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Poverty & Race Research Action Council � 3000 Connecticut Avenue NW � Suite 200 � Washington, DC 20008202/387-9887 � FAX: 202/387-0764 � E-mail: [email protected] � www.prrac.org

Recycled Paper

September/October 2004 Volume 13: Number 5

CONTENTS:Schools and theAchievement Gap:A SymposiumWhat SchoolsCan’t Do .................... 1

Commentaries by:Pedro A. Noguera ..... 11John H. Jackson .......12Jenice L. View .........13Stan Karp ................. 14Wendy Puriefoy ........ 14Mark Simon.............. 16Krista Kafer.............. 16Dianne M. Piché/Tamar Ruth ............. 17

Response ...................20What Works ................ 3HHS and the HealthCare Gap ................... 4

Regional Organizing ... 5PRRAC Update........... 15Resources ..................22

(Please turn to page 2)

Schools and the Achievement Gap:A Symposium

Almost everyone, Right as well as Left,recognizes the great disparities that currently exist between the educationgenerally received by poor and minority students compared to that received by white middle- and upper-class students.Richard Rothstein, in his new book, Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close theBlack-White Achievement Gap (Teachers College/Columbia Univ. & Economic Policy Inst., 2004, 203 pp.), makes apowerful case that the income/wealth, residential, employment and other powerful disparities that characterize our societyare responsible for and perpetuate these educational disparities � which in turn reinforce and perpetuate these other,larger disparities. His book makes a strong case for major economic and social reform, absent which reform in schoolpolicy and programs can have only limited benefit to those the education system now is failing. We asked him to prepare asummary of his argument, then asked a range of commentators, Left and Right, to respond to his argument, with Rothstein�sresponse to those eight comments closing out the symposium.

We�d be happy to hear from readers and may publish further comments and letters in the next issue of P&R. PRRAClaw student intern Nicole Devero assisted in formulating and overseeing the symposium - CH

Even the Best Schools Can’tClose the Race Achievement Gap

by Richard Rothstein

The achievement gap betweenpoor and middle-class, black and whitechildren is an educational challenge,but we prevent ourselves from solv-ing it because of a commonplace be-lief that poverty and race can�t �cause�low achievement and that thereforeschools must be failing to teach disad-vantaged children adequately. Afterall, we see many highly successful stu-dents from lower-class backgrounds.Their success seems to prove that so-cial class cannot be what impedes mostdisadvantaged students.

Yet the success of some lower-classstudents proves nothing about schools�power to close the achievement gap.There is a distribution of achievementin every social group. These distribu-

tions overlap. While average achieve-ment of low-income students is belowaverage achievement of middle-classstudents, there are always somemiddle-class students who achieve be-low typical low-income levels. Somelow-income students achieve abovetypical middle-class levels. �Demog-raphy is not destiny,� but students�family characteristics are a powerfulinfluence on their relative averageachievement, even in the best ofschools.

Widely repeated accounts of schoolsthat somehow elicit consistently highachievement from lower-class childrenalmost always turn out, upon exami-nation, to be flawed. In some cases,

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Poverty and Race (ISSN 1075-3591)is published six times a year by thePoverty & Race Research ActionCouncil, 3000 Conn. Ave. NW, #200,Washington, DC 20008, 202/387-9887, fax: 202/387-0764, E-mail:[email protected]. Chester Hartman,Editor. Subscriptions are $25/year,$45/two years. Foreign postage ex-tra. Articles, article suggestions, let-ters and general comments are wel-come, as are notices of publications,conferences, job openings, etc. for ourResources Section. Articles generallymay be reprinted, providing PRRACgives advance permission.

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2 � Poverty & Race � Vol. 13, No. 5 � September/October 2004

(GAP: Continued from page 1)

Partly, our confusionstems from failing toexamine the concreteways that social classactually affectslearning.


�schools that beat the odds� are highlyselective, enrolling only the most ableor most motivated lower-class chil-dren. Some are not truly lower-classschools � for example, schools enroll-ing children who qualify for subsidizedlunches because their parents arepoorly paid but highly educated. Someschools �succeed� with lower-classchildren by defining high achievementat such a low level that all students canreach it, despite big gaps that remainat higher levels. And some schools�successes are statistical flukes � theirhigh test scores last for only one year,in only one grade and in only one sub-ject.

While the idea that �if some chil-dren can defy the demographic odds,all can� seems plausible, it reflects areasoning whose naiveté we easily rec-ognize in other policy areas. In hu-man affairs, where multiple causationis typical, causes are not disproved byexceptions. Tobacco firms onceclaimed that smoking does not causecancer because we all know peoplewho smoked without getting cancer.We now consider such reasoning spe-cious. We understand that because nosingle cause is rigidly deterministic,some people can smoke without harm,but we also understand that, on aver-age, smoking is dangerous. Yet despitesuch understanding, quite sophisticatedpeople often proclaim that success of

some poor children proves that socialdisadvantage does not cause lowachievement.

Social Classand Learning

Partly, our confusion stems fromfailing to examine the concrete waysthat social class actually affects learn-ing. Describing these may help to maketheir influence more obvious.

Overall, lower-income children arein poorer health, and poor health de-presses student achievement, no mat-ter how effective a school may be.

Low-income children have poorer vi-sion, partly because of prenatal con-ditions, partly because, even as tod-dlers, they watch too much televisionboth at home and in low-qualitydaycare settings, so their eyes are morepoorly trained. Trying to read, theireyes may wander or have difficultytracking print or focusing. A good partof the over-identification of learningdisabilities for lower-class children isprobably attributable simply to undi-agnosed vision problems for whichtherapy is available and for which spe-cial education placement should be un-necessary.

Lower-class children have pooreroral hygiene, more lead poisoning,more asthma, poorer nutrition, lessadequate pediatric care, more exposureto smoke, and a host of other healthproblems - on average. Because, forexample, lower-class children typicallyhave less adequate dental care, they aremore likely to have toothaches andresulting discomfort that affects con-centration.

Because low-income children aremore likely to live in communities

where landlords use high-sulfur homeheating oil, and where diesel trucksfrequently pass en route to industrialand commercial sites, such children aremore likely to suffer from asthma,leading to more absences from schooland drowsiness (from lying awakewheezing at night) when present. Re-cent surveys of black children in Chi-cago and in New York City�s Harlemcommunity found one of every fourchildren suffering from asthma, a ratesix times as great as that for all chil-dren. Asthma is now the single big-gest cause of chronic school absence.

Because primary care physicians arefew in low-income communities (thephysician to population ratio is lessthan a third the rate in middle-classcommunities), disadvantaged children(even those with health insurance) arealso more likely to miss school for rela-tively minor problems, like commonear infections, for which middle-classchildren are treated promptly. If inattendance, children with earacheshave more difficulty paying attention.

Each of these well-documented so-cial class differences in health is likelyto have a palpable effect on academicachievement. The influence of eachmay be small, but combined, the in-fluence of all is probably huge.

The growing unaffordability of ad-equate housing for low-income fami-lies also affects achievement � childrenwhose families have difficulty findingstable housing are more likely to bemobile, and student mobility is animportant cause of failing student per-formance. [See �High ClassroomTurnover: How Children Get LeftBehind, Poverty & Race, May/June2002.] A 1994 government reportfound that 30% of the poorest chil-dren had attended at least three differ-ent schools by third grade, while only10% of middle-class children did so.Blacks were more than twice as likelyas whites to change schools this much.It is hard to imagine how teachers, nomatter how well trained, can be as ef-fective for children who move in andout of their classrooms.

Differences in wealth are also likelyto affect achievement, but these are

September/October 2004 � Poverty & Race � Vol.13, No. 5 � 3


What Works: A Fifty Year Retrospectiveby David Barton Smith

Choice was viewed asthe wolf in sheep’sclothing that wouldundermine the goal ofintegration.

Three watershed events in thestruggle to end divisions by race in theUnited States are marking major an-niversaries: the 1954 Brown v. Boardof Education decision, the Civil RightsAct of 1964 and the 1965 Medicare-Medicaid legislation. While we havefallen far short of the vision of themovement that produced these events,what has worked? I list concrete ex-amples of five general strategies thathave given good returns on invest-ments.

1. Visibility: Nothing happens un-til the inequities and disparities aremade visible. The Medicare-Medicaidlegislation was passed only after dis-parities in access to care by race andincome began to be documented byregular national surveys. Since the1989 revisions of the Home MortgageDisclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA),residential mortgage lenders are re-quired to publicly report detailed in-formation, including the race of loanapplicants. Nationally, loan approvalrates, unadjusted for risk, are substan-tially lower for blacks than whites.The Federal Reserve Bank of Bostonin 1992 did the first �risk adjusted�study. The study concluded that mi-norities in the Boston Area were re-jected for loans 56% more often thanequally creditworthy whites. Afterscathing headlines, heated industry re-buttals and lending agency efforts toimprove the fairness of their loan ap-plication processes, the number ofloans approved nationally for blackshas increased and rejection rates havedeclined. Public disclosure reports byrace for individual lending institutionsare available both in hard copy andfrom the web site of the Federal Fi-nancial Institutions ExaminationCouncil (www.ffiec.gov). As a re-sult, lenders concerned about their pub-lic image have a strong incentive todemonstrate good faith by followingsuch best practice loan fairness guide-lines.

