For educators, the factor that most affects how students perform in school is the one thing they have no control over.
Family income -- more than teacher pay and experience, class size and number of instructor assistants -- is the strongest predictor of how students will perform on Ohio's proficiency exams, an Enquirer analysis found.
The analysis considered each public school district's fourth-, sixth-, ninth- and 12th-grade proficiency exam scores, along with median family income and the percentage of children on welfare and receiving a free or reduced-priced lunch.
Those economic factors explained 68 percent of the test results, The Enquirer found.
Teachers see the problems brought by poverty first hand: First-graders who come to school without knowing their numbers, alphabet or full name. Parents' moves around the city force their children to change schools annually. Students whose parents didn't finish school and aren't ensuring their kids see it as a priority.
But the concerns over poverty are about to take on a new dimension. Lawmakers, under order from the Ohio Supreme Court to revamp school funding, have said they won't accept poverty as an excuse for poor performance. They are threatening more state oversight and -- in extreme cases -- takeovers.
'Poor kids can achieve at the same levels as affluent kids.
Poverty just makes it harder.'
-- Amy Wilkins, a consultant with the Education Trust in Washington, D.C. |
The state spends a lot of extra money trying to educate poor children -- about $500 million in the current fiscal year -- and policy makers want higher results.
"The money is not always spent wisely," said Ohio Senate President Richard Finan. R-Evendale. "Sometimes it's difficult to know what it's spent on."
The concern for lawmakers is that the money is often paying for initiatives that don't make a difference. Trying to reduce classroom size doesn't matter unless it can be reduced enough to ensure a teacher can give each child the attention he or she needs. Preschools are effective when they have an academic base, not when they are doing the same job available at any day -care center.
Economics doesn't predetermine how any student or school district does. In some cases, school districts do much better than is expected, given their level of poverty, The Enquirer found.
Steubenville City schools in Jefferson County is a district where 44 percent of the students are from families on welfare. But the overall passage rate on proficiency exams is 10.5 percent points higher than would have been expected given the poverty indicators.
The reverse is also true. In Southeastern Local schools in Clark County, only 8 percent of the students are from families on welfare. But the district's overall passage rate on the proficiency exams was 22 percentage points less than would have been predicted.
Unfortunately for large city districts such as Cincinnati, the passage rates overall are almost always what would be predicted.
Which is to say they rank near the bottom in the state.
A number of schools have deployed computer programs to boost reading skills. Here, second-graders at Central Elementary School in Reading use computers to write recipes as part of a literacy exercise.
(Photo by The Cincinnati Enquirer / Glenn Hartong)
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Difficult task
Lawmakers are right to demand higher performance by all schools, but it will difficult for schools to achieve at the levels the state is demanding, said Donald Berno, president of the Ohio Public Expenditures Council.
"What are they going to do? What's the solution?" Mr. Berno asked. "Because in most of the studies achievement and test scores are really related to the family's income and the parents' education level."
Those who work in the large-city schools don't need a statistical analysis to show them the relationship between family wealth and performance in the classroom. They see it every day.
Windsor School in Walnut Hills is one of the district's oldest buildings, built in 1918. The children, some of the poorest in the district, are quiet in the hallways and orderly in their classrooms. At lunchtime, almost all qualify for a free meal.
Despite efforts to boost scores, including an intensive reading program for young children, test results have been maddeningly inconsistent. Proficiency exam scores were lower than the district average almost across the board, while results on the Stanford 9, a national achievement test, were among the highest in the city.
The Stanford 9 scores were encouraging, but the district and state have said what children need to know is on the proficiency exams, so teachers and staff have to find a way to help children pass them, said Principal Joyce Smith.
"I'm not saying the kids in this school can't learn," she said. "They're very capable of learning -- every child in this school. But it takes a lot of work."
The Enquirer's analysis provides one way of measuring the effectiveness of a school. Teacher quality and technological spending, for example, might be others. But numerous studies have noted the links between family resources and the student achievement levels.
