
High-quality schools can increase academic achievement among the poor (2010) - MaysonL
https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/are-high-quality-schools-enough-increase-achievement-among-poor-evidence-harlem-c
======
silvestrov
The kids were a self-selected group because attending the school required that
the parents had to do something active to get their kids into this school.

They try to control for this by comparing those kids to kids who lost in the
lottery. But this only tells us about kids who have engaged parents. You
cannot generalise to kids who have non-engaged parents.

Having engaged parents is the single most important condition for getting a
good education.

Secondly, not having disruptive kids in class.

And only thirdly are quality of teachers.

If "free dental, medical, and mental health services" were all it took, then
no school in Scandinavia should have any problem with poor kids. But we do
have problems because some parents don't care at all about their kids
education.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Essentially this.

It's not really the schools or teachers - they are generally decent. Some
better than others ... but teaching is not rocket science. Basic education is
not some magical, mysterious thing. It's mostly straightforward, and a little
mundane.

If you have decent students, prepared to learn a bit - which mostly comes from
a reasonably positive and stable home - then all you need is _basic_ things to
get them to a decent level of literacy.

Surely some systems are better than others but I think it's far more about
homes and communities than it is dumping 'bad teachers' and certainly not
about making teaching 'competitive'.

~~~
andy_ppp
>>> but teaching is not rocket science

I actually think teaching children is a really difficult and important part of
society but I think many people don't value the contribution incredible
teaching can make to individual students lives.

A great school and teacher obviously can change the lives of children in
poverty but it's astonishingly difficult and requires immense talent to
achieve. Not commenting on the quality of this study however.

~~~
sonnyblarney
I didn't say it was easy, or that it wasn't hard work, or that I didn't value
it.

Teaching is 'hard work', it requires educated, dedicated people, and it's very
important work.

But it's not rocket science. Doing it is not risky - especially if you're
teaching something that's been taught a million times before. Most well
educated people I think could teach at least one subject, though they may not
have the wherewithal or stamina to stick it out, or may not have the
empathy/social skills to do it well.

~~~
Angostura
> Doing it is not risky - especially if you're teaching something that's been
> taught a million times before. Most well educated people I think could teach
> at least one subject

I think this is something that many well educated people think, right up until
they are placed alone in a class-room of 30 children who aren't desperately
interested in what they have to say.

~~~
Retric
The five year teacher attrition rate is under 20% based on this study:
([https://edsource.org/2015/half-of-new-teachers-quit-
professi...](https://edsource.org/2015/half-of-new-teachers-quit-profession-
in-5-years-not-true-new-study-says/83054)) That's rather low and includes many
who don't like teaching even if they have the skills. Which suggests most
people really can do it.

Granted, that's not the first time these people have been in a classroom, but
collage Education degrees don't see high attrition either. Also, "97 percent
of teachers who earned more than $40,000 their first year returned the next
year, compared with 87 percent who earned less than $40,000."

------
acjohnson55
The hundred billion dollar question is how do you scale it? High functioning
schools are magnets for the best teachers, savviest families, and external
support. It's just meritocracy applied to the bottom quintile. Show me a
school model that's succeeding with the most at risk subdemographic within
disadvantaged communities and then I'll be impressed.

I think the simple truth is that there's no free lunch. If we actually believe
every child deserves an excellent education, we have to acknowledge it's going
to take radical investment at the deepest levels of poverty, working upward
from there. It's not impossible. Cuba sent teachers to every remote corner of
their island to eradicate illiteracy, and largely succeeded. It's one of the
few successes of the revolution.

We spend astronomical amounts of money incarcerating the more people per
capita than anyone else in the world. Imagine if we applied that level of
thoroughness to education.

~~~
Andre_Wanglin
Literacy is a low threshold. This study is talking about eliminating
achievement gaps between populations. Their method is intense intervention in
every facet of the students' lives. So who receives these services? Is it
"fair" to only provide them to certain populations, those deemed most in need?
If these methods are successful, why should any student be deprived of them?
And if all students receive them, what then becomes of the achievement gap?
Does it re-establish itself?

~~~
acjohnson55
> Literacy is a low threshold.

Truly! But not low enough for the USA to be _failing_.

> Is it "fair" to only provide them to certain populations, those deemed most
> in need? If these methods are successful, why should any student be deprived
> of them?

The fact is, in the upper half of the American class system, educational needs
are fantastically well served by redundant layers of investment. I went to an
extremely well resourced public high school that made my mid-tier undergrad
education a breeze.

