- Description
Description
Contemporary public policy assumes that the achievement gap between black and white students could be closed if only schools would do a better job. According to Richard Rothstein, "Closing the gaps between lower-class and middle-class children requires social and economic reform as well as school improvement. Unfortunately, the trend is to shift most of the burden to schools, as if they alone can eradicate poverty and inequality." In this book, Rothstein points the way toward social and economic reforms that would give all children a more equal chance to succeed in school.
Features:
- A summary of numerous studies linking school achievement to health care quality, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing stability, parental economic security, and more.
- A look at erroneous and misleading data that underlie commonplace claims that some schools "beat the demographic odds and therefore any school can close the achievement gap if only it adopted proper practices."
- Analysis of how the over-emphasis on standardized tests in federal law obscures the true achievement gap and makes narrowing it more difficult.
- Description of rarely-noticed racial and socio-economic gaps in "non-cognitive" skills.
- Estimates of the cost of reforms that could help narrow the achievement gap, such as including early childhood, after-school, and summer programs into a broader definition of schooling.
Author: Richard Rothstein
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Published: 09/01/2004
Pages: 210
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.69lbs
Size: 9.02h x 6.10w x 0.59d
ISBN13: 9780807745564
ISBN10: 0807745561
BISAC Categories:
- Education | Educational Policy & Reform
About the Author
Richard Rothstein is the Julius and Rosa Sachs Distinguished Lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University.