2. Testing: Making disparities vis-

ible, however, rarely forces change.There are just too many more com-fortable, moralistic and victim-blam-ing alternative explanations. Random-ized testing varying only the race ofthe testers clears away this ideologicalunderbrush. By the 1970s, testing wasbeing used by fair housing agencies todetermine the validity of housing dis-crimination complaints. In 1979, theDepartment of Housing and UrbanDevelopment sponsored the first na-tional testing study of discriminationin housing markets. The study dem-onstrated the feasibility of such sur-veys and the persistence of a high de-

gree of discrimination in the housingmarket. This has been followed by aseries of regular testing studies thathave kept pressure on and have docu-mented progress in reducing the levelof discrimination. Perhaps reflectingthese pressures,the Census documentsa modest decline in residential segre-gation in most metropolitan areas overthe last 20 years.

3. Gold: The golden rule inAmerica is that those that have the goldrule. Title VI of the Civil Rights Actattempted to impose the condition ofintegration and non-discrimination onall organizations receiving federalfunds. Unwavering commitment tothis principle in implementation of theMedicare program worked. Almost1,000 hospitals integrated their accom-modations and medical staff in a pe-riod of a few months. The visible sym-bols of Jim Crow in the nation�s hos-pitals disappeared almost overnight,and gross racial disparities in access toservices gradually disappeared over thenext decade.

4. Regionalism: Patterns of geo-graphic and residential segregationlimit the ability to reduce unequaltreatment. Treatment may be inte-grated and equal within school districtsor health systems but unequal between.The more affluent and predominantlywhite suburban areas do better. Healthsystems and school districts that don�toverlap such boundaries can do littleto reduce the overall level of segrega-tion and are limited in their ability toaddress treatment disparities. For abrief period in the 1970s and 1980s,federal regional health planning cer-tificate of need requirements forcedintegration of specialized health ser-vices in many metropolitan areas.Metropolitan areas that had been op-erating under city-suburban court-or-dered desegregation have achieved agreater degree of integration. In gen-eral, metropolitan areas whose schoolsor health systems are regionalized havefewer disparities and better overall out-comes.

5. Universality: �Freedom ofchoice� was the rallying cry of the seg-regationists in the 1960s and is em-bedded within market/competitive so-lutions to schools and healthcare. Theinitial success of the Medicare pro-gram in integrating hospitals was basedon a single universal program (all per-sons over 65) and a restructuring ofthe hospital system to restrict consumerchoice. This meant one entrance, onewaiting room and race-blind room as-signment. The goals of desegregationand equity trumped individual con-sumer choice. Choice was viewed asthe wolf in sheep�s clothing that wouldundermine the goal of integration.

These five general strategies haveworked because the majority of Ameri-cans believe (or at least can be shamedinto saying they believe) in equal op-portunity and that segregation and dis-crimination should not be tolerated.Yet, the sheep�s clothing arguments ofthe wolf of segregation have blunted

“Of all the forms ofinjustice, discriminationin health care is themost cruel.”


Why Is HHS Obscuring a Health Care Gap?by H. Jack Geiger

Over the past four years my col-leagues and I have read and reviewedmore than a thousand careful, peer-reviewed studies documenting system-atic deficiencies and inequities in thehealth care provided for AfricanAmericans, Hispanics, Native Ameri-cans and members of some Asian sub-groups. The evidence is overwhelm-ing. Unfortunately, the Department ofHealth and Human Services seems in-tent on papering it over.

This is the only conclusion that canbe drawn from HHS�s recent treatmentof the first national report card on dis-parities in the diagnosis and treatmentfor this country�s most vulnerablepopulations. The department editedand rewrote the report�s summary un-til it reflected nothing close to reality.

The reality is this: If you are an Af-rican American man with one form oflung cancer, you are far less likely thana similarly ill white patient to receivea surgical procedure that would cutyour chances of early death nearly inhalf, from 95 percent to 50 percent �even if you have the same health in-surance coverage and are in the samehospital. If you are a Hispanic traumavictim with multiple bone fractures,you are less likely to be given adequatepain medication � or any at all. If youare a low-income or minority childwith severe asthma, your chances ofgetting the most effective drug com-binations are slimmer, and you endurerepeated attacks of the disease and hos-pitalizations. Native Americans withdiabetes, or Asian/Pacific Islanderswith HIV-AIDS, all too often experi-ence such disparities in care. The pat-tern extends over the full range ofmedical conditions.

The reasons are complex. Patientsoften mistrust the medical system be-cause of perceived past discrimination.On the physicians� side, poor commu-nication, lack of cultural understand-ing, and subconscious negative racialand ethnic stereotyping can be in-

volved. Much needs to be learned. Buteven though there are at least eightmajor reviews of all this evidence, in-cluding the Institute of Medicine�slandmark 2001 study, �Unequal Treat-ment,� there has been no overall na-tional assessment of the scope of theproblem. So it was a welcome devel-opment when Congress mandatedHHS�s Agency for Healthcare Re-search and Quality (AHRQ), a bodywith an impeccable track record ofexpertise and honesty, to produce thefirst annual national report card ondisparities.

The AHRQ did its job well. Its draftreport was a clear and massive presen-tation of the data on disparities in careassociated with race, ethnicity and so-cioeconomic status. Its summary wasblunt, noting that such disparities are�national problems that affect healthcare at all points in the process, at allsites of care, and for all medical con-ditions,� affecting health outcomes andentailing �a personal and societalprice.�

After �review� by HHS, thosetruthful words are gone, as are mostreferences to race and ethnicity, nowdescribed as problems that existed �inthe past.� Prejudice is �not implied inany way.� Disparities are simply called�differences,� and � incredibly ��there is no implication that these dif-ferences result in adverse health out-comes.�

What of the thousand or more stud-ies to the contrary? The new summarysays: �Some studies and commenta-tors have suggested that a gap existsbetween ideal health care and the ac-tual health care that Americans some-

times receive.� Worse, the new sum-mary begins with a short list of rela-tively minor health areas in whichminority and poor populations doslightly better than the majority (be-cause, an AHRQ spokesman said,�Secretary [Tommy] Thompson likesto focus on the positive.�)

There is a pattern here. A few weeksago, all of the different institutes thatmake up the National Institutes ofHealth released their draft �strategicplans� to overcome racial and ethnicdisparities in health status � the bur-dens of greater illness and shorter lifeexpectancies of America�s minoritypopulations. Disparities in health careobviously contribute to those burdens.But only three of the NIH�s 14 insti-tutes even mentioned them.

A recent report by a panel of ex-perts convened by Physicians for Hu-man Rights recommended correctivesteps to be taken by government atevery level, as well as by the medicalprofession, hospitals, HMOs, commu-nity groups and civil rights organiza-tions. But the federal government hasan especially critical role to play in col-lecting and honestly analyzing data,supporting a more diverse healthworkforce, and ensuring enforcementof civil rights in the health care sys-tem. To avoid the truth, or cloak it inmore comfortable words, is to aban-don that responsibility.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.understood what is at issue here. �Ofall the forms of injustice,� he said,�discrimination in health care is themost cruel.�

H. Jack Geiger ([email protected])is Arthur C. Logan professor emeritusof community medicine at the CityUniversity of New York Medical Schooland a past president of Physicians forHuman Rights. This article first ap-peared in the Jan. 27, 2004 Washing-ton Post and is reprinted with theauthor�s permission. ❏


Organizing for Regional Equity:The Gamaliel Foundation

by Jill Mazullo

The coalition can lend amoral component tomany social policyarguments.

Where can you find the crux ofthe Civil Rights Movement today?Some say it�s emerging in the GamalielFoundation and the work of its affili-ate organizations, such as MICAH (theMilwaukee Inner-City CongregationsAllied for Hope), the Jubilee InterfaithOrganization in New Jersey, orMOSES (Metropolitan OrganizingStrategy for Enabling Strength) inDetroit. They are just 3 of the 55 suchgrassroots, multi-racial organizationsthat operate as affiliates of theGamaliel Foundation, an organizinginstitute headquartered in Chicago.

When executive director GregGalluzzo came on board in 1986, hecharged the foundation with trainingnew leaders in the style of SaulAlinsky, the famed father of commu-nity organizing who emerged a leaderin the tough stockyard neighborhoodsof Chicago. While Alinsky hadworked on a neighborhood scale, em-powering residents and workers to de-mand social reforms such as betterhousing, safer working conditions andlower crime, the Foundation hasbroadened its organizational emphasisto a regional scale�lately even tack-ling policy issues that are national inbreadth.

Following the lead of Minnesota or-ganizer Pamela Twiss, Gamaliel staff

became familiar with the work of ur-ban affairs specialists like David Rusk,Myron Orfield and john powell, allof whom conduct research in the areasof social and fiscal equity, land usereform and regional governance.Gamaliel staff members quickly sawways that the academics� arguments forregionalism could be applied to theircommunity organizing model.

As a result, Gamaliel asked Rusk,Orfield, powell and George Ranney toserve as ongoing strategic partners.Gamaliel taps these regional affairs

theoreticians and academics and putstheir analyses into the hands of orga-nizers who can effectively move fromtheory to practice.

The Gamaliel model generallyworks in the following fashion: Ahandful of concerned grassroots activ-ists from anywhere in the U.S. willcontact the Foundation to discuss a re-gional problem they�re facing. Theissue may be school funding, orsprawling development, or providingadequate mass transportation to low-income residents. The citizens mayhave been meeting independently formonths, even years, and seek assis-tance in building a broader coalition.With Gamaliel�s help, the small bandof activists learns that the issues con-cerning them are likewise of impor-tance to churches throughout the re-gion, in the core city as well as older,low tax base suburbs. Even organiza-tions in property-wealthy suburbs haveself-interest in joining such a regionalcoalition; their faith requires that theyserve those with little means to pro-tect themselves.

