Is poverty an excuse for lower achievement in school?
The "no excuses" crowd --No Child Left Behind enthusiasts, DC's Michelle Rhee, and, yes, Barack Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan-- say no. As far as schools are concerned, there are absolutely no excuses for poor student performance, including poverty.
Others argue (me included) that schools themselves are not responsible for the lousy test scores of kids in poverty. In fact, if you are inclined to take test scores seriously, the "gap" between the scores of poor minority students and wealthier white students has significantly decreased over the past couple of decades.
The bigger issue is whether schools alone should be held responsible for closing the income gap in America, as Obama has implied in his pronouncements on education reform. I've argued that poverty is a social issue, not just a school issue. Fixing the schools alone will not cure poverty. It's unlikely that fixing schools will close the "achievement gap."
Now comes further evidence from Cornell University bolstering the argument that poverty is indeed an "excuse" for poor academic achievement. The authors of the Cornell study, published in the Proceediings of the National Academy of Sciences,
"...show that childhood poverty is inversely related to working memory in young adults. Furthermore, this prospective relationship is mediated by elevated chronic stress during childhood."
That means poverty related stress affects memory, a key tool for learning anything. Furthermore, the effect on memory is related to a physiological "response to chronic environmental demands."
That's hard biological science, not "psychobabble."
What does this mean for school reform?
It means that the "no excuses" argument is fundamentally wrong. It means that the NCLB demand that all kids, regardless of circumstance, should be able to "perform" as well academically as everyone else, is wrong. It means that test-based school accountability is wrong. It means that teacher merit pay (based on test scores) is wrong. It means that the anti-teachers union so-called "reformers" are wrong.
It doesn't mean that schools should abjure calls for reform. It does mean that reform should not be defined and packaged and handed down by politicians, neoliberals, charter school proponents, billionaire businessmen, Teach for America novices, or anyone who believes that learning can be measured by standardized test scores.
Who should define and spearhead public school reform? Simple. Building educators, meaning teachers and anyone else who works in or near a classroom, the people truly concerned with the education of the children they encounter everyday.
Teachers know about poverty. Broad and Gates and the Business Roundtable don't. It's clear who we should listen to.