and Educational Outcomes

1. Poverty and Educational Outcomes Prof. Bill Carbonaro Dept. of Sociology April 2008

2. Poverty and Educational Outcomes OUTCOMES • Academic Achievement (How much students learn) • Test scores, grades, cognitive abilities (e.g., literacy, numeracy, problem solving, IQ) • Educational Attainment (How far students go in school) • High School, GED, Two-Year College, Bachelor’s, Graduate School

3. Quiz #1: Test Scores and Family Income Poverty A: Diminishing Returns TEST SCORES B: Linear Relationship C: Threshold Effect • Which line (a, b, or c) looks most correct? • Explain why. INCOME

4. Income and Test Scores Relationship between Income and Test Scores is LINEAR – (1) There is no special penalty for poverty status, and (2) No diminishing returns to income TENTH GRADE READING/MATH SCORES (2002)

5. Income and Test Scores MEAN DIFFERENCES across groups, lots of overlap in the distributions

6. SES vs. Poverty • Effects of POVERTY are UNDERSTUDIED relative to the effects of SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS (SES)? • Is poverty equivalent to low SES? • SES • Parents’ Education • Parents’ Income • Parents’ Occupation KEY POINT: Income (and poverty status) is more variable over time; the other components of SES (education and occupation) are more fixed POVERTY

7. Education is also strongly related to academic skills Duration of exposure to poverty (short-term vs. long term poor)

8. Causal Pathways MEDIATING VARIABLES??? EDUCATIONALOUTCOMES POVERTY

9. Kozol: “Savage Inequalities” Model POOR EDUCATIONALOUTCOMES POOR SCHOOLS POVERTY CLARIFICATION: The main idea here is that schools CAN COMPENSATE for disadvantages of family life. If we make schools good enough, they can offset the pernicious effects of poverty on achievement and attainment. Kozol argues that our current system reinforces and likely exacerbates pre-existing inequalities in family background.

10. School Sorting and Income: Class Segregation

11. School Sorting and Income: Class Segregation 25% Chance 5% Chance

12. School Poverty and Achievement 21.2% 16.7% 23% 18.5% 20.7% =100%

13. Family Background vs. School Context: INCOME ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL COMPOSITION HYPOTHESIS 1: RELATIONSHIP IS LARGELY SPURIOUS

14. Family Background vs. School Context SCHOOL COMPOSITION and SCHOOL QUALITY INCOME ACHIEVEMENT HYPOTHESIS 2: INCOME SORTS STUDENTS INTO DIFFERENT TYPES OF SCHOOLS; SCHOOLS TRANSLATE INCOME DIFFERENCES INTO ACHIEVEMENT DIFFERENCES

15. Family Background vs. School Context SCHOOL COMPOSITION and SCHOOL QUALITY ACHIEVEMENT INCOME HYPOTHESIS 3: INCOME HAS BOTH DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS ON ACHIEVEMENT

16. Quiz #2 Which hypothesis is best supported by the data?  Explain why

17. Achievement by School SES Composition Higher SES families appear more sensitive to school SES

18. Variation in Achievement by School SES Lots of variation within schools; achievement distributions for different types of schools overlap substantially 50%

19. The Coleman Report (1966) • MAIN FINDINGS • Family Background is the STRONGEST predictor of student achievement • Most of the variation in achievement is WITHIN (80%), not BETWEEN (20%) schools • Only a few school characteristics mattered for achievement  • YES: Race and SES composition, teacher quality (verbal ability) • NO: School spending, resources, etc.

20. Beyond the Coleman Report Subsequent Research has supported the main conclusions of Coleman’s research SOME CAVEATS • While most of the variation in achievement levels is WITHIN schools, most of the variation in achievement GROWTH is BETWEEN schools, not WITHIN  Different in rates of achievement GROWTH are largely explained differences in school factors • More recent evidence suggest that SCHOOL SPENDING is modestly related to achievement

21. Family Background vs. School Context SCHOOL COMPOSITION and SCHOOL QUALITY + + ACHIEVEMENT INCOME (SES) +++ HYPOTHESIS 3 (DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS) HAS THE MOST SUPPORT ** SES has much stronger effects that simply income alone (apart from parents’ education and occupation)

22. How Can we Explain Kozol? • EXTREME OUTLIERS • TRUE: The most disadvantaged groups are in very bad shape, and they desperately need our attention • ALSO TRUE: they are a small part of a much larger problem  Long term, inner city poor make up a small portion of the poor in America (7-15%) • BUT, THE POOR ARE A HETERGENEOUS POPULATION • Being “income poor” does NOT necessarily mean that you are low on other aspects of SES • This heterogeneity weakens the overall relationship between poverty and achievement ** KOZOL is right – these schools are very bad, and the students in them desperately need our help

23. A Theory of Student Learning SES and poverty affect ALL THREE THREE KEY INGREDIENTS • OTL (Opportunities to Learn) • Structure (Malleable, but not by students) • Between and within: schools, families, neighborhoods, peer groups • EFFORT • Agency (within our control) . . . • But also sensitive to social context via expectations family, peers, teachers, neighborhoods, etc. • ABILITY • Learning Rate vs. Capacity • Innate vs. Learned

24. OTL: Spending across Districts Spending may NOT be the best measure of school based OTL Spending between low and high poverty districts not that different on average

25. OTL: School Conditions and School Poverty OVERALL – Most schools are in reasonably good condition. High Poverty schools slightly more likely to be in bad shape.