By re-framing their arguments froma regional perspective, these individu-als move from a powerless positionwhere they are talking amongst them-selves into a diverse coalition ofchurches, synagogues, neighborhoodorganizations, leagues of cities andother like-minded organizations oper-ating under one banner. Together, thecoalition can lend a moral componentto many social policy arguments, suchas demanding affordable housing inaffluent suburbs, better bus service forlow-income neighborhoods, and ad-equate school funding so childrenthroughout the region have access to adecent education.

The new organization then hires astrong community organizer who cantrain people to conduct surveys of thecoalition members. Ultimately theremay be up to 2,000 surveys collectedasking for core issues the individualswant to see addressed. The results areboiled down into the three issue areasfor reform that emerge from the sur-vey. The organizers work with lead-ership at Gamaliel to draft an agendafor reform on the three emerging is-sue areas. The organizers then hostlarge meetings with upwards of 1,500people, where strategic elected offi-cials are in attendance. The organiz-ers and the meeting attendees aim tohold elected officials accountable byasking them to commit publicly tovoting favorably on regional billsforthcoming in their legislature.

This model has worked many timesin metropolitan regions throughout theU.S. and produced successful legisla-tion embraced by the Gamaliel coali-tions. The affiliates have organizedsuccessful, racially integrated coali-tions for broad reforms on land use,transportation, fair housing, tax eq-uity, school funding reform, healthcare and immigrant rights. Here arejust a handful of reforms they�ve

The source of the Gamaliel (pro-nounced gah-MAY-lee-ehl) Foun-dation name: Gamaliel is a Bibli-cal figure from the New Testamentwho served as a mentor to Paul,the patron saint of organizers. TheGamaliel Foundation web site:www.gamaliel.org. Link todownload �An Activist�s Guide toMetropolitics: Building Coalitionsfor Reform in America�s Metro-politan Areas,� by Myron Orfield:www.ameregis.com



helped achieve:

1) Passing a fair housing bill: Min-nesota state legislator MyronOrfield was determined to pass afair housing bill in the early 1990sto take the pressure off the centralcities to house all of the region�slow-income population. He ar-gued that suburbs ought to pro-vide a portion of affordable hous-ing based on the regional need.Orfield pursued the bill three yearsin a row. The first year, the tenorof the debate was just plain ugly:Legislators from wealthy suburbscould hardly conceal their disdainfor the low-income people whomight relocate to their commu-nity. But the second year, a num-ber of faith-based organizationsassociated with Gamaliel spurredpriests and pastors to turn out atlegislative hearings. The pastorsalso paid personal visits to outspo-ken legislators, challenging themto defend their basest comments.The presence of men and womenin pastoral garb brought out thebest in the legislators, and the de-bate became more substantive, andmore polite as well. The thirdyear, a housing compromisepassed, allowing the seven-countyMetropolitan Council to negoti-ate housing goals and withhold re-gional services to cities that didnot participate in the regionalhousing fund.

2) Siting a landfill: A landfill wasoriginally proposed to be sitedwithin the city limits of Gary, In-diana. Initially, even elected of-ficials in Gary wanted the wastedump to be located in their cityfor the sake of economic devel-opment. But the Interfaith Federa-tion (IF), a Gamaliel affiliate,said the proposed site was irre-sponsible because the waste dumpwould be situated in a low-in-come, largely black neighbor-hood. IF argued that placing the

dump in a rural location removedfrom densely populated urban ar-eas was a better approach. The keyfor IF was repositioning the issuefrom a single-minded focus oneconomic development to themoral issue of who would have tolive with the nuisance of the wastedump itself. IF was successful inframing the issue, and the wastedump was ultimately built in arural locale.

3) Creating a regional transit au-thority: Transit in the Detroit areahas been conducted piecemeal fordecades, lacking coordinationfrom one county to the next.Transportation activists in Michi-gan thought this was inefficient,since mass transit is regional bynature and crosses many jurisdic-tional lines. MOSES pressuredlocal and state politicians to thinkbeyond their borders and considercoordinating the transit systems.With Gov. Jennifer Granholm ontheir side, the three-county DetroitArea Regional TransportationAuthority was founded. This andother organizing successes ledGamaliel to name MOSES the or-ganization of the year in 2002.

These policy wins and many moreby Gamaliel affiliates across the coun-try are a real testament to the organiz-ing model at the heart of the institute.The coalitions bring people togetheraround seemingly intractable policyissues. The organizers choose their is-sues carefully, zeroing in on winnablebattles for which they can provideworkable solutions their members agreeupon.

Gamaliel is notable in its ability toattract and retain people from all faiths,all races, all classes; the affiliate orga-nizations consist of workers, students,ministers, laypeople and more.

(EQUITY: Continued from page 5)

In many ways, Gamalielis the Civil RightsMovement of today.

Gamaliel is very intentional in its pro-motion of people of color, workinghard to ensure they have prominentleaders of all races. Galluzzo says it�simportant that newcomers to the orga-nization see diverse leadership so theycan envision themselves moving up theranks into key roles in the future.

Gamaliel leaders have challengedthemselves to grow in response to shift-ing policies in the U.S. Their currentpush is a national campaign for civilrights for immigrants called RollingThunder, with dozens of large meet-ings planned for this fall across thecountry. Galluzzo says it�s a difficultpath since the organization is currentlybetter tooled for regional reforms, butthe leadership clearly stated they needto defend the rights of immigrants whocannot speak for themselves out of fearof deportation.

In many ways, Gamaliel is the CivilRights Movement of today. They canrally a crowd as few can, and are mul-tiracial in thought and deed. Watchwhat they can do in your region.

Jill Mazullo ([email protected]) isa research fellow at the Institute onRace & Poverty at the University ofMinnesota Law School, which is di-rected by Myron Orfield. ❏

the effectiveness of each of these strat-egies. Visibility has been fought withprivacy objections, testing by raisingthe specter of costly government in-trusion, regionalization by the rheto-ric of community empowerment andentrepreneurship, and universality byappeals for consumer choice and com-petition. The vision of the Civil RightsMovement will be realized to the ex-tent that the wolf is named for what itis and the long-term impact of suchalternatives on the cost and quality oflife for all citizens made clear.

David Barton Smith ([email protected]) is Professor, Departmentof Risk, Insurance and HealthcareManagement at Temple University. ❏

(WHAT WORKS: Continued from page 3)

Homework exacerbatesacademic differencesbetween middle- andworking-class childrenbecause middle-classparents are more likelyto assist withhomework.



usually overlooked because most ana-lysts focus only on annual family in-come to indicate disadvantage. Thismakes it hard to understand why blackstudents, on average, score lower thanwhites whose family incomes are thesame. It is easier to understand thispattern when we recognize that chil-dren can have similar family incomesbut be of different economic classes:black families with low income in anyyear are likely to have been poor forlonger than white families with simi-lar income in that year. White fami-lies are likely to own far more assetsthat support their children�s achieve-ment than are black families at the sameincome level, partly because blackmiddle-class parents are more likelyto be the first generation in their fami-lies to have middle-class status. Al-though median black family incomeis now nearly 2/3 of white income,black family assets are still only 12%of whites�. This difference means that,among white and black families withthe same middle-class incomes, thewhites are more likely to have savingsfor college. This makes whitechildren�s college aspirations morepractical, and therefore more com-monplace.

Child Rearing/Personality Traits

Social class differences however,amount to more than these quantifi-able differences in health, housing,income and assets. There are power-ful social class differences in child rear-ing habits and personality traits, andthese too cause average differences inacademic achievement by social class.

Consider how parents of differentsocial classes tend to raise children.Young children of more educated par-ents are read to more consistently, andare encouraged to read more by them-selves when they are older. Most chil-dren whose parents have college de-grees are read to daily before they be-gin kindergarten; few children whoseparents have only a high school di-

ploma or less benefit from daily read-ing. White children are more likelythan blacks to be read to in pre-kin-dergarten years.

A five-year-old who enters schoolrecognizing some words and who hasturned pages of many stories will beeasier to teach than one who has rarelyheld a book. The latter can be taught,but the child with a stronger home lit-eracy background will typically posthigher scores on reading tests than onefor whom book reading is unfamiliar� even if both children benefit fromhigh expectations and effective teach-ing. So, the achievement gap begins.

If a society with such differenceswants children, irrespective of socialclass, to have the same chance toachieve academic goals, it should findways to help lower-class children en-ter school having the same familiaritywith books as middle-class childrenhave. This requires re-thinking theinstitutional settings in which we pro-vide early childhood care, beginningin infancy.

Some people acknowledge the im-pact of such differences but find it hardto accept that good schools shouldhave so difficult a time overcomingthem. This would be easier to under-stand if Americans had a broader in-ternational perspective on education.Class backgrounds influence relativeachievement everywhere. The inabil-ity of schools to overcome the disad-vantage of less literate homes is not apeculiar American failure but a uni-versal reality. Turkish immigrant stu-dents suffer from an achievement gapin Germany, as do Algerians inFrance, as do Caribbean, African,Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils in

Great Britain, and as do Okinawansand low-caste Buraku in Japan.