A 1994 Rand Corp. study of U.S. families and test scores found that the "most important family influences on student test scores are the level of parental education, family size, family income and the age of the mother when the child was born."
This year, the U.S. Department of Education released a study on the impact of Chapter 1, a federal program that was designed to help impoverished youth boost performance in school. The program has changed in recent years and been renamed Title I.
The $29 million study, which looked at the performance of 40,000 students over time, found that federal intervention failed to close the gap between rich and poor children.
At each grade large differences in low- and high-income students' reading and math scores are evident, and they grow over time, the study found.
Although lawmakers acknowledge the link poverty has with test performance, proficiency exam scores are about to take on increased importance. Next year, the state will begin publishing report cards for each district in the state. Those that don't meet thresholds -- for example, 75 percent of fourth-graders passing their proficiency exam -- will be placed on "Academic Watch."
That public policy decision is sound, said Linda Hertert, a consultant with the Education Commission of the States. The Denver-based organization monitors education law and policy around the nation.
"What's not a given is if I give a school district extra help that the money is going to help the children who need it," she said, explaining why she advocates accountability measures.
"It's not unreasonable for the state to step in and say I expect you to do the job," she said. "Now, let's work together to figure out what you need to get the job done. And if you can't, get out and let's get someone in here who can.
"That happens all the time in private life. We can't sit and accommodate adults' egos at the expense of students' lives."
Too often, educators and policy makers are willing to accept low achievement from poor children as inevitable, said Amy Wilkins, a consultant with the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to raise school achievement.
"What makes us crazy is educators who use poverty as an excuse for what amounts to educational malpractice," she said. "Poor kids can achieve at the same levels as affluent kids. Poverty just makes it harder."
Extra for urban districts
In addition to the money school districts raise locally and get in basic state aid, the poorest districts will receive about $280 million extra this year from Ohio's Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid program.
But millions more will be spent through other programs, including:
- $101.5 million to allow every eligible child to enroll in Head Start or public preschool programs.
- $100 million in school building assistance for the eight largest urban districts.
- $86 million for all-day kindergarten programs in urban areas.
- $1 million each to Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Toledo to establish Urban Professional Development Academies to increase teacher training.
- $1 million for the state auditor to conduct independent performance audits in the urban districts.
Ultimately, money alone isn't enough, educators warn.
"No kid ever learned chemistry because you put a $20 bill on his table. He learns because you bought him a book or a chemistry teacher," said the Education Commission's Ms. Hertert.
''You can't spend money on programs that are not successful. Otherwise, you're subsidizing failure.''
Reading schools Superintendant John Varis |
Lawmakers should exercise their power to demand change and attach strings to money, said Thomas Sobel, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College and a former New York State education commissioner.
"If you pay people more money and they do the same old things, it doesn't improve achievement," he said. "Say, 'Here's the money -- now use it to reduce class sizes in elementary grades. Use it to ensure all children have a preschool experience. Use it on reading programs that we know work.' "
Policy makers must remember that children from low-income homes often start school behind academically, forcing them to outperform their peers for several years just to catch up and keep pace, said Craig Ramey, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Alabama.
A leading authority on children's early development, he argues states must balance the responsibility to demand accountability with the need to allow innovation. "There's probably nothing more important we do as a society than educating the next generation," Dr. Ramey said. "But even the most seasoned vet will admit we don't know exactly how to do it."
Some argue Ohio already has the most innovative program in the nation -- publicly funded vouchers for private school tuition -- but state law limits the program to Cleveland.
The effort, called a scholarship by the state, is facing a legal challenge from critics who say it will siphon money and families from public schools. Supporters of the plan call it a way to rebuild schools through competition by giving low-income parents more choices.
"What we've seen in Milwaukee, Cleveland and other places where they have private-school choice is once you get parents involved in their child's education you begin to see a change," said Nina Shokraii, an education policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public-policy research institute.
