The is a story about how healthy food, health care, and libraries -- the power of books -- can save our schools and our children.
Stephen Krashen is my hero.
Unless you are an education groupie or a linguist, you've most likely never heard of Stephen Krashen. But, if he were Secretary of Education, education "reformers" including those in our past and present administration, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons and the rest of the Billionaire Bandits would be screaming UNCLE! Here's why.
The following — Our Schools are Not Broken: The Problem is Poverty — by Stephen Krashen was originally given as the Commencement Speech, Graduate School of Education and Counseling, Lewis and Clark College on June 5, 2011. Stephen starts at 34:34. If you care about kids, you're in for a treat. Here are the answers to our education woes.
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SOME HIGHLIGHTS (Emphasis added.) Full speech at Substance News.
On poverty:
We have been told repeatedly that our schools are "broken," that our teachers are inadequate, that our schools of education are not doing their job, and that teachers unions are spending all their time protecting bad teachers. The evidence is the fact that American students do not score at the top of the world on international test scores. One observer claimed that American students are "taking a shellacking" on these tests.
Not so. Studies show that middle-class American students attending well-funded schools outscore students in nearly all other countries on these tests. Overall scores are unspectacular because over 20% of our students live in poverty, the highest percentage among all industrialized countries. High-scoring Finland, for example, first on the PISA science test in 2006, has less than 4% child poverty.
Reduce poverty to improve education, not vice-versa.
If poverty is the problem, the solution is full employment and a living wage for honest work. Until this happens, we need to do what we can to protect children from the effects of poverty.
This means continue to support and expand free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs ("No child left unfed," as Susan Ohanian puts it).
It means make sure all schools have an adequate number of school nurses; there are fewer school nurses per student in high poverty schools than in low poverty schools.
It means make sure all children have access to books.
There is very clear evidence that children from high-poverty families have very little access to books at home, at school, and in their communities.
Studies also show when children have access to interesting and comprehensible reading material, they read.
And finally, when children read, they improve in all aspects of literacy, including vocabulary, grammar, spelling, reading and writing ability. In fact, I have concluded that reading for pleasure, self-selected reading, is the major cause of literacy development. Making sure that all children have access to books makes literacy development possible. Without it, literacy development is impossible.
Closing the achievement gap:
A stunning example of the power of books to close the gap between different groups is Fryer and Levitt's (2004) analysis. They reported that white children did better than African-American children on tests administered on entrance to kindergarten. When socio-economic status was added to the analysis, about 2/3 of the gap was closed. When books in the home was added to the analysis in addition to socio-economic status, the entire gap was closed: There was no difference between the groups.
We can pay for healthy food, health care, and books for children by reducing testing.
It is widely acknowledged that NCLB (No Child Left Behind) required an excessive amount of testing. Not well known is the fact that the US Department of Education is planning to spend billions on a massive new testing program, with far more testing than ever before, all linked to national standards. The new plan will require, as before, tests in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, but it also includes interim testing, and may include pre-testing in the fall to be able to measure growth during the year. In addition, the US Department of Education is encouraging testing in other subjects as well. The tests are to be administered online, which means a huge investment in getting all students connected.
There is no evidence supporting the idea that tests to enforce national standards will have a positive impact on student learning.
In fact, the evidence we have suggests that it will not: States that use more high-stakes tests do not do better on the national NAEP test than states with fewer, and the use of the standardized SAT does not predict college success over and above high school grades.
Thank you Dr. Krashen for laying out all the arguments so clearly. You speak for parents and educators and most of all for children in poverty. If only you were Secretary of Education. Sigh.