Duke University professor Helen Ladd had an interesting op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times in which she writes about the unaddressed link between poverty and education. Here’s a short excerpt:
“The Occupy movement has catalyzed rising anxiety over income inequality; we desperately need a similar reminder of the relationship between economic advantage and student performance.
….Results of the 2009 reading tests conducted by the Program for International Student Assessment show that, among 15-year-olds in the United States and the 13 countries whose students outperformed ours, students with lower economic and social status had far lower test scores than their more advantaged counterparts within every country. Can anyone credibly believe that the mediocre overall performance of American students on international tests is unrelated to the fact that one-fifth of American children live in poverty?”
Click here to read Ladd’s full article, “Class Matters. Why Won’t We Admit It?”