That's not saying my school was perfect. Even it did a poor job of addressing
the needs of the students at the highest risk. But this is my point. We need
an attitude and behavioral shift toward truly embracing the concept that no
child should be left behind without a fight.

I don't mean to sidestep your question, but you're identifying a purely
hypothetical problem when we're in an ongoing educational crisis. It's kind of
like saying, "won't those firehouses cause water damage to the carpet?"

~~~
Wohlf
>The fact is, in the upper half of the American class system, educational
needs are fantastically well served by redundant layers of investment.

And in the lower levels, we attempt to pick up the slack by spending more
money. Unfortunately, this is not a problem money can solve. Motivated parents
are the only real solution, assisted by more efficient use of resources.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-
mor...](https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-more-money-
fix-americas-schools)

~~~
acjohnson55
As a teacher at a tough school in Baltimore, almost every parent or guardian I
dealt with wanted nothing more than a bright future for their kid. The lengths
some of these parents went through were beyond impressive. But these are
families who are often suffering the compounding effects of poverty and living
in impoverished communities. That means they often didn't have a high quality
education themselves or social capital or political pull.

Today's "nonideal" parent is just the kid the system failed yesterday. Any
solution has to acknowledge the debt we have built up.

I read the article you linked. It's a great article. But what it doesn't say
is "unfortunately, this is not a problem money can solve", and I'm not sure
how you reached that conclusion.

Of course there are ways of spending money that don't have good "outcomes".
But the article both cites examples where monetary investment has paid off and
also challenges the reader to take an expansive view of what the "outcomes"
are. Which I 100% agree with, because schools in impoverished carry far more
of the load of holding together communities and providing essential services
than in well off areas.

------
js8
The results of this paper and its refutation of racism do not surprise me in
the slightest.

I recently opened book Economic Indeterminacy by Yanis Varoufakis and
apparently, he was conducting some experiments in the past that support his
theory about economic origins of discrimination and dominance hierarchy.

Basically, what he seems to claim is that while discrimination might be
completely unfounded in reality, it will set in as a mechanism to determine
and stabilize equilibrium in some economic games. And once the equilibrium is
determined, discrimination will actually start to make sense for the game
players, ex post facto.

The book is unfortunately quite technical, but I have to say I was impressed,
Varoufakis certainly is a smart guy. I wish somebody would write a more
approachable popular summary of this and other conclusions in the book.
Perhaps Varoufakis did himself in his other books, I didn't read any, but I
think I will have to at some point.

------
skookumchuck
Now and then we read about a public school that achieves spectacular results,
often based on the work of a charismatic and driven teacher or principal.
Nobody has ever been able to scale these.

"Stand and Deliver" is an example.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver)

~~~
Iv
When reading about alternative school systems, many publications show really
improved performances by students, but many of these studies suffer of the
same bias: teachers who volunteer to teach differently, and parents who
volunteer their kids to try a new approaches, are usually the main cause of
good metrics.

Indeed, the challenge is to get even mediocre teachers to be able to teach
better. We lack even mediocre teachers, so making a better system only for
good teachers is not a solution.

~~~
panzagl
We lack even mediocre parents- when you talk low SES you mean kids living in
cars, parents in jail, kicked outside all night because mom wants to party
with her new boyfriend. Not all of them, of course, but enough in those types
of situations that no amount of classroom management or enthusiasm is going to
overcome it.

------
imagetic
I wish American politics would focus on education 5000x more than anything
else.

~~~
Andre_Wanglin
I wish the opposite. Education should be entirely apolitical and atomized to
give those with the most skin in the game the most control. Traditionally,
this has been the American way and I do not find a more politicized approach
has gained us anything other than divisiveness and contention. The more local
the matter, the less the Rs and Ds matter and the more the actual names and
people they represent do.

~~~
dagw
_give those with the most skin in the game the most control._

Who would that be?

~~~
adventured
The local people that must utilize the local schools of course.

The US varies to a great degree from the top 10 states to the bottom 10
states, economically. Massachusetts is at $75,000+ GDP per capita, on par with
Norway. Mississippi at the bottom is at $37,000, half that of New York,
Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts. The gulf isn't nearly as wide as that of
the EU ($70k Ireland vs $13k Croatia), however it's still a considerable
difference.

How would one propose the Federal Government's massive bureaucracy manage such
wide variances in prosperity when it comes to states & counties? Maybe a dozen
large school system zones, each semi-locally managed, encompassing several
states. Otherwise, the best option is for states and counties to retain large
amounts of control over local education.