An international survey of 15-year-olds, conducted in 2000, found astrong relationship in almost everynation between parental occupation andstudent literacy. The gap between lit-eracy of children of the highest statusworkers (like doctors, professors, law-yers) and the lowest status workers(like waiters and waitresses, taxi driv-ers, mechanics) was even greater inGermany and in the United Kingdomthan it was in the United States. Afterreviewing these results, a U.S. Depart-ment of Education summary concludedthat �most participating countries donot differ significantly from the UnitedStates in terms of the strength of therelationship between socioeconomicstatus and literacy in any subject.� Re-markably, the Department publishedthis conclusion at the very time it wasguiding a bill through Congress � �NoChild Left Behind� � that demandedevery school in the nation abolish so-cial class differences in achievementwithin 12 years.

Urging less educated parents to readto children can�t fully compensate fordifferences in school readiness. If chil-dren see parents read to solve their ownproblems or for entertainment, chil-dren are more likely to want to readthemselves. Parents who bring read-ing material home from work demon-strate by example to children that read-ing is not a segmented burden but aseamless activity that bridges work andleisure. Parents who read to childrenbut don�t read for themselves send adifferent message.

How parents read to children is asimportant as whether they do; moreeducated parents read aloud differ-ently. When working-class parents readaloud, they are more likely to tell chil-dren to pay attention without interrup-tions or to sound out words or nameletters. When they ask children abouta story, questions are more likely tobe factual, asking for names of objectsor memory of events.

Parents who are more literate aremore likely to ask questions that arecreative, interpretive or connective,



Middle-class children’sself-assurance isenhanced in after-schoolactivities that some-times require large feesfor enrollment and al-most always requireparents to have enoughfree time and resourcesto provide transporta-tion.

like �what do you think will happennext?,� �does that remind you of whatwe did yesterday?� Middle-class par-ents are more likely to read aloud, tohave fun, to start conversations, as anentree to the world outside. Their chil-dren learn that reading is enjoyable andare more motivated to read in school.

There are stark class differences notonly in how parents read but in howthey converse. Explaining events inthe broader world to children, in din-ner talk, for example, may have asmuch of an influence on test scores asearly reading itself. Through such con-versations, children develop vocabu-laries and become familiar with con-texts for reading in school. Educatedparents are more likely to engage insuch talk and to begin it with infantsand toddlers, conducting pretend con-versations long before infants can un-derstand the language. Typically,middle-class parents �ask� infantsabout their needs, then provide answersfor the children (�Are you ready for anap, now? Yes, you are, aren�t you?�).Instructions are more likely to be givenindirectly (�You don�t want to makeso much noise, do you?�). Such in-struction is really an invitation for achild to work through the reasoning

behind an order and to internalize it.Middle-class parents implicitly beginacademic instruction for infants withsuch indirect guidance.

Yet such instruction is quite differ-ent from what policymakers nowadaysconsider �academic� for young chil-dren: explicit training in letter andnumber recognition, letter-sound cor-respondence, and so on. Such drill inbasic skills can be helpful but is un-likely to close the social class gap inlearning.

Soon after middle-class childrenbecome verbal, parents typically drawthem into adult conversations so chil-dren can practice expressing their own

opinions. Lower-class children aremore likely to be expected to be seenand not heard. Inclusion this early inadult conversations develops a senseof entitlement in middle-class chil-dren; they feel comfortable address-ing adults as equals and without def-erence. Children who want reasonsrather than being willing to accept as-sertions on adult authority develop in-tellectual skills upon which later aca-demic success in school will rely. Cer-tainly, some lower-class children havesuch skills and some middle-class chil-dren lack them. But, on average, asense of entitlement is social class-based.

Parents whose professional occupa-tions entail authority and responsibil-ity typically believe more strongly thatthey can affect their environments andsolve problems. At work, they explorealternatives and negotiate compro-mises. They naturally express these

personality traits at home when theydesign activities where children figureout solutions for themselves. Even theyoungest middle-class children prac-tice traits that make academic successmore likely when they negotiate whatto wear or to eat. When middle-classparents give orders, they are morelikely to explain why the rules are rea-sonable.

But parents whose jobs entail fol-lowing orders or doing routine tasksexude a lesser sense of efficacy. Theirchildren are less likely to be encour-aged to negotiate clothing or food.Lower-class parents are more likely toinstruct children by giving directionswithout extended discussion. Follow-ing orders, after all, is how they them-selves behave at work. So their chil-dren are also more likely to be fatalis-tic about obstacles they face, in andout of school.

Middle-class children�s self-assur-ance is enhanced in after-school activi-ties that sometimes require large feesfor enrollment and almost always re-quire parents to have enough free timeand resources to provide transportation.Organized sports, music, drama anddance programs build self-confidence(with both trophies and admiring adultspectators) and discipline in middle-class children. Lower-class parentsfind the fees for such activities moredaunting, and transportation may alsobe more of a problem. In many cases,such organized athletic and artistic ac-tivities are not available anywhere inlower-class neighborhoods. So lower-class children�s sports are more infor-mal and less confidence-building, withless opportunity to learn teamwork andself-discipline. For children withgreater self-confidence, unfamiliarschool challenges can be exciting; suchchildren, who are more likely to befrom middle-class homes, are morelikely to succeed than those who areless self-confident.

Homework exacerbates academicdifferences between middle- andworking-class children becausemiddle-class parents are more likelyto assist with homework. Yet home-work would increase the achievementgap even if all parents were able to


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Teachers and counselorscan stress doing well inschool to lower-classchildren, but suchlessons compete withchildren’s own self-images, formed early inlife and reinforced dailyat home.

assist. Parents from different socialclasses supervise homework differ-ently. Consistent with overall patternsof language use, middle-class parents� particularly those whose own occu-pational habits require problem solv-ing � are more likely to assist by pos-ing questions that decompose problemsand that help children figure out cor-rect answers. Lower-class parents aremore likely to guide children with di-rect instructions. Children from bothstrata may go to school with completedhomework, but middle-class childrengain more in intellectual power fromthe exercise than do lower-class chil-dren.

Twenty years ago, Betty Hart andTodd Risley, researchers from theUniversity of Kansas, visited familiesfrom different social classes to moni-tor the conversations between parentsand toddlers. Hart and Risley foundthat, on average, professional parentsspoke over 2,000 words per hour totheir children, working-class parentsspoke about 1,300, and welfare moth-ers spoke about 600. So, by age three,children of professionals had vocabu-laries that were nearly 50% greaterthan those of working-class childrenand twice as large as those of welfarechildren.

Deficits like these cannot be madeup by schools alone, no matter howhigh the teachers� expectations. For allchildren to achieve the same goals, theless advantaged would have to enterschool with verbal fluency similar tothe fluency of middle-class children.

The Kansas researchers also trackedhow often parents verbally encouragedchildren�s behavior, and how oftenparents reprimanded their children.Toddlers of professionals got an aver-age of six encouragements per repri-mand. Working-class children hadtwo. For welfare children, the ratiowas reversed, an average of one en-couragement for two reprimands.Children whose initiative was encour-aged from a very early age are prob-ably more likely, on average, to takeresponsibility for their own learning.

Social class differences in role mod-eling also make an achievement gapalmost inevitable. Not surprisingly,

middle-class professional parents tendto associate with, and be friends with,similarly educated professionals.Working-class parents have fewer pro-fessional friends. If parents and theirfriends perform jobs requiring littleacademic skill, their children�s imagesof their own futures are influenced.On average, these children muststruggle harder to motivate themselvesto achieve than children who assumethat, as in their parents� social circle,the only roles are doctor, lawyer,teacher, social worker, manager, ad-

ministrator or businessperson.Even disadvantaged children now

usually say they plan to attend college.College has become such a broad rhe-torical goal that black eighth graderstell surveyors they expect to earn col-lege degrees as often as white eighthgraders respond in this way. But de-spite these intentions to pursue educa-tion, fewer black than white eighthgraders actually graduate from highschool four years later, fewer eventu-ally enroll in college the year afterhigh school graduation, and evenfewer persist to get bachelor�s degrees.

A bigger reason than affordabilityis that while disadvantaged studentssay they plan on college, they don�tfeel as much parental, community orpeer pressure to take the courses or toget the grades to qualify and to studyhard to become more attractive to col-lege admission officers. Lower-classparents say they expect children toperform well, but are less likely toenforce these expectations, for ex-ample with rewards or punishments forreport card grades. Teachers and coun-selors can stress doing well in school

to lower-class children, but such les-sons compete with children�s own self-images, formed early in life and rein-forced daily at home.

Culture and Expectations

Partly, there may be a black com-munity culture of underachievementthat helps to explain why even middle-class black children often don�t do aswell in school as white children fromseemingly similar socioeconomicbackgrounds. Middle-class black stu-dents don�t study as hard as whitemiddle-class students, and blacks aremore disruptive in class than whitesfrom similar income strata. This cul-ture of underachievement is easier tounderstand than to cure. ThroughoutAmerican history, many black studentswho excelled in school were not re-warded in the labor market for thateffort. Many black college graduatescould only find work as servants, asPullman car porters or, in white-col-lar fields, as assistants to less quali-fied whites. Many Americans believethat these practices have disappearedand that blacks and whites with simi-lar test scores now have similar earn-ings and occupational status. But la-bor market discrimination, even forblacks whose test scores are compa-rable to whites, continues to play animportant role. Especially for blackmales with high school educations, dis-crimination continues to be a big fac-tor.

