Health, Education and the Welfare of the Nation

Building on Success

The correlation between education, poverty and health is so tight that I sometimes think we need to address the three simultaneously. Often this just isn’t feasible. But there are places in our society where the three problems  come together in a way that invites a battle on all three fronts. Consider, for example, our nation’s poorest public schools.

In an earlier post on Healthbeatblog.org, I looked at President Obama’s plan to rebuild our crumbling public education system. While the president’s blueprint defines an excellent beginning for the project,  Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, points to one element that is missing: a program that would take poor children out of the ghetto, away from the environment that is undermining both their education and their health.

The notion of plucking children out of their neighborhood may seem elitist. Why not rebuild the schools in their neighborhoods?

Because, experience shows, it is very, very hard to turn a poor school into a school where children flourish and learn. It can be done—and has been done many times.  But usually only one or at most two schools in a neighborhood are saved. The rest remain broken.

Why is it so difficult to rescue a school?  Begin with the physical plant. Imagine a first-grade classroom in the Bronx, just a few blocks from Yankee stadium. (The details that follow describe an actual classroom; this is not a composite.) Windows that haven’t been washed for years don’t open. Often, the room is hot. The blackboard can’t be used because it is charred—two or three years earlier some children set the room on fire. The custodian’s cat cannot keep up with the mice; their droppings and their decaying corpses pollute air that, in the Bronx, is already contaminated with black carbon (soot). Respiratory infections are commonplace. The number of miscarriages among teachers is startling. The children cannot use the playground in front of the school because, too often, the residents of nearby buildings throw bottles and garbage from their windows down onto the children. In the classroom, supplies are sketchy. The teacher buys crayons, pencils, construction paper and books to read to her students-- and a rug to cover the filthy floor.

Substitute teachers refuse to come to this school, so when a teacher is out sick, other first-grade teachers have to divide his or her 24 children and add them to their classrooms. Many children need special attention. 

Because there are too few special education classes in the district, a first-grade is likely to have three or four children suffering from severe emotional or mental problems. Often these children have been held back for one or two years so they are bigger and stronger than the other children. For example, in this classroom one eight-year-old throws chairs and even desks when he becomes agitated. One outburst can ignite the rest of the room, and pandemonium ensues. Often the police come to the school, and on more than one occasion an emotionally distraught child is taken away in an ambulance.  And this is first grade.

 What I have described is an environment that is hostile to learning. Even if you could lure the finest teachers and administrators to the school (and there are, in fact, a number of dedicated educators working in this school) there is be a limit to what they could do. Too many children coming from unsettled homes that lack consistent rules and routines are packed twenty to twenty-four to a classroom

The Statistics on Learning in Poor vs Middle-Class Schools                      

The numbers confirm that this classroom is far from unique. In “Can Separate Be Equal: The Overlooked Flaw At the Center of No Child Left Behind,”  Richard Kahlenberg observes that in our cities and suburbs our public schools are segregated by income.  And concentrations of poverty in some schools create a setting where children are far less likely to learn than in middle-class schools. Consider this statistic: “the reading level of the average, low-income twelfth grader is the same as that of the average, middle-class eighth grader—regardless of race.”

Overall, Kahlenberg reports, a middle-class school is twenty-two times as likely to be consistently high performing as a high poverty school (a school in which at least 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduce-priced lunches) “High-performing” is defined as a school “in the top third in the state in two subjects, in two grades, and over a two year time period.”

There could be many reasons why low-income students lag middle-class peers, beginning with a lack of parental involvement in the child’s education at an early age. Kahlenberg acknowledges that “Low-income students, on average, come to school less ready to learn. But the concentration of poverty in certain schools has an independent effect.”  In other words, while the home is important, the environment where the child is educated also plays a key role.

When Do Poorer Children Outperform Middle-Class Children?

How do we know? “While research finds that low-income students do worse than middle-class students, on average,” Kahlenberg explains, “there is one exception to this rule: low-income students attending middle-class schools perform higher, on average, than middle-class children attending high-poverty schools.