~~~
jrumbut
Isn't the disparity between states (which is even more pronounced at the
municipal level) an argument for _more_ federal intervention? How can
Mississippi ever afford an education system like Massachusetts has? How else
would the best ideas make it to more insular communities?

Of course there needs to be some local control, some variation to help the
students succeed in the environment they'll actually live in (agriculture
classes in Iowa, for instance), but the federal government has an important
role to play in preventing local systems from falling very far behind and
spreading knowledge about what works in comparable systems.

It's not an all-or-nothing proposition, and certainly it does require a lot of
money and people and procedures. Education is complicated and critical to both
the present and future functioning of society.

~~~
toasterlovin
FYI Missippi has a GDP per capita similar to Germany, France, and the UK.

~~~
dagw
According to the numbers on Wikipedia Mississippi seems to be about $8-12k GDP
per capita below the countries you mentioned.

~~~
toasterlovin
Shoot, you're right. I saw somebody upthread mention ~$40k for Mississippi and
didn't bother to verify. Still, it's not exactly like Mississippi is a 3rd
world country.

------
home_boi
The most important methodology of the school:

> Like many charter schools in New York City, the Promise Academy has an
> extended school day and year, with coordinated after-school tutoring and
> additional classes on Saturdays for children who need remediation in
> mathematics and English Language Arts skills. Our rough estimate is that
> Promise Academy students that are behind grade level are in school for twice
> as many hours as a traditional public school student in New York City.
> Students who are at or above grade level still attend the equivalent of
> about fifty percent more school in a calendar year.

The students are working twice as hard as others and attend remediation
classes.

Other inputs:

> The schools provide free medical, dental and mental-health services
> (students are screened upon entry and receive regular check-ups through a
> partnership with the Children’s Health Fund), student incentives for
> achievement, nutritious cafeteria meals, support for parents in the form of
> food baskets, meals, bus fare, and so forth, and less tangible benefits such
> as the support of a committed staff. The schools also make a concerted
> effort to change the culture of achievement, emphasizing the importance of
> hard work in achieving success.

These inputs are claimed as characteristics of a "high quality school" in the
abstract:

> We conclude with evidence that suggests high-quality schools are enough to
> significantly increase academic achievement among the poor.

"High quality schools" (high quality meaning high test scores) generally do
not fund many of these services for their students. What the study
demonstrates are characteristics of schools that can help underprivileged
children with less than adequate familial support.

This is an argument in favor of segregation. These services can only scale and
be cost effective if a large portion of the students will use the services.
This would not be cost effective if the majority of the school was not
underprivileged.

------
qop
This seems exceptionally obvious.

"Better nutrition can increase athletic performance among the poor"

Well no shit!

Education lawmakers are typically the scummiest, grimiest, awful people. Lots
of school districts are sabotaged by privilege politics bordering on rye
educational equivalent of separate but equal.

That's a strong claim, but I work with a few young men that grew up in rough
neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston, and their situations have a lot of
similarity when it comes to how school was.

I know the language in this comment is strong, but America is really fucked
when it comes to public education. Shit like common core is the tip of the
incestuous, corrupt iceberg.

Bad schools lock down neighborhoods within a generation, and are a huge burden
on the socioeconomic development of the people there. It's as important in
communities as affordable groceries.

------
adamnemecek
Are the my using black and poor interchangeably?

~~~
bpchaps
How did you get that impression?

If it's because of "black-white achievement gap":
[https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/studies/pdf/sc...](https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/studies/pdf/school_composition_and_the_bw_achievement_gap_2015.pdf)

~~~
mantas
Is "black-white achievement gap" still there once you control for parents'
education and incomes?

~~~
thaumasiotes
Yes, that's why it's not the "rich-poor achievement gap", which is also quite
large, but significantly smaller than the black-white one.

~~~
mantas
Got any data? I googled a bit, but couldn't find by both socioeconomic class
and color. It's either one or the other.

I wonder where's the disparity. Are well-off black kids doing worse? Is it
poor whites doing better than their peers? Are white poor- communities doing
better than black ghettos? How is it correlating to street crime and violence?

~~~
MagnumOpus
This guy has collected all the data on it, and answers a lot of your
questions:

[https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/unde...](https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/understanding-
the-academic-achievement-gaps/)

~~~
swebs
Wow, every post on that blog seems to be a wealth of data. This should be its
own post.

------
ShabbosGoy
Not sure how that conclusion isn’t obvious or self-evident. Obviously, if you
have a high quality school with motivated students, chances are their
achievement will be an order of magnitude higher than students at a poor
quality school.

The more important question is, how difficult is upward social mobility in
2018?

