Achievementrap

Achievementrap: How America is Failing Millions of High-Achieving Students from Lower-Income Families, a report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation & Civic Enterprises (http://www.jackkentcookefoundation.org/jkcf_web/Documents/Achievement%20Trap.pdf) finds that high-achieving students from lower income families (students who score in the top 25 percent on national tests and whose family incomes are below the national median - $50,000 for a family of 4 - are failing to complete college in much larger numbers than high-achieving students from families with means. Surprisingly these students are not dropping out of college primarily because they cannot afford it. Finances do come into play to the extent their families need them to return home and produce income, but the main reason these kids drop out is because they are not graduating from high schools offering the requisite rigor needed to succeed in college and they are not choosing colleges that are equipped to support the particular needs of the high-achieving, low-income student.

The study tracks students from first grade through graduate school. In first grade 28 percent of students performing at the top quarter of the nation are from low-income houses while 72 percent are from higher-income houses. By fifth grade only about half of lower-income students remain high ahievers while 69 percent of higher-income students do. Higher-income students are also more likely to move up to the ranks of the high achievers than are the low-income high achievers. The study goes on to talk about college acceptances, graduation rates and graduate school admissions and completion rates.

In order to address this disparity the Gates and other foundations will be increasing funding for College Advising Corps, a program modeled after Teach for America that will train college graduates from highly selective schools to serve as college counselors for high school students. This program has been effective in increasing the suitability of the college "match" for low-income students, and has suggested that counselors directly out of college themselves are most effective as mentors in the college process.

The most promising thing I learned from this research is that high-achieving kids in first grade are almost equally divided by race. Of the high-achieving first graders White students only slightly out-number African-American students; the same is true for Latino, Hispanic and Asian first graders. The challenge is to keep these numbers close throughout the twenty years of education, and to that end 18 colleges and universities have pledged to close the gap between graduates in the area of race and socioeconomic status http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/31/system.

The Cooke study further points to the need for quality teachers and supports for students from low-income homes. The summer learning loss that occurs each year of a low-income student's life results over time in a disparity of several grade levels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_learning_loss. The summer enrichment programs in Baltimore aim to address this issue, but are limited in their reach. One such program, Middle Grades Partnership partners public and independent school teachers and students for summer academic programs. Public school principals select high achieving middle school students to participate and the goal is to keep these students engaged through middle school so that they are on grade level or above for high school. The Cooke study shows that high achieving eighth graders graduate from high school whether they are low-income or higher-income. Just one more reason to ramp up expectations and quality in middle schools.