 The figure below demonstrates this phenomenon. The top line tracks the score of middle-class students on the fourth grade National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in math, and the bottom line shows the scores of low-income students. Students from both groups do better on the left side of the figure (in middle-class schools) and do worse as they move to the right (in high-poverty schools). Strikingly, low-income students in middle-class schools score better than middle-class students in the highest-poverty school.”  Clearly, the school environment makes an enormous difference, both for middle-class and for poor children.

How Are Middle-Class Schools Different?

The problem with “No Child Left Behind” is that “it does nothing directly to address America’s long-standing problem of separately educating poor and middle-class children,” Kahlenberg writes. “More than fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, NCLB is an effort, like most education reform, to make separate but equal work.

 “But this approach is likely to fail,” he continues, “because research finds that what all students need most is the good learning environment found in majority middle-class schools. Specifically:

“Middle-class schools have an adequate financial base (as measured against student needs) to provide small class size, modern equipment, and the like. Most studies find that low-income students need considerably more spent on their education than middle-class students do in order to produce high levels of achievement, yet affluent districts spend a cost-adjusted $938 more per pupil, compared to high-poverty districts.

Middle-class schools are more likely to spend money on the classroom than on bureaucracy. One reason for this difference is that there is less pressure in middle-class areas to make education a jobs program for adults in the community, because plenty of well-paying private sector jobs are available
for middle-class parents.

Middle-class schools provide an orderly environment. Indeed, middle-class schools report disorder problems half as often as high-poverty schools, and low-income schools are about three times as likely to report the presence of street gangs as more affluent schools.

Middle-class schools have a more stable student population, which makes it more likely that learning will occur. For example, in one study the percentage of students who transferred two or more times between schools in a two year period was 23 percent in high-poverty schools, compared with just 12 percent in affluent schools.

Middle-class schools have strong principals and well-qualified teachers trained in the subjects they are teaching. Research shows that teachers in middle-class schools are more likely to be licensed, less likely to teach out of their fields of expertise, less likely to have low teacher test scores, less likely to be inexperienced, and more likely to have greater formal education

Middle-class schools have a better curricula and higher expectations. For example, middle-class schools also are more likely to offer Advanced Placement classes and high-level math.

Middle-class schools have active parental involvement. For example, middle class parents are twice as likely to volunteer in the classroom or serve on a school committee and are much more likely to participate in fund raising.

Middle-class schools have motivated peers who value achievement and can encourage excellence among classmates. Peers in middle-class schools are more likely to do homework, less likely to watch television, less likely to cut class, and more likely to graduate—all of which have been found to influence the behavior of classmates. Moreover, high-achieving peers in middle-class schools share their knowledge informally with classmates all day long. For example, a child who attends a middle-class school is likely to be surrounded by peers who have a much richer vocabulary than students in high-poverty schools.

Looking at these facts, Kahlenberg’s recommends integrating schools, not by race, but by income, moving low-income students into middle-class suburban schools, transferring a few students into each classroom.

The idea sounds radical. Wouldn’t the low-income students disrupt classrooms, interfering with the middle-class students’ education, pulling down the quality of the entire school? How would suburban parents feel about children from the ghetto being bussed into their neighborhood? How would teachers cope with students who suffer from the emotional problems that so often accompany poverty? 

The answer, the program can work when poor children are integrated into suburban classrooms in small groups. Young children do not like to be “different.” For this reason, they tend to model themselves on their peers. When very young low-income students find themselves in a classroom where students rarely shout out and no one runs around, they are likely to imitate the majority.

We know this because the initiative Kahlenberg recommends already is working, in .St. Louis, Hartford, Boston, Milwaukee, Rochester, and Indianapolis--cities that, for years, have enabled several thousand minority students to attend suburban schools on a voluntary basis.

Building on What Works

In a recent report titled “Education: Building on Success,”  Greg Anrig, vice-president for Policy at The Century Foundation observes that both during his campaign and during his early months in office, “Barack Obama has defined his policy goals in pragmatic rather than ideological terms. For example, President Obama said in a recent interview, ‘Our challenge is going to be identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don’t work, and making things that we have more efficient’”.

