I am pretty sure that literacy rates are highly correlated with local average incomes and individual school funding. 1 in 5 may be illiterate, but they are not evenly distributed even within a given district or even a school.
Oh wait! Here comes a meta-analysis!
[quote]To illustrate, a study of 11th grade achievement scores among school districts in Oklahoma found that both student poverty and per-student revenues within schools were associated with achievement. Effects for the former were roughly twice the size of those for the latter (Ellinger et al., 1995). Similar results were found for the determinants of 8th grade achievement scores among school districts from across the United States that participated in the Second International Study of Mathematics Achievement (Payne & Biddle, 1999). And Harold Wenglinsky (1997a), using data drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found that average student socioeconomic status and per-student expenditures within school districts were both associated with level of mathematics achievement in the 8th grade, but that the effects for socioeconomic status were again larger than those for per-student expenditures.
Collectively, these studies have employed various techniques designed to rule out alternative hypotheses, and all of them have concluded that funding has substantial effects, although level of advantage in the home and community has an even greater impact.[/quote]
Basically, students arenât learning to read because we are trying to force them to learn specific âstuffâ vis-a-vis any sort of standardized curriculum; they are usually failing to learn because their schools are poor and underfunded.
I am getting my teaching license in mathematics and have been discussing common core and reading about it for more than a year. This post makes some errors. Common Core is a set of standards. Whatever curriculum is used in a particular school is essentially dictated by the textbooks chosen. Caron-Dellosa, the publisher of these workbooks, is independent of corestandards.org. They are slapping âcommon coreâ on the cover because they think they can sell more of them. This is just marketing, people. There is no such thing as an official âcommon core workbook.â Donât be duped by greedy publishers.
Download one of the standards and read it if youâre curious, and please, take a look at FAQ, too. Start with âWhat is the Common Core?â Hint â itâs not Carson-Dellosa.
I didnât mean to imply there was one reason why some kids donât learn to read. I simply listed one definite reason. I donât doubt that in some instances, a school merely lacks resources and is therefore unable to help those who need it most. Thatâs another definite reason.
But there are very well funded schools in poor urban areas, where some kids are not learning to read. The way schools are funded is a major problem. The way schools teach kids is another major problem. Improving the former will sometimes improve the latter. But as long as schools insist that theyâre doing it right despite all the intelligent, curious kids who hate school and education, despite all the happy, successful adults who consider most of it to have been a waste of time, public education will continue to fail large numbers of kids, whether theyâre literate or not, rich or poor.
