There is a crisis of equity in U.S. schools. Once thought of as the most equalizing institution in our society, public schools play as much of a role in magnifying differences between children from wealthy and impoverished backgrounds and between children of different ethnic backgrounds as they do in overcoming these differences.
The equity gap relates both to the opportunities children are provided and to the outcomes they achieve. Regarding opportunities, children from lower-class homes start off at a disadvantage, with less access to prenatal and early health care, quality day care as infants, quality early childhood programs, and other supports that most children from middle-class homes take for granted. The school system often compounds these inequities. In most states, the amount of money spent on education is strongly influenced by local property values. As a result, children who live in low-wealth inner cities or rural areas are likely to receive much less in per-pupil funding than are children in wealthy suburbs. In most states, the difference in per-pupil funding between the highest-spending districts (95th percentile) and the lowest-spending (5th percentile) is a ratio of from 1.5:1 to 2:1.
For example, in 1990, high-spending districts in Pennsylvania spent $7,058 per pupil, compared to $3,794 for low-spending districts. The difference was $5,457 to $3,910 in Florida, $4,557 to $2,803 in Missouri, and $6,078 to $3,879 in Oregon (Riddle and White 1993). A difference of even $1,000, a typical difference between an inner city and its surrounding suburbs, translates into $25,000 per class per year for a class of 25 students, or a half-million dollars for a typical elementary school of 500 children. Of course, even equal dollars would not be equal in impact; schools serving many children in poverty also have to cope with higher needs for special education services, security guards, and other services not needed in wealthier jurisdictions.
This degree of inequity is unique in the industrialized world. All major trading partners of the United States at least equalize funding for all children, but in most cases they provide additional funding for poor or minority children. In the Netherlands, for example, a funding formula provides 25 percent more funding for each lower-class Dutch child in a school and 90 percent more funding for each minority child. European observers of our schools are aghast to discover that our system does exactly the opposite.
In outcomes, American students vary substantially according to social class and ethnicity. For example, on the 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (Campbell et al. 1996), 71 percent of white 4th graders scored at or above the basic level in reading. Only 31 percent of African-American and 36 percent of Latino students scored that well. These differences correspond closely with differences in social class. Among 4th graders whose parents graduated from college, 70 percent were reading at or above the basic level. This drops to 54 percent for children of high school graduates and 32 percent for children of high school dropouts. Among children whose homes had magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, and at least 25 books, about 70 percent scored at or above basic; among those without these resources, fewer than half scored this well. Differences in mathematics, writing, and science are similar. Further, performance differences increase as students get older.
In some ways, the equity gap has been diminishing. Since the first NAEP assessments in 1971, the difference between African-American and white students in NAEP reading and other measures has been cut in half. Differences in Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores have also been dropping. Dropout rates for African-American students have diminished substantially over the past 20 years, although those for Latino students remain very high. Most of the gains made by minority students, however, took place during the 1970s, when major improvements in the education of African-American students were taking place in the South. Since 1980, the gap has slightly increased, with a particularly disturbing drop in the reading performance of African-American and Latino 4th graders in 1994.
The Equity Gap Is Unacceptable and Unnecessary
The differences in academic performance among children from different social class and ethnic backgrounds are unacceptably large, and they are not diminishing rapidly enough. These differences underlie many of the most polarizing issues in the United States, from affirmative action to immigration policies. Their consequences are getting progressively worse, as the income gap between well-educated and poorly educated workers is increasing. We cannot have a just or peaceful society if major segments of it see little hope for their children.
There will always be achievement differences, on average, among groups of students. No one realistically expects that the children of high school dropouts and those of college graduates will ever perform at exactly the same levels. Yet these gaps are far greater than they need to be. In particular, differences among ethnic groups are unacceptably high and completely unnecessary. Some portion of these differences results from socioeconomic differences among different ethnic groups, over which the schools have no control. Nevertheless, schools can have a powerful impact on the educational success of all children and can greatly increase the achievement of disadvantaged and minority children. As educators, we cannot wait for U.S. society to solve its problems of racism and economic inequity. We can and must take action now to prepare all children to achieve their full potential.
How Can We Reduce the Equity Gap?
The only way to decrease the equity gap in academic performance is to greatly increase the achievement and school success of disadvantaged and minority students. If we could place a high floor under the achievement of all children, regardless of social background, we would substantially reduce inequalities. Imagine, for example, that we could ensure that every American 4th grader were reading at or above the basic level on NAEP, as President Clinton has proposed. This would be enormously beneficial for millions of white, middle-class students, of course, but it would have a far more dramatic effect on disadvantaged and minority children, as a group. Imagine how different U.S. schools and society would be if every child entering 5th grade had 5th grade reading and math skills.
- Begin to think of all children as being at promise. The first requirement for a policy designed to ensure the school success of all children is to change the mindset of educators and policymakers. As my colleague Wade Boykin (1996) puts it, we need to move away from seeing children as being at risk toward seeing them as being at promise. We identify and build on cultural and personal strengths, and accept nothing less than outstanding performance. Rather than thinking in terms of remediation or compensation, we insist on high-quality instruction sensitive to students' needs from the beginning of their time in school and respond immediately and intensively if children start to fall behind.