Evidence for this comes from thecontinued success of employment dis-crimination cases � for example, aprominent 1996 case in which Texacosettled for a payment of $176 millionto black employees after taped conver-sations of executives revealed perva-sive racist attitudes, presumably notrestricted to executives of this corpo-ration. Other evidence comes fromstudies finding that black workers withdarker complexions have less labormarket success than those with lightercomplexions but identical education,age and criminal records. Still more


The association of socialand economicdisadvantage with anachievement gap haslong been well knownto educators.


evidence comes from studies in whichblacks and whites with similar qualifi-cations are sent to apply for job vacan-cies; the whites are typically more suc-cessful than the blacks. One recentstudy trained young, well-groomed andarticulate black and white collegegraduates to pose as high school gradu-ates with otherwise identical qualifi-cations except that some reported con-victions for drug possession. Whenthese youths submitted applications forentry level jobs, the applications ofwhites with criminal records got posi-tive responses more often than the ap-plications of blacks with no criminalrecords.

So the expectation of black studentsthat their academic efforts will be lessrewarded than efforts of their whitepeers is rational for the majority ofblack students who do not expect tocomplete college. Some will reducetheir academic effort as a result. Wecan say that they should not do so and,instead, should redouble their effortsin response to the greater obstacles theyface. But as long as racial discrimina-tion persists, the average achievementof black students will be lower thanthe average achievement of whites,simply because many blacks (espe-cially males) who see that academiceffort has less of a payoff will respondrationally by reducing their effort.

Helpful Policies

If we properly identify the actualsocial class characteristics that producedifferences in average achievement,we should be able to design policiesthat narrow the achievement gap. Cer-tainly, improvement of instructionalpractices is among these, but alone, afocus on school reform is bound to befrustrating and ultimately unsuccess-ful. To work, school improvementmust combine with policies that nar-row the social and economic differ-ences among children. Where thesedifferences cannot easily be narrowed,

school should be redefined to covermore of the early childhood, after-school and summer times when thedisparate influences of families andcommunities are most powerful.

Because the gap is already huge atage three, the most important new in-vestment should probably be in earlychildhood programs. Pre-kindergartenclasses for four-year-olds are needed,but barely begin to address the prob-lem. The quality of early childhoodprograms is as important as the exist-ence of programs themselves. Too

many low-income children are parkedbefore television sets in low-qualitydaycare settings. To narrow the gap,care for infants and toddlers should beprovided by adults who can create thekind of intellectual environment thatis typically experienced by middle-class infants and toddlers. This re-quires professional care-givers and lowchild:adult ratios.

After-school and summer experi-ences for lower-class children, simi-lar to programs middle-class childrentake for granted, would also likely beneeded to narrow the gap. This doesnot mean remedial programs wherelower-class children get added drill inmath and reading. Certainly, remed-iation should be part of an adequateafter-school and summer program, butonly a part. The advantage thatmiddle-class children gain after schooland in summer likely comes from self-confidence they acquire and awarenessthey develop of the world outside,from organized athletics, dance,drama, museum visits, recreationalreading and other activities that de-velop inquisitiveness, creativity, self-discipline and organizational skills.After-school and summer programscan be expected to have a chance to

narrow the achievement gap only byattempting to duplicate such experi-ences.

Provision of health care services tolower-class children and their familiesis also required to narrow the achieve-ment gap. Some health care servicesare relatively inexpensive, like schoolvision and dental clinics that cost lessthan schools typically spend on manyless effective reforms. A full array ofhealth services will cost more, butlikely can�t be avoided if there is a trueintent to raise the achievement oflower-class children.

Policies to make stable housing af-fordable to low-income working fami-lies with children and policies to sup-port the earnings of such familiesshould also be thought of as educa-tional policies � they can have a bigimpact on student achievement, irre-spective of school quality.

The association of social and eco-nomic disadvantage with an achieve-ment gap has long been well known toeducators. Most, however, haveavoided the obvious implication: Toimprove lower-class children�s learn-ing, amelioration of the social and eco-nomic conditions of their lives is alsoneeded. Calling attention to this linkis not to make excuses for poor schoolperformance. It is, rather, to be hon-est about the social support schoolsrequire if they are to fulfill the public�sexpectation that the achievement gapdisappear. Only if school improvementproceeds simultaneously with social andeconomic reform can this expectationbe fulfilled.

Richard Rothstein ([email protected]) is a research associateof the Economic Policy Institute, avisiting professor at Teachers College,Columbia University, and the authorof Class and Schools. Using Social,Economic, and Educational Reform toClose the Black-White AchievementGap (Teachers College Press, 2004).This article is adapted from a summaryof that book prepared for the October2004 issue of American School BoardJournal. ❏


Reducing poverty andimproving schoolsshould not be treated ascompeting goals, butfor the time being atleast, there is fargreater support forimproving education.


Social Class, But What About the Schools?by Pedro A. Noguera

Long before publication of SocialClass and Schools, I was a fan of Ri-chard Rothstein�s work. As a NewYork Times columnist for severalyears, Rothstein�s commentaries oneducation were distinguished by hisability to bring common-sense insightsto complex policy issues. In a fieldwhere policy typically is driven byideology and the latest reform fad,Rothstein�s perspectives were fre-quently a breath of fresh air, and Ioften found myself clipping the articlesto share with students and colleagues.

Hence, I was not surprised to findmyself in complete agreement withmost of the arguments in his new book.In fact, many of the points he raisesabout the ways in which poverty in-fluences the academic performance ofpoor children, I have made myself (my2003 book, City Schools and theAmerican Dream). Like Rothstein, Ihave often taken issue with those (likethe Thernstroms and The HeritageFoundation) who assert that there are�no excuses� for the achievement gapbetween Black and white, or middle-class and poor children. As Rothsteinmakes clear, lack of health care, inad-equate nutrition or inability to securestable housing has an effect on theachievement of poor students, andthose who claim that children whosebasic needs have not been met shoulddo just as well as more privileged chil-dren are either lying or delusional.

Despite my concurrence withRothstein on number of educationalissues, there are at least two disturb-ing aspects to his main argument thatI take issue with. First, there is sub-stantial evidence that the schools poorchildren attend are more likely to beovercrowded, underfunded and staffedby inexperienced teachers. Poor chil-dren of color are also more likely toattend schools that are segregated byrace and class; less likely to have ac-cess to the rigorous math and sciencecourses needed for college; less likelyto have access to computers and the

internet; and less likely to be in a schoolthat is safe and orderly. Rothstein doesnot argue that improving these condi-tions would not help poor children; hesimply suggests that this is not wherethe emphasis for change should beplaced. He focuses instead on the fam-ily background of poor children andthe multi-faceted effects of poverty,factors that clearly have an influenceon achievement but which are harderto address. Rothstein argues that im-

proving school conditions would notlead to elimination of the achievementgap. While this may be true, I find ithard to understand how any reason-able person could argue that improv-ing the abysmal conditions present inso many schools serving poor childrenwould not have a positive effect onlearning outcomes.

My other point of disagreementwith Rothstein concerns his argumentthat some of the money being spent toimprove schools should be redirectedto address issues such as health careand housing that contribute to the hard-ships experienced by poor children inAmerica. My disagreement on thispoint is political rather than substan-tive. While I agree that much moreneeds to be done to address the needsof poor children in America, such asproviding access to quality early child-hood programs, I also know that therehas not been much political will orsupport for taking on these issues sincethe War on Poverty in the 1960s.There is, however, substantial popu-

lar support for the idea of improvingpublic education and using it as a ve-hicle to promote opportunity and so-cial mobility. Like Rothstein, I agreethat schools cannot be expected to ad-dress the effects of poverty on chil-dren alone, but from a tactical stand-point I believe it makes sense to sup-port the idea of advancing equity byexpanding educational opportunities,rather than dismissing such efforts asunrealistic or hopelessly unattainable.Put more simply, reducing poverty andimproving schools should not betreated as competing goals. Both arenecessary, but for the time being atleast, there is far greater support forimproving education.

There are other parts of Rothstein�sargument that I also take issue with:his arguments regarding minority stu-dent attitudes toward school (I contendthat oppositional attitudes are oftenproduced in school); his narrow focuson Black and white students at a timewhen Latinos and Asians are the fast-est growing groups nationally; and hislack of attention to the difference thathighly qualified teachers can make ininfluencing student outcomes.

But most of all I am troubled byhis dismissal of the high-performing/high-poverty schools that have beendocumented by The Education Trustand others. While there may indeedbe a bit of exaggeration about some ofthese schools, I know from my ownresearch and experience (see my ar-ticle �Transforming High Schools� inthe May 2004 issue of EducationalLeadership) that such schools do ex-ist, and while they may not close theachievement gap as some have claimed,they do succeed in reducing academicdisparities. The existence of suchschools is the most important evidenceavailable that the quality of schoolspoor students attend does matter. I�mnot sure if Rothstein would argueagainst this point or why he does notweigh in more heavily on the need to

(NOGUERA: Continued from page 11)

The remedy is not assimple as Rothsteinindicates.


do more to improve schools. In alllikelihood, it is because his goal is tocall for greater attention to the effectsof poverty rather than seeing so muchemphasis placed on reforming schools.While I don�t have a problem with thatemphasis, I do think it is important toshow what effective schools can do topromote student achievement. This

ultimately is where Rothstein and Idisagree, and while I strongly endorsethe attention he directs toward the ef-fects of poverty on achievement, Ibelieve that the book he�s written isnot really about schools, it�s aboutwhat he thinks schools cannot do. Thelimitations he identifies are certainlyreal and profoundly important, butwhat he pays insufficient attention tois the extraordinary difference that

good schools can make for studentswho are lucky enough to get access tothem.