Anrig then goes on to describe the Voluntary Inter-District Transfer Program in St. Louis, Missouri, as an idea that works:  “The St. Louis program was originally included as part of a 1983 school desegregation order, and has allowed as many as 13,000 African-American students to attend public schools in sixteen participating suburbs.. Even though the federal judge who presided over the court case recently said that the program was no longer required, all sixteen communities agreed to continue it, and thirteen decided to accept new students even though state funding for each transfer student was reduced. The superintendent of the affluent Clayton School District said after the vote endorsing continuation of the program, “You all know how I feel about this program. . . . It’s a  very special thing.”

Anrig explains that “In The Century Foundation’s newly published volume, Improving on No Child Left Behind, Jennifer Jellison Holme and Amy Stuart Wells synthesize research that has been conducted over the years on these cross-district initiatives. Because the St. Louis program was the largest and most closely studied effort, it makes sense to focus on that model.

“Overall, the main findings from the St. Louis research show that African-American students from the city who transferred to suburban schools did not show significant gains on academic tests in the elementary grades; but in the long run, those who stayed in the program until they reached the tenth grade, displayed levels of achievement that far surpassed that of their peers who either remained in neighborhood city schools or attended magnet schools created as part of the court order.

 “One study found that, by middle and high school, African-Americans able to attend suburban schools were scoring about 10 percent higher in reading and math than African-Americans in city middle and high schools. In addition, graduation rates were twice as high for the transfer students compared to counterparts who remained in the city schools.

“Research into the other cross-district programs consistently found that transfer students performed better on tests and other measures than those who remained in city public schools. Indeed, a multitude of studies going back to the Coleman Report in the 1960s have shown that students from low-income families who attend predominantly middle-class schools do much better than those who go to high poverty schools.

“ For example, on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress given to fourth graders in math, low-income students attending more affluent schools were almost two years ahead of low-income students in high-poverty schools.

“Concentrations of poverty create a confluence of dynamics that make it vastly more difficult for schools to provide a quality education. But when low-income children have an opportunity to go to middle class schools—where parents are more likely to be engaged, classroom disruptions are less pervasive, teachers are better qualified on average, buildings are in better repair, instructional materials are higher quality, and peers are more likely to value learning—they have a much better chance of succeeding.

“The pending reauthorization of NCLB presents an opportunity to create new incentives and support systems to encourage much more widespread implementation of the sort of cross-district transfers that were so successful—both educationally and politically—in St. Louis and elsewhere. Holme and Wells argue for changes in NCLB that would target and support meaningful school choices for the most disadvantaged students, create strong incentives for significant participation of suburban districts, and further the goals of diversity and equity in public education.

“ Among the specific changes to NCLB that they recommend:

• Students enrolled in schools that consistently fail to achieve “adequate yearly progress” and who meet other criteria, including residency in a neighborhood with a high concentration of poverty, should become eligible for voluntary transfers to suburban schools.
• Support services, including transportation and coordination of services and information, would be provided to such students with federal funding.
• Financial incentives would be provided to help suburbs more than cover the cost of educating transfer students; “safe haven” provisions would assure the suburban districts that the test scores of students theyaccept from the city would not, for an extended period of time, be counted in assessing their adequate yearly progress in connection with NCLB.
• Funding also would be provided for support and training for educators in suburban public schools that agree to participate in the program.

“Although political resistance remains strong in many suburban communities against allowing the admittance of low-income minority children into their schools, the history of cross-district programs demonstrates that, over time, such communities evolve beyond grudging acceptance to valuing those programs as an important asset to their town—as well as beneficial to their own students. One role the federal government can play is to make the case actively that socioeconomic integration demonstrably improves the performance of schools and students.

“That bottom-line result can help to overcome concerns and fears about the idea. Considering how many other reform strategies have failed year after year, it is time for the federal government to campaign energetically for different approach that has proven to work.”