~~~
lazyasciiart
Plenty of people have argued that the problem is not the quality of the school
but the quality of the students attending it - a.k.a the "culture of poverty"
[https://thesocietypages.org/roundtables/culture-of-
poverty/](https://thesocietypages.org/roundtables/culture-of-poverty/)

In fact, some of them are referred to in the study itself as an example of the
debate they are addressing - "Advocates of the community-focused approach
argue that teachers and school administrators are dealing with issues that
originate outside the classroom, citing research that shows racial and
socioeconomic achievement gaps are present before children enter school (Fryer
and Levitt 2004; 2006) and that one-third to one-half of the gap can be
explained by family-environment indicators (Meredith Phillips, James Crouse,
and John Ralph 1998; Fryer and Levitt 2004). In this scenario, combating
poverty and having more constructive out-of-school time may lead to better and
more-focused instruction in school. Indeed, James Coleman et al. (1966), in
their famous report on equality of educational opportunity, argue that schools
alone cannot treat the problem of chronic underachievement in urban schools. "

~~~
emodendroket
Considering the free medical and dental care, one might argue that that
position isn't really in conflict with the success of this school

------
tempodox
Education is only going to get more important with progress. It's such a shame
that in the US, you have to be rich first before you even get a chance to
prove yourself.

~~~
JepZ
How about proving yourself by getting rich anyway? And what are you proving if
you started with good chances?

This comment is not meant to insult anyone, even if it may sound like that. It
is meant as giving an alternative perspective to the problem. I know that in
the US it is a lot harder to get rich if your parents aren't, but I also think
that giving up, because the chances aren't fair, isn't helping anyone.

~~~
tempodox
> ... giving up ...

You are putting words in my mouth. I was talking about conditions surrounding
education, not about consequences or conclusions any individual might draw
from them. And “giving up” is only one of many possible conclusions.

> what are you proving if you started with good chances?

You are still competing with others who “started with good chances”. Poorer
people still suffer disadvantages that have nothing to do with their
capabilities. Having rich parents is not your merit.

> How about proving yourself by getting rich anyway?

Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? Is getting rich the only, or
most important, goal in scope?

------
Andre_Wanglin
The kids were in school twice as long, received free dental, medical, and
mental health services as well as free meals and transportation for their
parents. That is quite a bit more than high-quality schooling. And does the
touted "closing" of the black-white achievement gap persist if white students
receive the same treatment?

~~~
JepZ
Well, it might be more than just 'high-quality' schools, but maybe that is
necessary. That way you release the kids from their uneducated parents in some
respect.

The problem with uneducated parents is that they are still _very_ valuable for
the children in terms of emotional development. The problem however is, that
they tend to make critical mistakes which sometimes affect the children's
development.

And to bridge those two aspects, this 'high-quality' school model might be a
very good answer.

Just to be clear: Not all uneducated parents are the same and some of them
might be very good parents, its just that the probability of finding
problematic behavior is much higher for uneducated parents.

~~~
Iv
This is a think I wish more people understood: There is no equality of
chances. Unless you give every kid the same standardized education and
childhood experience, which implies a society no one wants.

The only alternative is to recognize the people who start at a disadvantage
and offer them compensation for that.

~~~
didibus
> Unless you give every kid the same standardized education and childhood
> experience, which implies a society no one wants.

I've always personally been open to this idea. I find families to be tribal
and often problematic. I think it be nice to start seeing all children as your
own, the children belong to society, and maybe we should all pay for them.

~~~
mamon
>> the children belong to society

That's the dangerous way of thinking that we should avoid. Children belong to
their parents, until they come out of age when they start "belonging" only to
themselves. Seeing children as belonging to society is typical for
totalitarian regimes (see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth))

~~~
croon
No, it's typical for any society. There's social services in most if not all
industrialized societies, that can take children away from their parents for
the sake of the child if the parent(s) are ill-equipped to raise them. That's
not a bad thing.

~~~
bzbarsky
The problems start when "ill-equipped" is defined as expansively as possible.
See the various cases of CPS getting involved when parents try to teach their
kids basic independence by letting them walk to the playground on the corner
and play there.

I think the way CPS is currently done in the US is actually causing a great
deal of harm to current kids whose parents are totally reasonable parents...

------
imjustsaying
(2010)

------
forkerenok
Kudos for de-clickbaiting the title.

Good schooling is vital for building up confidence and belief in one self.
Without it chances to succeed in our society are fewer.