- Start early. As a rule, children enter preschool or kindergarten highly motivated, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fully confident in their abilities to learn. Schools can build on this energy and enthusiasm and thereby ensure children a good start in elementary school. Research on Head Start and other programs for 3- and 4-year-olds finds consistent and powerful impacts of high-quality early childhood programs on the cognitive performance of young children (McKey et al. 1985; Berrueta-Clement et al. 1984). Researchers debate long-term effects of preschool experiences; clearly, no one-year or two-year program will ensure the success of every child (see Karweit 1994). But there is no question that quality early childhood programs can greatly enhance children's preparation for elementary school; it's just up to the school to take advantage of this preparation.One extraordinary study shows how much early intervention can contribute to the success of children who are placed at risk. The Abecedarian Project provided the children of low-income African-American parents in North Carolina with intensive services from infancy to age 8. The project included high-quality infant care, preschool, kindergarten, and school-age programs; support to parents; and other services. In comparison to matched controls, the children in the Abecedarian Project scored substantially higher on measures of IQ, reading, and mathematics, at ages 8, 12, and 15. By age 15, Abecedarian children were half as likely to have been assigned to special education or to have been retained (Campbell and Ramey 1995).The Abecedarian Project is too expensive under current conditions to replicate widely, but it clearly establishes the principle that nothing is inevitable about the failure of so many at-risk children.These results and those from other early intervention programs that continue into the early elementary grades (Karweit 1994) demonstrate that we can make a substantial difference in the school success of children placed at risk if we stop the process of falling behind before it begins.
- Overdetermine success—work on many fronts at once. Children who are placed at risk by their life circumstances can fail for many reasons. Effective schooling, therefore, anticipates all the ways children might fail and then plans how each will be prevented or quickly and effectively dealt with. Wade Boykin (1996) calls this "overdetermining success"—being overprepared to ensure the success of every child.
An example of overdetermining success is our own Success for All program (Slavin et al. 1996). It provides elementary schools, mostly high-poverty schoolwide Title I schools, with an array of programs and services intended to ensure that children begin with success in preschool and then remain successful throughout the elementary grades. The program emphasizes research-based materials and instructional approaches from prekindergarten to 6th grade, with extensive professional development, follow-up, and assessment to be sure that all students are on track. If children begin to fall behind in reading, teachers or paraprofessionals may give them one-to-one tutoring until the children are able to progress on their own with their classmates. A family support program engages parents in their children's learning and solves such nonacademic problems as truancy, behavior problems, or the need for eyeglasses.
Research on Success for All in 12 school districts in the United States has shown consistent positive effects of the program. On average, Success for All children read almost three months ahead of matched controls at the end of 1st grade, and more than a full year ahead at the end of 5th grade. That difference is maintained into middle school (Slavin et al. 1996). In nearly every study, the students who gain the most are those who are most at risk: low achievers, special education students, and speakers of languages other than English (a Spanish bilingual version of the program has been particularly successful). Special education referrals are typically cut in half or, in one study, cut to a quarter of what they had been before (Smith et al. 1994).
One study of Success for All found that the program eliminated an achievement gap between African-American and white students. This study (Ross et al. 1997) compared integrated Success for All and control schools in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. At pretest, African-American and white students showed large differences on reading scores. At post-test, these differences remained in the control schools, but in the Success for All schools they had essentially disappeared, because African-American students made substantial gains.
Other programs also demonstrate that if we want to place a high floor under the achievement of all children, we can do it. One widely known example is Reading Recovery, which provides one-to-one tutoring to 1st graders who are falling behind in reading. Studies of Reading Recovery find consistent positive effects of the program on student reading achievement (Lyons et al. 1993).
Reading Recovery and Success for All are expensive, of course, but large numbers of schools have shifted resources to fund them. As of fall 1997, Success for All is in 750 schools, and Reading Recovery is in more than 6,000. But consider: What does "expensive" mean? Imagine that all high-poverty schools received the funding typical in suburban schools. Every school could afford Success for All, Reading Recovery, high-quality preschool programs, and much more.
At present, schools and districts fund these programs primarily through Title I; but high-poverty, underfunded schools face very difficult choices in the use of these funds. All high-poverty schools should be able to provide effective programs for their students, even if these programs are costly.
Are We Willing to Do What It Takes?
The research on the Abecedarian Project, Success for All, Reading Recovery, and other programs demonstrates that if we, as a society, decided to substantially reduce the equity gap, we could do so. We could decrease the gap between middle-class and disadvantaged children—not by taking away from the middle class but by building a high floor under the achievement level of all children, of all backgrounds. Simply by giving high-poverty schools the resources typical of suburban schools, and focusing these new resources on proven, replicable programs and practices, we could make profound changes in the achievement gaps that so bedevil our educational system and our society.
Certainly we need more research and more development to understand how to transform large numbers of schools and to solve remaining tough problems. But we already know enough to take action. So many children are suffering, and we know how to help them. How can we justify doing less?
