Quote of note:
Although rarely recognized, minority children seem to learn as much in school as their white counterparts, and on some measures, their gains are greater. For instance, an analysis of scores from the highly regarded National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that black eighth-graders in 1998 gained more in reading from the time they were fourth-graders than whites. Although schools can do much more to improve minority performance, big causes of the continuing gap in overall achievement are that disadvantaged children start out so far behind, and their education gets less support after school and during the summer break. The best opportunities for smart investments to boost minority performance further may lie outside the regular school day.
Tests suggest this because we can assess children at the end of the school year and again when they return for the next grade. Disadvantaged children's scores fall during the summer break, while middle-class children's don't. One explanation is that in the summer, middle-class children read more, travel more, go to museums more often and learn new social and emotional skills at camp or in organized athletics.
Cheapskate Conservatives Cheat Students
Let's pump some money into highly promising programs.
By Richard Rothstein
April 3, 2005
For years now, conservative economists have contended that sinking money into schools is pointless because test scores don't automatically rise when schools boost spending. True, spending and achievement don't always go hand in hand, but the conservative argument still doesn't make sense.
California spends only $7,000 per pupil, while New Jersey spends more than $10,000. But the economists who deny that money matters don't propose slashing New Jersey's standard to California's more miserly one. Nor do they propose cutting suburban spending, high in many states, to inner-city levels. Yet still they argue, illogically, against pumping more money into schools with less — an inconsistency that suggests their opposition to greater spending is based more on parsimony than on analysis.
Certainly, schools and districts sometimes spend foolishly. But even die-hard opponents of increased spending acknowledge that, when used properly, more money can raise achievement. So let's move beyond sterile debates about whether money matters and focus instead on three areas in which added dollars could make the most difference.