I would add that, given what we know about the link between education and health (see my earlier post on Healthbeatblog.org), children who have the opportunity to study in integrated, middle-class schools are likely to benefit not only by being able to secure better jobs, but by enjoying better health for years to come.  They are less likely to smoke. They might even be less likely to become obese simply because suburban schools usually offer much better athletic facilities.  And all of this can be accomplished, without spending an extra penny on their health care--but simply by taking them out of an environment that was hazardous to their future in every way possible.

Because, experience shows, it is very, very hard to turn a poor school into a school where children flourish and learn. It can be done—and has been done many times.  But usually only one or at most two schools in a neighborhood are saved. The rest remain broken.

Why is it so difficult to rescue a school?  Begin with the physical plant. Imagine a first-grade classroom in the Bronx, just a few blocks from Yankee stadium. (The details that follow describe an actual classroom; this is not a composite.) Windows that haven’t been washed for years don’t open. Often, the room is hot. The blackboard can’t be used because it is charred—two or three years earlier some children set the room on fire. The custodian’s cat cannot keep up with the mice; their droppings and their decaying corpses pollute air that, in the Bronx, is already contaminated with black carbon (soot). Respiratory infections are commonplace. The number of miscarriages among teachers is startling. The children cannot use the playground in front of the school because, too often, the residents of nearby buildings throw bottles and garbage from their windows down onto the children. In the classroom, supplies are sketchy. The teacher buys crayons, pencils, construction paper and books to read to her students-- and a rug to cover the filthy floor.

Substitute teachers refuse to come to this school, so when a teacher is out sick, other first-grade teachers have to divide his or her 24 children and add them to their classrooms. Many children need special attention. 

Because there are too few special education classes in the district, a first-grade is likely to have three or four children suffering from severe emotional or mental problems. Often these children have been held back for one or two years so they are bigger and stronger than the other children. For example, in this classroom one eight-year-old throws chairs and even desks when he becomes agitated. One outburst can ignite the rest of the room, and pandemonium ensues. Often the police come to the school, and on more than one occasion an emotionally distraught child is taken away in an ambulance.  And this is first grade.

 What I have described is an environment that is hostile to learning. Even if you could lure the finest teachers and administrators to the school (and there are, in fact, a number of dedicated educators working in this school) there is be a limit to what they could do. Too many children coming from unsettled homes that lack consistent rules and routines are packed twenty to twenty-four to a classroom

The Statistics on Learning in Poor vs Middle-Class Schools                      

The numbers confirm that this classroom is far from unique. In “Can Separate Be Equal: The Overlooked Flaw At the Center of No Child Left Behind,”  Richard Kahlenberg observes that in our cities and suburbs our public schools are segregated by income.  And concentrations of poverty in some schools create a setting where children are far less likely to learn than in middle-class schools. Consider this statistic: “the reading level of the average, low-income twelfth grader is the same as that of the average, middle-class eighth grader—regardless of race.”

Overall, Kahlenberg reports, a middle-class school is twenty-two times as likely to be consistently high performing as a high poverty school (a school in which at least 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduce-priced lunches) “High-performing” is defined as a school “in the top third in the state in two subjects, in two grades, and over a two year time period.”

There could be many reasons why low-income students lag middle-class peers, beginning with a lack of parental involvement in the child’s education at an early age. Kahlenberg acknowledges that “Low-income students, on average, come to school less ready to learn. But the concentration of poverty in certain schools has an independent effect.”  In other words, while the home is important, the environment where the child is educated also plays a key role.

When Do Poorer Children Outperform Middle-Class Children?

How do we know? “While research finds that low-income students do worse than middle-class students, on average,” Kahlenberg explains, “there is one exception to this rule: low-income students attending middle-class schools perform higher, on average, than middle-class children attending high-poverty schools.

 The figure below demonstrates this phenomenon. The top line tracks the score of middle-class students on the fourth grade National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in math, and the bottom line shows the scores of low-income students. Students from both groups do better on the left side of the figure (in middle-class schools) and do worse as they move to the right (in high-poverty schools). Strikingly, low-income students in middle-class schools score better than middle-class students in the highest-poverty school.”  Clearly, the school environment makes an enormous difference, both for middle-class and for poor children.