26. OTL: Resources Constraints Learning hindered by: poor building conditions, poor heat/light/air, poor fine arts facilities, poor science labs, lack of space, poor library, lack of texts, few computers, lack of multimedia, lack of discipline, and vocational facilities.

27. OTL: Teacher Quality and School Poverty PROB: “Years teaching” not a great measure of teacher quality

28. OTL: Teacher Quality and School Poverty OUT OF FIELD TEACHING (Much better measure of teacher quality)

29. OTL: Teacher Quality and School Poverty NATIONAL TEACHER EXAMS IN NEW YORK CITY Highest School Poverty Quintile 42% of Elementary School Teachers failed AT LEAST ONCE Lowest School Poverty Quintile 16% of elementary School Teachers EVER FAILED ** TEACHER TESTS ARE VERY GOOD PREDICTORS OF TEACHERS QUALITY

30. OTL: Home Environment Family risk factors include living below the poverty level, primary home language was non-English, mother’s highest education was less than a high school diploma/GED, and living in a single-parent household, as measured in kindergarten. SES achievement gaps are already present when students start kindergarten And they get bigger as students progress through school

31. Summer Learning vs. School Learning HIGH SES Both high and low SES experience higher rates of achievement growth during the school year LOW SES ACHIEVEMENT Students in these studies are tested at the beginning and end of each school year K G1 G2 G3 Summer Summer Summer Summer

32. Summer Learning vs. School Learning ACHIEVEMENT GAP BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW SES STUDENTS FROM GRADES 1-5 The SES gap is almost entirely attributable to unequal rates of growth during the summer High and low SES student learn at roughly the same rate during the school year.

33. Home Environment Measured at Nine Months Old

34. Home Environment EARLY LITERACY ACTIVITIES: Percentage of prekindergarten children ages 3–5 who participated in home literacy activities with a family member three or more times in the preceding week, by poverty status: 1993 and 2005

35. A More Nuanced View: Duration of Exposure and Timing of Poverty • Duration of poverty and outcomes The longer the exposure to poverty, the more negative the effect on students outcomes ** Since most poverty is short-term, the overall effects are small for most of the distribution

36. A More Nuanced View: The Timing of Poverty and its Effects • EARLY (Pre-K and Elementary) • Significant effect on student ability (i.e., how fast they learn and process information) • Likely due to interactions between genes and the environment • LATE (Middle School and Adolescence) • Significant affects on achievement (i.e., school based learning) • Likely due to access to learning opportunities in school and student effort

37. Peers, Neighborhoods, and Poverty Friends, Peers, and “the Crowd” ADOLESCENTS are influenced more heavily by friends, peers, and “the crowd” than their families HOWEVER – families are often instrumental in DETERMINING their children’s friends/peers

38. Peers, Neighborhoods, and Poverty FAMILIES shape friends, peers via: • Choice of residence, neighborhoods • Choice of school • Shaping students’ tastes, expectations • Monitoring, supervision of activities POVERTY (and SES) IMPOSES CONSTRAINTS ON ALL OF THESE

39. Poverty and Educational Attainment EDUCATION is the best defense against POVERTY as an adult

40. SES Quartiles and College Attainment Enormous SES differences in post-secondary education (PSE)

41. Attainment and SES Low SES students: Chances of BA attainment much more sensitive to school experiences Low-achieving/high SES students and high achieving/low SES students have the same chance of getting a BA! BACHELORS

42. How Does Poverty Affect Educational Attainment? DIRECTLY – Insufficient resources to pay for college INDIRECTLY – Through low achievement and self-selection out of the college pipeline

43. Thinking about Poverty and Educational Outcomes It’s all about probabilitistic (NOT DETERMINISTIC) relationships! IMAGINE A GAME OF CARDS RESOURCE DECKS FRIENDS, PEERS P HOME ENVIRONMENT P SCHOOL P POVERTY DECK P 16 P N-P HOME ENVIRONMENT N-P 84 N-P FRIENDS, PEERS N-P SCHOOL N-P

44. Thinking about Poverty and Educational Outcomes If you draw a “P” card, the resource decks are stacked against you; if you draw a N-P, they are stacked in your favor Our EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES are shaped by how we all play the game: • How you play your hand matters (choices), but • So does the HAND that you are DEALT (structure)! Students in poverty can succeed, but the odds are stacked against them.

45. What to Do? CHANGE THE RULES OF THE GAME CHANGE THE ODDS RESOURCE DECKS Make everyone pick from the same deck POVERTY DECK P FRIENDS, PEERS HOME ENVIRONMENT SCHOOL 16 P N-P 84 N-P

46. What to Do? • Prevent families from falling into poverty in the first place (Changes in labor markets, family support systems) • Avoid SES segregation of students; concentrations of students in poverty (by school or neighborhood) should be avoided • Provide extra resources to help poor students succeed in K-12 (More instructional time, more time with high quality teachers, tutoring, etc.) • Give poor students HOPE: (a) labor market opportunities and (b) vocational and post-secondary schooling opportunities

47. What to Do? HOW DO WE ACCOMPLISH ITEMS 1-4?!? A reasonable first step: Persuade the public that high levels of inequality are bad for the economy. GOOD NEWS  an easy case to make!