Pedro A. Noguera ([email protected])is a professor in the Steinhardt Schoolof Education at New York Universityand the Director of the Center for Re-search on Urban Schools and Global-ization. ❏

Don’t Lose the Battle Trying to Fight the Warby John H. Jackson

In the year that we commemoratethe 50th anniversary of Brown v. Boardof Education and the 40th anniversaryof passage of the 1964 Civil RightsAct, Richard Rothstein�s �Even theBest Schools Can�t Close the RaceAchievement Gap� highlights the im-portance of our nation�s commitmentto address people of color�s socio-eco-nomic ills as a tool for addressing andclosing the racial achievement gap.

In theory, I wholeheartedly supportRothstein�s assertion that it is not byaccident or outrageous misfortunes thatmany of the areas that have the lowestachievement levels are urban areaspopulated by poor people of color whoare confronted with many social chal-lenges�people who often also have thelowest opportunity levels. This hasbeen a challenge that has begged foran answer for over a century.

Immediately following passage ofthe 1964 Civil Rights Act, in 1965,Dr. Kenneth Clark, noted expert so-cial scientist in the Brown case, de-scribed in his classic text, Dark Ghetto:Dilemmas of Social Power, the psy-chology and pathology of urban life.Like Rothstein�s, Dr. Clark�s analy-sis highlighted the outcomes rooted inhistorical and contemporary forms ofdiscrimination against populations whowere blocked access to educational andeconomic opportunities. That sameyear, Senator Daniel Moynihan headedup a commission which issued a re-port, The Negro Family: The Case forNational Action, that again, like

Rothstein�s work, indicated that thelack of socioeconomic opportunity ledto family instability in poor black com-munities and gave rise to a �culture ofpoverty� which often leads to unfa-vorable sociological outcomes.

Thus, while Clark, Moynihan andnow Rothstein provide an accurate di-agnosis of the symptoms that lead tothe racial achievement gaps that we seein school systems across the nation, the

remedy is not as simple as Rothsteinindicates. Rothstein�s approach seemsto indicate that by wiping out the so-cial challenges that exist in urban com-munities the racial achievement gapwill also disappear. Its underlying tonesuggests, that many of the educationalbarriers that produce the achievementgaps are centered in the student�s so-ciological background rather than inthe institutions that are charged witheducating all students�regardless ofsocioeconomic background. For ex-ample, Rothstein asserts that AfricanAmerican students are �more disrup-tive� in class than their white peers.His assertion is likely rooted in the factthat these students are more often re-ferred to the office for discipline andpenalized more than their white peers.However, as research by the Harvard

Civil Rights Project and The Advance-ment Project indicates, African Ameri-can students are more often sent to theoffice for �subjective� offenses and aremore often penalized for offenses theirwhite peers are not penalized for. Inthis case, the bulk of the problem liesless with the student�s actions than thesystem of discipline which labels asimilar act �disruptive� on one handand �acceptable� on the other. Here,the answer lies in ensuring that teach-ers have the professional developmentneeded to understand and educate thepopulation that sits before them. Fur-thermore, removing students from this�culture of poverty� won�t alone closethe achievement gap, as numerousstudies have proven that even minor-ity students in wealthier areas, on av-erage, have lower test scores than theirwhite peers in similar areas.

While Rothstein�s approach to ad-dressing the problem identifies a sig-nificant barrier in addressing the gap,it does not account for the gap, norshould it absolve schools of their re-sponsibility to ensure that there arehighly qualified teachers in the class-rooms, appropriate class sizes and ad-equate resources.

If history is to be our guide in ad-dressing this challenge, in 1964, Presi-dent Lyndon B. Johnson launched anational War on Poverty. One of thefirst steps he took to address it wasworking to pass the Elementary andSecondary Education Act, which out-lined the federal government�s role in

How is it that beingpoor one generationago was less of abarrier to achievementthan now?


Requestfor Syllabi

We�ve received several syllabifor courses dealing with race andpoverty issues. We�d like to listthem (and how to access them) ina future issue of P&R. If youteach/taught or are taking/tooksuch a course, please pass on(preferably by email) such a syl-labus.

ensuring equal educational opportuni-ties for all children�through teacherquality, resource equity (Title I) andother components. Today, 40 yearslater, Title I is yet to have been fullyfunded, and in 2004 President Bushand Congress failed to fully fund thereauthorization of the Act (The NoChild Left Behind Act)�falling morethan $8 billion short of the resourcesrequired to give states and districtswhat is needed so that teachers canteach and students can learn in all com-munities.

Thus, it remains difficult to mea-sure the true weight the �culture of pov-erty� has on the racial achievement gapin education when the first battle�ad-dressing the �culture of ensuring edu-cational opportunities to some and de-nying them to others��has yet to havebeen won. Nonetheless, the strengthof Rothstein�s current work is not inhis diagnosis of the war on poverty thatstills needs to be fought, but the con-text that his work provides to energizestakeholders to pick up arms to addressthe battle that exists in their localschools and districts�the battle to en-sure equal access to a high-quality edu-cation for all students. If we winenough of these battles, we will surelywin the war on poverty.

John H. Jackson ([email protected]) is National Director ofEducation for the NAACP, Chairmanof the new National Equity Center, andAdjunct Professor of Race, Genderand Public Policy at the GeorgetownUniv. School of Public Policy. ❏

Simplistic and Condescendingby Jenice L. View

Pity the low-income person who,by virtue of lousy wages alone, is con-sidered an incompetent parent. Let�spatronize her who is unworthy of talk-ing with or reading to her child or help-ing with homework (following a 16-hour shift or her second job) becauseshe cannot be relied on to do it cor-rectly. And, should the low-incomeparent feel too fatigued or too defeatedby racism at the end of a hard day�swork, let�s nevertheless encourage hiskids to address him �as an equal andwithout deference� in order to pro-mote the same sense of entitlement thatmiddle-class kids feel and use to theiracademic advantage.

Simplistic and condescending? Noless than Rothstein�s article. So, togive Rothstein the benefit of the doubt,let�s first assume that the supportingevidence for some of the more outra-geous claims about urban, low-incomeAfrican American families are con-tained within the book�s endnotes, andare more current than the 20-year-olddata he cites on (rural? White?) Kan-sas families. While he seems to haveno direct experience with low-incomeAfrican American families, we canhope that the citations include infor-mation about the cultural supports andtransformations of the last 40 years inthe wake of legal desegregation, in-cluding those within the Black church.

Secondly, his international com-parison is not credible because the ar-ticle fails to address native languageliteracy of dark-skinned immigrants toEurope and Japan compared with thenative language literacy of white Eu-ropeans. In addition, it is not clear ifthe data he cites on parental occupa-tion and student literacy hold constantfor language proficiency.

Thirdly, the impact on urban com-munities of the crack cocaine epidemiccannot be overlooked, leaving behindchildren with impaired health andgrandparents to compensate for thefailings of addicted parents.

Finally, if the wealth gap betweenmiddle-class whites and middle-class

Blacks is indeed shrinking, and ifmany of the current Black achieversare first-generation middle-class, fromwhere did they all come? How do weexplain the circumstances of their birthand their low-income parents and thedifferences in outcomes? In otherwords, how is it that being poor onegeneration ago was less of a barrier toachievement than now? Perhaps it isdue to the worsening income andwealth gaps between rich and poor ofall races and ethnicities, a fact that isneither irrelevant nor in the control of

parents or teachers. The final para-graph of the article makes the mostsense:

The association of social and eco-nomic disadvantage with anachievement gap has long been wellknown to educators. Most, how-ever, have avoided the obvious im-plication: To improve lower-classchildren�s learning; amelioration ofthe social and economic conditionsof their lives is also needed. Call-ing attention to this link is not tomake excuses for poor school per-formance. It is, rather, to be hon-est about the social support schoolsrequire if they are to fulfill thepublic�s expectation that theachievement gap disappear. Onlyif school improvement proceeds si-multaneously with social and eco-nomic reform can this expectationbe fulfilled.

Jenice L. View ([email protected]) isa middle school teacher at a publiccharter school in Washington, DC andco-editor of Putting the MovementBack into Civil Rights Teaching. ❏

Schools need pressurefrom inside and out tomake reducingeducational inequality amore visible and moreurgent priority.

Inequality and the Schoolhouseby Stan Karp

Richard Rothstein asks how muchschools can be expected to overcomethe staggering inequality that contin-ues to define our society. It�s the rightquestion. Educational inequality�whose manifestations go well beyondtest score gaps�is perhaps the centralproblem our schools face. How wedeal with it will go a long way towarddetermining whether our society�s fu-ture will be one of democratic prom-ise or growing division.

Weighing the ability of schools tocompensate for the inequality that ex-ists all around them is a question ofbalance, and there are dangers to befound on both sides of the equation.There�s little doubt that schools coulddo more to bridge gaps between stu-dents whose affluence provides privatetutors and summer camps and thosewhose poverty or language status addsonly extra burdens. They could use theinadequate resources they receive moreefficiently and equitably. They couldprovide more academic supports,more engaging curriculum, and moreeffective, high-quality instructionThey could move beyond a superfi-cial multiculturalism that �celebratesdiversity� toward a deeper anti-racistpractice that helps uncover why somedifferences translate into access towealth and power, while others be-come a source of discrimination andinjustice. Schools could also designbetter systems for encouraging multi-sided accountability and promotingdemocratic collaboration with parentsand communities. To do any of this,schools need pressure from inside andout to make reducing educational in-equality a more visible and more ur-gent priority.

