Income And Educational Outcomes

Matthew DiCarlo:

The role of poverty in shaping educational outcomes is one of the most common debates going on today. It can also be one of the most shallow.

The debate tends to focus on income. For example (and I'm generalizing a bit here), one "side" argues that income and test scores are strongly correlated; the other "side" points to the fact that many low-income students do very well and cautions against making excuses for schools' failure to help poor kids.

Both arguments have merit, but it bears quickly mentioning that the focus on the relationship between income and achievement is a rather crude conceptualization of the importance of family background (and non-schooling factors in general) for education outcomes. Income is probably among the best widely available proxies for these factors, insofar as it is correlated with many of the conditions that can hinder learning, especially during a child's earliest years. This includes (but is not at all limited to): peer effects; parental education; access to print and background knowledge; parental involvement; family stressors; access to healthcare; and, of course, the quality of neighborhood schools and their teachers.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 23, 2012 1:20 AM
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