Investing in Education Like Our Children Matter

Despite all of the debate and conversation about what our children should learn, there is a quickly growing gap in educational equity.

Kirwan Institute at The Ohio State University Researcher Jillian Olinger points out that growing poverty, attacks on public education system integrity, government gridlock and entrenched segregation are forming the “Next Big Neglect” in public education.

“To understand the crisis we’re facing, look at the racial disparities in educational outcomes:

• By the end of fourth grade, African American and Latino students are two years behind their White peers in reading and math. By eighth grade, they have slipped three years behind, and by twelfth grade, four years behind.
• In 2010, the average four-year public high school graduation rate for all students was 78 percent. However, the four-year graduation rate for white students was 83 percent, compared to 71 percent for Hispanic students and 66.1 percent for African American students.[1]
• The National Center for Education Statistics in 2009 and 2011 revealed that Black and Hispanic students trailed their White peers by an average of more than 20 test-score points on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in math and reading at 4th and 8th grades; this amounts to a difference of about two grade levels. These gaps persist 12 years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the goal of which was to narrow achievement gaps through standardized assessments of students’ progress, and despite improvements in Hispanic and Black children’s reading and math performances.[2]
• African American students are three times more likely than White students to be placed in special education programs, and are half as likely to be in gifted programs in elementary and secondary schools.
• Black students are only about half as likely (and Hispanics about one-third as likely) as White students to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 29.[3]

Looking at these statistics some would argue that the low or under achievement is solely because Black and Hispanic children are not smart enough. This is wrong. Instead, these children are facing forces outside of the school walls that deeply impact their chances for educational success, and there is a wealth of research that explains how.

In this crisis, it is becoming more apparent that the fundamental question regarding our education system today is one of investment: are we brave enough to invest in success, or will we continue to invest in failure and jeopardize the lives of millions of children?

Read the full report here: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/investing-in-education-as-if-children-matter-averting-the-next-big-neglect/