How Are Middle-Class Schools Different?

The problem with “No Child Left Behind” is that “it does nothing directly to address America’s long-standing problem of separately educating poor and middle-class children,” Kahlenberg writes. “More than fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, NCLB is an effort, like most education reform, to make separate but equal work.

 “But this approach is likely to fail,” he continues, “because research finds that what all students need most is the good learning environment found in majority middle-class schools. Specifically:

“Middle-class schools have an adequate financial base (as measured against student needs) to provide small class size, modern equipment, and the like. Most studies find that low-income students need considerably more spent on their education than middle-class students do in order to produce high levels of achievement, yet affluent districts spend a cost-adjusted $938 more per pupil, compared to high-poverty districts.

Middle-class schools are more likely to spend money on the classroom than on bureaucracy. One reason for this difference is that there is less pressure in middle-class areas to make education a jobs program for adults in the community, because plenty of well-paying private sector jobs are available
for middle-class parents.

Middle-class schools provide an orderly environment. Indeed, middle-class schools report disorder problems half as often as high-poverty schools, and low-income schools are about three times as likely to report the presence of street gangs as more affluent schools.

Middle-class schools have a more stable student population, which makes it more likely that learning will occur. For example, in one study the percentage of students who transferred two or more times between schools in a two year period was 23 percent in high-poverty schools, compared with just 12 percent in affluent schools.

Middle-class schools have strong principals and well-qualified teachers trained in the subjects they are teaching. Research shows that teachers in middle-class schools are more likely to be licensed, less likely to teach out of their fields of expertise, less likely to have low teacher test scores, less likely to be inexperienced, and more likely to have greater formal education

Middle-class schools have a better curricula and higher expectations. For example, middle-class schools also are more likely to offer Advanced Placement classes and high-level math.

Middle-class schools have active parental involvement. For example, middle class parents are twice as likely to volunteer in the classroom or serve on a school committee and are much more likely to participate in fund raising.

Middle-class schools have motivated peers who value achievement and can encourage excellence among classmates. Peers in middle-class schools are more likely to do homework, less likely to watch television, less likely to cut class, and more likely to graduate—all of which have been found to influence the behavior of classmates. Moreover, high-achieving peers in middle-class schools share their knowledge informally with classmates all day long. For example, a child who attends a middle-class school is likely to be surrounded by peers who have a much richer vocabulary than students in high-poverty schools.

Looking at these facts, Kahlenberg’s recommends integrating schools, not by race, but by income, moving low-income students into middle-class suburban schools, transferring a few students into each classroom.

The idea sounds radical. Wouldn’t the low-income students disrupt classrooms, interfering with the middle-class students’ education, pulling down the quality of the entire school? How would suburban parents feel about children from the ghetto being bussed into their neighborhood? How would teachers cope with students who suffer from the emotional problems that so often accompany poverty? 

The answer, the program can work when poor children are integrated into suburban classrooms in small groups. Young children do not like to be “different.” For this reason, they tend to model themselves on their peers. When very young low-income students find themselves in a classroom where students rarely shout out and no one runs around, they are likely to imitate the majority.

We know this because the initiative Kahlenberg recommends already is working, in .St. Louis, Hartford, Boston, Milwaukee, Rochester, and Indianapolis--cities that, for years, have enabled several thousand minority students to attend suburban schools on a voluntary basis.

Building on What Works

In a recent report titled “Education: Building on Success,”  Greg Anrig, vice-president for Policy at The Century Foundation observes that both during his campaign and during his early months in office, “Barack Obama has defined his policy goals in pragmatic rather than ideological terms. For example, President Obama said in a recent interview, ‘Our challenge is going to be identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don’t work, and making things that we have more efficient’”.