That said, it seems to me thatRothstein is essentially correct whenhe argues that schools face unreason-able expectations from those who de-mand schoolhouse solutions to the po-litical, economic and social inequalitythat we allow to persist. Currently, theachievement gap, narrowly defined bytest scores and, more recently, by

NCLB�s absurd �adequate yearlyprogress� formulas, is being used tolabel public schools as failures, with-out providing the resources and strat-egies needed to overcome them. Toexpect schools to wipe out long-stand-ing academic achievement gaps whiledenying them substantial new re-sources and leaving many of the so-cial factors that contribute to this in-equality in place is not a formula for

providing better education to thosewho need it most. Instead, it�s a strat-egy for eroding the common groundthat a universal system of public edu-cation needs to survive.

It�s one thing to document academicachievement gaps. It�s quite anotherto use those data, as NCLB and manyof its supporters do, to promote a pu-nitive program of test-driven sanc-tions, privatization and market reforms

which have no record of success asschool improvement strategies andwhich promise to do for schooling whatthe not-so-free market has done forhealth care and housing. (Just how se-rious this privatization agenda is andhow cynically concern for achievementgaps is being manipulated to advanceit is currently a major point of differ-ence among those who otherwise sharea common interest in addressing issuesof educational inequality.)

Fifty years after Brown v. Board ofEducation schools are being rightfullytaken to task for failing to deliver onits promises. But the bill for that fail-ure, as Rothstein�s book shows, needsto be itemized to include the appallinggaps in income, health care, nutrition,family support, housing, school fund-ing and other factors that translate intoinequality in classrooms. Yes, we needto press our schools to do a better job.But until society as a whole picks upthe tab for the equality it so often in-vokes as a goal, we will all continueto pay a heavy price.

Stan Karp ([email protected]) isa high school teacher in Paterson, NJand an editor of Rethinking Schools.With Linda Christensen, he co-editedRethinking School Reform: Viewsfrom the Classroom. ❏

Even the Best SchoolsCan’t Do It Alone

by Wendy Puriefoy

At a time when the No Child LeftBehind Act all but monopolizes the de-bate on school reform, RichardRothstein raises important points thatunderscore the broader context of pub-lic education�a context that deservesto be taken seriously now more thanever. To be sure, schools will benefitwhen policymakers and communitiespay attention to the role that race andclass disparities play in shaping the all-too-predictable patterns of academic

achievement.Unfortunately, Rothstein uses his

astute observations about the manifes-tations of these disparities to suggestthat the causes of the achievement gapare personal or cultural, rather thandeeply systemic. In its focus on thevictims of the system rather than thesystem itself, Rothstein�s scrutinysmacks of the old �cultural depriva-tion� accounts of unequal success rates,the idea that we can somehow explain


We must look forproblems withinschools, not pathologizechildren and families.

CORRECTION

In our July/August issue, �SomeLessons from Brown for the FairHousing Movement� mistakenlydescribed Martin Luther King�sChicago housing march as havingoccurred in early 1968; the actualdate was August 1966.

away the achievement gap by findingfault with the lifestyles of those whoend up on the wrong end of it. Thetrouble with this line of thinking isthat it often discourages comprehen-sive, systemic reform in favor of �re-forming� those who would benefitfrom it. If we are serious about creat-ing lasting and effective reforms, wemust look for problems within schools,not pathologize children and families.

Rothstein�s analysis represents a par-ticular barrier to comprehensive re-form because it fails to rise above aset of superficial choices, reinforcinga rhetorical dichotomy that plays di-rectly into the hands of those for whomsupporting public education is not apriority. The fallacy of this dichotomybecomes clear when we realize thatsolving social disparities and improv-ing public education are not compet-ing aims, but two parts of the samelarge one. Suggesting that we can ei-ther reform schools or address inequali-ties in health care, housing, wealth andparental attention presents us with aset of false choices that all of us andunderprivileged communities in par-ticular have a vested interest in recon-ciling. The danger of ignoring school-based variables in favor of child-basedvariables is that it can have the flavorof resigning underprivileged commu-

nities to a fate, instead of engagingthem and others to take an active, par-ticipatory role in the function of localschools. In other words, the problemis not, as Rothstein claims in his title,that �Even the Best Schools Can�tClose the Race Achievement Gap.�The reality is that Even The BestSchools Can�t Do It Alone.

Public schools rely on public in-volvement. Nonprofit organizationslike local education funds play a vitalrole in fostering both awareness of,and responsibility for, education issuesat the local level. When we engagecommunities in generating assets andideas for public education, we help

dispel the myth that a scarcity of re-sources forces us to choose betweenpreparing our children at home and inour communities or educating them inthe classroom.

Of course, this is not an easy pro-cess. The first step towards buildingbroader support for public educationis seeing public education as a broader

issue, and at their best, RichardRothstein�s observations help us to dojust that. But contrary to their author�simplications, the observations are rel-evant to school reform not because theyexpose its limits, but because they ex-pand its potential. Only when we fullyrecognize the relationship betweencommunity health, economic vitalityand academic achievement can wework towards solutions equal to thecomplexities of the task. Such a com-mitment to a shared public educationmay well be the first step towards acoherent new vision ensuring that ev-ery child can benefit from a qualityeducation.

Wendy D. Puriefoy ([email protected]) is ExecutiveDirector of the Public Education Net-work. ❏

PRRAC Update� We thank and say goodbye to ourtwo summer law student interns,Nicole Devero (who returns toGeorgetown Law Ctr.) and NishaAgarwal (who returns to Harvard LawSchool but will continue to assist fromafar with several PRRAC projects, in-cluding our Dec. 3-4 Housing Mobil-ity Conf.)

� And we welcome our new part-timeintern: Elizabeth Grote, a 2nd year lawstudent at George Washington Univ.who spent 3 years in the NeighborhoodDefender Service in Harlem aftergraduating from Yale.

� We�re delighted that Bill EmersonHunger Fellow Rebekah Park hasjoined our regular staff as ResearchAssociate.

� Changes in PRRAC�s Social Sci-ence Advisory Board: Richard Berkleaves us, and we thank him for hisyears of service. And we have added5 new members: Margery AustinTurner, director of The UrbanInstitute�s Metropolitan Housing &Communities policy center and HUDDeputy Asst. Sec. for Research from1993-96; Xavier de Souza Briggs,Assoc. Prof. At Harvard�s Kennedy

School of Govt., MLK Jr. VisitingFellow in Urban Studies & Planningat MIT (2002-2004), and Acting Asst.Sec. for Policy Development & Re-search at HUD from 1998-1999; Gre-gory D. Squires, Chair of the Soci-ology Dept. at George WashingtonUniv. and author of recent and forth-coming books on redlining, sprawl,organizing access to capital, and preda-tory lending; John Goering, profes-sor in the Baruch School of PublicAffairs, CUNY and author/editor ofseveral books on housing segregationand discrimination; and CamilleZubrinsky Charles, Asst. Prof. in theDept. of Sociology and ResearchAssoc. at the Center for Africana Stud-ies, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Welcome!


NCLB has providedcover for growing socialinequality, de-funding ofthe public sector, aprivatization agenda anda blame game thatscapegoats the teacherwork force.

What Teachers Knowby Mark Simon

For teachers, the most dishearten-ing aspect of the Administration�s �NoChild Left Behind� agenda is the dis-honesty in the goals and supposed suc-cess stories. No responsible educatordisagrees with the stated purpose ofleaving no child behind and closing theachievement gap, but we must beginwith the truth.

The myth perpetrated by conserva-tive education reformers is that we canabandon the war on poverty while ex-pecting the children of the poor toachieve middle-class success in schoolsimply by �raising expectations.�NCLB has provided cover for grow-ing social inequality, de-funding of thepublic sector, a privatization agendaincreasingly unjustified by any re-search, and a blame game that scape-goats the teacher work force. The lib-eral-conservative compromise that cre-ated the NCLB act seems premised onan assumption that teachers aren�t re-ally trying. The most talented teach-ers particularly resent the message.Rothstein�s book provides ammunitionfor teachers and principals to respondto the hype.

I recently gathered a group of ac-complished teachers to discuss Classand Schools. They agreed that thebook helped them to articulate whatteachers already know � that teachinglower-class kids well is tougher thanteaching middle-class kids. The bookdoesn�t lessen their commitment toclosing the achievement gap. It didlead them to want to personally takenew steps � walking tours of theirschool community and other strategiesto get to know their students and fami-lies better; political activism to fightfor expansion of Head Start and otherpre-school programs that help preparestudents and families for school; andinitiating school- and district-wide con-versations to reconsider decisionswhich had narrowed the focus of edu-cation to what is tested � de-valuingimportant non-cognitive aspects. (Thisis not covered in Rothstein�s summary

here, but was an important point inthe book.) Most importantly, theytalked of the weight it lifted from theirshoulders, allowing them to celebratehuman-scale improvement rather thanperpetually feeling bad about theirwork.

