Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute
2004
Nobody who followed Richard Rothstein's columns in the New York Times or his earlier work on education will be surprised that his new book ascribes most of the black-white achievement gap to social class and economics. In effect, he devotes this book to affirming Coleman's 1964 finding that school differences have far less impact on achievement differences than do family characteristics, of which, Rothstein says, socio-economic status is the mightiest. He insists that contemporary school reforms cannot overcome that influence and therefore urges (if the country is serious about gap-closing) that we focus more on equalizing income, housing, health care and suchlike. Indeed, Rothstein states, "If the nation can't close the gaps in income, health, and housing, there is little prospect of equalizing achievement." He also tries to debunk some well-known examples of schools and educators that succeed with disadvantaged minority youngsters. He deprecates claims made by, among others, the Heritage Foundation, the Education Trust, KIPP academies, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, and Jaime Escalante's biographers, insisting either that the achievements don't amount to much or couldn't be replicated or that the schools engage in cream-skimming. The book, therefore, seeks to throw ice water on just about every popular form of contemporary school-centered reform, although Rothstein cuts some slack for (high quality) pre-school programs, extended-day and summer programs; mainly because they help to supply poor kids with some of the advantages more commonly associated with middle-class children.
Rothstein does not hesitate to gore left as well as right. He warns, for example, that today's spate of "adequacy lawsuits" seeking to reshape school finance by getting judges to force states to spend enough on public education to provide everyone with "adequate" schooling, runs a risk of over promising, since these suits, too, bank on the capacity of better-resourced schools to close today's learning gaps.
Is he right? Do we quit trying to fix the schools we've got for the kids we've got while we wait for radical social changes to be made? Is this not a counsel of despair that plays right into the tendency of some educators to say "We're doing all that should be expected of us, given the kids we're being sent from the homes they're being sent from, so stop demanding more from us?"
Readers may also wish to read an important new essay by sociologist George Farkas, which says the black-white test score gap is caused, more than any other thing, by divergent child-rearing practices (and pre-school opportunities). Yes, these, too, are linked to social class, but much could be done, Farkas says, to overcome them and reduce the gap by ensuring that Head Start and other preschool programs are academically strong and widely used. Farkas doesn't exactly contradict Rothstein but he offers a more hopeful and actionable scenario instead of, in effect, suggesting that we sit on our hands until the Promised Land arrives.
The ISNB for Rothstein's book is 1932066098 and you can learn more about it by clicking here. Farkas's article, published in the May 2004 issue of Contexts, can be purchased by clicking here.