Anrig then goes on to describe the Voluntary Inter-District Transfer Program in St. Louis, Missouri, as an idea that works:  “The St. Louis program was originally included as part of a 1983 school desegregation order, and has allowed as many as 13,000 African-American students to attend public schools in sixteen participating suburbs.. Even though the federal judge who presided over the court case recently said that the program was no longer required, all sixteen communities agreed to continue it, and thirteen decided to accept new students even though state funding for each transfer student was reduced. The superintendent of the affluent Clayton School District said after the vote endorsing continuation of the program, “You all know how I feel about this program. . . . It’s a  very special thing.”

Anrig explains that “In The Century Foundation’s newly published volume, Improving on No Child Left Behind, Jennifer Jellison Holme and Amy Stuart Wells synthesize research that has been conducted over the years on these cross-district initiatives. Because the St. Louis program was the largest and most closely studied effort, it makes sense to focus on that model.

“Overall, the main findings from the St. Louis research show that African-American students from the city who transferred to suburban schools did not show significant gains on academic tests in the elementary grades; but in the long run, those who stayed in the program until they reached the tenth grade, displayed levels of achievement that far surpassed that of their peers who either remained in neighborhood city schools or attended magnet schools created as part of the court order.

 “One study found that, by middle and high school, African-Americans able to attend suburban schools were scoring about 10 percent higher in reading and math than African-Americans in city middle and high schools. In addition, graduation rates were twice as high for the transfer students compared to counterparts who remained in the city schools.

“Research into the other cross-district programs consistently found that transfer students performed better on tests and other measures than those who remained in city public schools. Indeed, a multitude of studies going back to the Coleman Report in the 1960s have shown that students from low-income families who attend predominantly middle-class schools do much better than those who go to high poverty schools.

“ For example, on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress given to fourth graders in math, low-income students attending more affluent schools were almost two years ahead of low-income students in high-poverty schools.

“Concentrations of poverty create a confluence of dynamics that make it vastly more difficult for schools to provide a quality education. But when low-income children have an opportunity to go to middle class schools—where parents are more likely to be engaged, classroom disruptions are less pervasive, teachers are better qualified on average, buildings are in better repair, instructional materials are higher quality, and peers are more likely to value learning—they have a much better chance of succeeding.

“The pending reauthorization of NCLB presents an opportunity to create new incentives and support systems to encourage much more widespread implementation of the sort of cross-district transfers that were so successful—both educationally and politically—in St. Louis and elsewhere. Holme and Wells argue for changes in NCLB that would target and support meaningful school choices for the most disadvantaged students, create strong incentives for significant participation of suburban districts, and further the goals of diversity and equity in public education.

“ Among the specific changes to NCLB that they recommend:

• Students enrolled in schools that consistently fail to achieve “adequate yearly progress” and who meet other criteria, including residency in a neighborhood with a high concentration of poverty, should become eligible for voluntary transfers to suburban schools.
• Support services, including transportation and coordination of services and information, would be provided to such students with federal funding.
• Financial incentives would be provided to help suburbs more than cover the cost of educating transfer students; “safe haven” provisions would assure the suburban districts that the test scores of students theyaccept from the city would not, for an extended period of time, be counted in assessing their adequate yearly progress in connection with NCLB.
• Funding also would be provided for support and training for educators in suburban public schools that agree to participate in the program.

“Although political resistance remains strong in many suburban communities against allowing the admittance of low-income minority children into their schools, the history of cross-district programs demonstrates that, over time, such communities evolve beyond grudging acceptance to valuing those programs as an important asset to their town—as well as beneficial to their own students. One role the federal government can play is to make the case actively that socioeconomic integration demonstrably improves the performance of schools and students.

“That bottom-line result can help to overcome concerns and fears about the idea. Considering how many other reform strategies have failed year after year, it is time for the federal government to campaign energetically for different approach that has proven to work.”

I would add that, given what we know about the link between education and health (see my earlier post on Healthbeatblog.org), children who have the opportunity to study in integrated, middle-class schools are likely to benefit not only by being able to secure better jobs, but by enjoying better health for years to come.  They are less likely to smoke. They might even be less likely to become obese simply because suburban schools usually offer much better athletic facilities.  And all of this can be accomplished, without spending an extra penny on their health care--but simply by taking them out of an environment that was hazardous to their future in every way possible.