I just read a fascinating opinion piece in the New York Times entitled “No Rich Child Left Behind.” I wasn’t surprised by what I was reading. There is a significant gap in education success between high-income families and those of lower socio-economic status. This we know and have known for years. What did surprise me is how much the gap has grown over the past few decades. The author, Sean Reardon, found the gap in test scores is around 40 percent larger than it was 30 years ago. He also found that the income test score gap is considerably larger than the black-white test score gap. “Family income is now a better predictor of children’s success in school than race.”
I found this shocking and disturbing, given what has seemed to be a great deal of focus and resources dedicated toward closing the achievement gap over the years. But, as I continued reading, what I found even more surprising was the author’s conclusion for why this rapid widening of the gap has occurred. After reviewing a significant amount of historical data, particularly related to family income, he found that the academic gap is widening because the rich keep getting richer. As income inequality rises (which it has substantially over the past decade) rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than even middle-class students, much less poorer students. Which means that wealthier students are not only better prepared to succeed in their first years of schooling, but ultimately better prepared to succeed in life as a whole. This supports what we know about the critical importance of early childhood education as building the foundation for education success.
So, could it be that we, as a nation, have been focusing on the wrong issues when working to eliminate these educational disparities? Much of the strategies to close the achievement gap have focused on improving teacher quality and failing schools and we have made some great progress, yet the gap continues to widen and at such a rapid pace. The author suggests that we must also focus on the relationship between family income and educational success and he makes some suggestions for how to address these challenges. In reviewing his suggestions, it is clear that our work to build cradle to career cross-sector education partnerships is particularly relevant as it will take the combined efforts of business, philanthropy, government and education sectors to close these gaps or better yet, prevent them from occurring.
First, improving outcomes in early childhood education must continue to be a focus for cradle to career partnerships. If states and the federal government are not going to do the right thing and increase investments in this area, then it is imperative that local partnerships really dig into the early childhood data, identify what is working and align resources to expand these practices, with a specific focus on ensuring greater access and equity when it comes to high-quality early childhood experiences.
Next, cross-sector cradle to career partnerships are uniquely well-positioned to advocate for more family-friendly policies, such as more generous maternity and paternity leave policies or access to high quality childcare. These types of policies will enable parents to have the flexibility and resources to spend more time supporting and teaching their children. In fact the business partners at the table of cradle to career partnerships could set the precedent by implementing these policies for their own employees.
There are so many things that partnerships can do to help prevent and eliminate gaps, but what is perhaps the key lesson learned from this particular issue, and so many other education issues, is that it all starts with data. Just as the author of this piece used data to understand the growing problem of income disparities, cradle to career partnerships must take the finest cut at the data – digging into student data and monitoring important contextual data in order to get at the root cause of the issue and address it head on before the gaps occur. Only when we have looked at disaggregated data as a community, can we be prepared to have the tough conversations and take the appropriate action that are so critical to reversing this trend. If the achievement gap begins well before children reach kindergarten, then an ounce of prevention is most definitely worth a pound of cure.
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