IQ and Poverty as Predictors of School Success
As a new blogger I have begun visiting other sites in the blogosphere world. I have found many great pieces available on D-Ed Reckoning. Everything on the site is worth reading, the latest on IQ is extremely interesting as is the prior piece on Poverty, NCLB and Excuses. In addition, 4trogan wrote in response to Occam’s razor with some real interesting thoughts:
Said 4Trogan:
I don’t buy it.
I don’t buy that the main reason kids perform well or poorly is because of their IQ being the biggest predictor.
Those high IQ, higher SES kids aren’t performing better mostly by virtue of their IQs (on a collective basis) — they are performing better because their higher IQ, higher paid parents can spot trouble in their academic performance, and moreover, are in a position to do something about it by either helping out at home, affording tutoring, or knowing their rights and pestering the school for additional help.
THIS is what is not happening in the lower SES neighborhoods, because if the lower SES neighborhood parents did with their kids what the high SES neighborhood parents were doing? Yeah, the high poverty schools would be doing just as good.
As much as I abhor blaming student achievement (usually the lack thereof) on the parents (which the public schools love to do), I do feel it is true that the success of schools can be attributed to the parents — even though the duty to educate surely rests with the public school.
Ultimately, what your data suggest to me is that Johnny will do well if he has a parent to make sure it happens — because one can NOT, in any way, rely on the school to do its job.
The ongoing dialog on the site regarding innate intelligence is exceptionally interesting. Clearly schools today educate in a way that IQ is indeed a huge factor. Quite often, the bulk of what is taught is still done through reading and writing. As for the words of 4Trogan, I agree to an extent. But in my experience what has been the greatest factor is simply the value placed on education within the home and not the monetary means within that household. Asian-Americans are a great example of that.
I can also state from personal experience that wealth is not the real factor. My parents believed that getting an education was the best way to a better life and that thought was a constant throughout my younger years. “Do well in school and you can grow up to be anything you want to be. Do poorly and you will limit your future options.”
Clearly affluence isn’t a necessary state of life to foster such an attribute or attitude towards learning in one’s children. It has, however, become a great correlating factor for obvious reasons.
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