Lawmakers found $5.2 million to begin the voucher experiment by taking it from the Cleveland Public Schools' DPIA allocation. But the debt-plagued district didn't lose any money because that fund was boosted by about $5 million during that budget session.
What works
The state began providing urban districts money for all-day kindergarten this year, but Cincinnati Public Schools has already used existing local, state and federal resources to offer the option to children in most schools.
The focus, district administrators say, is on getting children ready for school as soon as possible.
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Robert Jewell gives his daughter Myesha, 4, the thumbs-up sign for finishing her cereal during breakfast at Winton Montessori Schoolıs preschool program.
(Photo by The Cincinnati Enquirer/ Glenn Hartong)
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Some results are already evident. Four years ago, Winton Montessori, located in the heart of the Winton Terrace housing project, began offering preschool classes for 3 and 4 year olds. Four years later, when those students reached first grade, they posted some of the highest standardized test scores in the district.
Through role playing and hands-on exercises, they learned skills needed to succeed in school: how to listen, work with others, accomplish tasks in a particular sequence.
"We talk about a lot of things in education," said Principal Melody Dacey. "But if we build the foundation right it makes all the difference in the world."
Winton Montessori first-grade teacher Penny Greenler can quickly tell the difference between students who have been at the school since age 3 and those who began two years later with kindergarten.
Those who start earlier have more self-discipline, language development and motor skills needed to succeed in school, she said. "I can tell who's been there just by how they handle themselves in the classroom," she said.
The success Winton Montessori has had has been noticed by state policy makers. "Those are the kind of results we should be looking at," said Melanie Bates, an Ohio School Board member from Cincinnati and member of the executive committee of Ohio's Congress of Urban School Constituencies.
"That's a high-poverty school, but they've had high results because they've had those kids since age 3. If we put more money into the same stuff, we just get the same results. And that's not going to work anymore."
In Reading schools, students overall passage rate on proficiency exams was about 9 percent higher than would have been predicted given the level of poverty. In Reading, about 10 percent of the students are from homes on welfare.
His schools achieved by focusing on the basics, said Superintendent John Varis. For example, the district works to identify early the children who have problems with motor skills and reading. Extra help is provided to keep them from falling behind.
The program attends to the basics, to ensure students stay on track, said Dr. Varis. "You can't spend money on programs that are not successful," he said. "Otherwise, you're subsidizing failure.
Urban Schools Initiative
In 1995 the Ohio Urban Schools Initiative (USI) was created. Twenty-one school districts meet the requirement that they have at least 5,000 students, with more than 5 percent of them on welfare.
The dropout rate in the USI schools averages 43 percent. In most cases, they have more students absent and lower proficiency exam scores than the state average.
One of the goals of the USI is to identify successful programs and help other districts adopt them. It's a sound philosophy, said Cincinnati school Superintendent J. Michael Brandt: "Having the dollars is fine, but having a really well-thought-out plan and one that really deals with results is what's really necessary," he said.
Cincinnati Public School administrators think they have that in Students First, the strategic plan adopted by the school board last year. Developed with the help of national experts and incorporating some of what CPS learned in its own experiments, the plan includes clear goals and strategies to reach them.
"We've laid it all out there and said this is what we need to do," said Mr. Brandt. "There's not going to be any confusion about the direction."
At Windsor School, Principal Smith takes time to look over her teacher's lesson plan and make sure they line up with the district's standards.
District budget cuts eliminated Windsor's counselor and a reading teacher, both positions that were crucial in reaching some students. Staff at the school know they have a difficult job, but it's one they clearly enjoy: Windsor, unlike many schools, has almost no staff turnover each year.
"We're trying to reach out more to parents," Mrs. Smith said, adding that a new parent center is opening at the school. "The kids come to school, they want to learn and we'll stimulate them.
"But they also need stimulation at home," she said. "They need help with their homework. They need to be taken to the library."