It is surprising how little we knowabout teaching practices that cause stu-dents to succeed, particularly in high-poverty schools. Ironically, the hyped

myth-making success stories promotedby The Education Trust, HeritageFoundation and purveyors of 90-90-90 schools (90% poverty, 90% minor-ity and 90% meeting high academicstandards), by making it sound so easy,have actually distracted educators fromrecognizing the more nuanced suc-cesses that need to be documented andreplicated. Class and Schools shouldallow us to more realistically analyzewhat teacher behaviors, beliefs andschool practices actually improve stu-

dent achievement and expand studentpotential.

Rothstein makes clear (not in hissummary here but in the last pages ofthe book) that part of his intent is toprovide an antidote to the demoraliz-ing atmosphere that is driving the mostcreative, accomplished teachers out ofteaching, particularly fleeing schoolswith high-poverty students. This is asignificant issue. The class/race dis-parities represented by vastly differ-ent teacher working and student learn-ing conditions have widened to crisisproportions. Rather than dismissingthe need to correct the unequal distri-bution of teacher talent as �politicallyand financially fanciful,� as he doesin the book, Rothstein should haveincluded it under �Helpful Policies.�In all other respects, Class and Schoolsbrings the realities of what teachersinstinctively know to the policy-mak-ing table, hopefully before it�s toolate.

Mark Simon ([email protected]) isthe Director of the MCEA-JHU Cen-ter For Teacher Leadership at JohnsHopkins University. Formerly hetaught high school Social Studies inMontgomery County, Maryland, andserved for 12 years as the elected presi-dent of NEA�s 3rd largest affiliate, theMontgomery County Education Asso-ciation. ❏

Family and School Matterby Krista Kafer

Richard Rothstein is right. Hisnew book Class and Schools under-scores what researchers like JamesColeman, Derek Neal and ChristopherJencks have been saying for decades:Life outside of school is the greatestpredictor of success in school.

It should come as no surprise thatadults� decisions impact theirchildren�s academic progress. A child

born to married parents is less likelyto have developmental delays or be-havioral problems, repeat grades or beexpelled. Parents who read regularlyto their children will see them grow asreaders. It is equally true that conflictand instability at home will seep intoa child�s performance in the classroom.

Even, so, demography is not des-tiny, and Rothstein admits as much.


Unfortunately, theauthor’s solution — toenact a host of newGreat Society programs— is unlikely to make adifference.

However, he discounts the power of agood school to make a difference. Heattributes the success of high-poverty/high-performing schools identified byThe Education Trust, The HeritageFoundation and others to selectivity orstatistical anomaly. He believes suchmodels may serve a few but are notthe answer for most.

His pessimism, however, is un-founded. Research shows that thegreatest in-school predictor of academicsuccess is the quality of teaching. Whathappens 33 hours a week, 180 days ayear matters.

The late James Coleman, ground-breaking researcher on the primacy ofsocioeconomic influence, also foundthat Catholic and other private schoolsachieved greater academic results withpoor students than public schools serv-ing their peers. Similarly, albeit morerecently, Harvard University�s PaulPeterson found poor black studentsusing vouchers to attend privateschools outperformed their publicschool counterparts.

Successful schools are not limitedto the private sector. Educators arereplicating public school models likeKIPP Academies around the countrybecause they raise achievement amonglow-income students. Whether publicor private, such effective schools havemuch in common. Led by strong prin-

cipals and talented teachers, theseschools create an environment focusedon learning and character develop-ment. They build a solid foundationin the basics before moving to higher-level material. Faced with many chal-lenges, they often use a longer schoolday or school year to get the job done.

While a school can never fully fill

the space left by a deprived home life,it can go a long way. Giving kids ac-cess to schools of excellence will makea difference.

Unfortunately, the author�s solution� to enact a host of new Great Soci-ety programs � is unlikely to make adifference. After almost four decadesof Head Start, welfare, and federalacademic and after school programs,there is little to show for the effort.

The focus has been in the wrongplace. Since family is the greatest de-terminant of academic success, fol-lowed by teaching quality, theseshould be the focus of change. Poli-cies that encourage marriage, parentalresponsibility and access to goodschools will narrow the gap betweenpoor students and their middle-classpeers. A healthy family and a goodschool are what a child needs most.

Krista Kafer ([email protected]) is Senior Policy Analystfor Education at the Heritage Foun-dation. ❏

Schools Countby Dianne M. Piché and Tamar Ruth

In Class and Schools, RichardRothstein suggests that school reformwill not produce results unless and untilthe entire liberal social and economicagenda is fully enacted. He has sum-marized a one-sided collection ofunsurprising and not very new studiesabout the impact of poverty, discrimi-nation and class-related child-rearingpractices on student outcomes. Hispurpose is clear: to make a case thatschools cannot be expected to producethe dramatic improvements demandedby increasing numbers of parents andvoters, and called for under the NoChild Left Behind Act, because thereis very little schools can do to miti-gate achievement gaps caused prima-rily by non-school factors.

Rothstein is wrong about the poten-tial and power of schools, and here�swhy:

First, education continues to be the

single most important and effective�equalizer� of opportunity in our so-ciety. If there is one place progressivescan and should put their energy andsee results, it is in improving publicschools, because despite the persistenceof race and sex discrimination in thejob market, education remains the mostpromising ticket into the middle classfor black and Latino children. Forexample, in the years following en-actment of the Civil Rights Act of1964 and the inception of Head Startand Title I programs in 1965, alongwith court-enforced desegregation, wesaw dramatic narrowing of the gapbetween African American and whitechildren on the National Assessmentof Educational Progress.

Certainly there are �non-school�factors that are difficult or outside thepower of schools to overcome, asRothstein describes. Rather than write

off the potential of schools, however,we should redouble our efforts to en-sure that all children have access toschools that work, including: quali-fied teachers; a safe and supportivelearning environment; and, critically,instruction that is not dumbed downbut rather matched with the same highstandards taught in the suburbs andrequired now by growing numbers ofstates in order to graduate. If statesand school districts are not willing orable to desegregate schools with highconcentrations of poverty (and theProspects study conducted for the Na-tional Assessment of Title I, as wellas other credible research, has made itclear that one of the worst educationalenvironments is high poverty concen-tration in the classroom), they and thefederal government should provide ad-ditional, carefully targeted resources



Rothstein’s contentionthat most successfulhigh-poverty or high-minority schools areflukes, statisticaloutliers or selectiveacademies is notsupportable.

to such schools and their students toenable them to succeed, including:highly qualified teachers; extendedtime (e.g., high-quality summer andafter-school programs); additionalhighly-trained professionals (e.g.,reading specialists, master teachers/coaches); professional development inreading and other core subjects that isaligned with the state�s standards; andsufficient pay or other incentives forgood teachers to remain in theseschools. While a certain amount ofracial and economic isolation inschools is outside the control of schoolofficials (the result of entrenched resi-dential segregation), school boardsretain control over student assignmentand attendance policies and ought todo all in their power to reduce pov-erty concentration in classrooms; mag-net schools, controlled choice and com-pliance with NCLB�s new transfer pro-visions can all help reduce isolationand improve learning outcomes.

Second, Rothstein�s contention thatmost successful high-poverty or high-minority schools are flukes, statisticaloutliers or selective academies is notsupportable. Despite Rothstein�s ef-fort to deflate and discredit as manysuccess stories as he can, our own ex-perience in teaching and advocacy iscompletely consistent with The Edu-cation Trust reports on successfulschools and the belief that success ispossible in far more schools (http://www2.edtrust.org/edtrust/dtm/), andfor many more students, than currentlyreported. There are success stories onan individual, school and community-wide basis all across the country, andwe each have been fortunate to live,witness and celebrate success every-where we go. For example:

� Last year, every single one ofauthor Ruth�s students (all nonwhite,most eligible for free or reduced pricemeals, and many new to learning En-glish) met the school district�s bench-mark in reading, and most far ex-ceeded the standard. Her experienceas a classroom teacher, and her priorwork with poor Latino toddlers, re-futes Rothstein�s notion that only a

handful of poor children can �defy theodds.� Rather, her own experienceboth as an �at-risk� child growing up,and now as an educator, speaks pow-erfully to the fact that students cansucceed if we believe in and supportthem.

� In the larger community of east-ern Montgomery County, MD, whereboth authors live, the public schoolsare majority nonwhite and enroll largenumbers of poor and immigrant chil-dren. Under the superintedent�s lead-ership, a program of sensible, coher-ent instructional programs and inter-

ventions targeted to poor neighbor-hoods and schools is dramatically clos-ing the gap, erasing many of the pre-school literacy deficits Rothstein as-serts are responsible for the gap at theget-go. In one Title I school whereauthor Piché volunteered and sent herown children, the system�s intensiveand balanced literacy initiative broughtnearly all low-income and non-En-glish-proficient second graders to orabove level on the district�s early read-ing assessment, including a number ofchildren who might otherwise havebeen consigned to special education.

� In St. Louis, where author Pichéhas represented schoolchildren in anongoing desegregation case, we haveseen results from strategies to improveachievement. Specifically, over thelast two decades, thousands of poorblack children from St. Louis trans-ferred to majority white and middle-class suburban districts, where theirparents could not afford to live. Un-der this program, the largest publicschool choice program in the nation,the students achieved graduation andcollege-going rates enormously higher

than the city schools they otherwisewould have attended.

� In California, one of the mostunderfunded states, with huge num-bers of poor and immigrant students,Education Trust West has identified in-creasing numbers of high-povertyschools making or exceeding stateachievement targets. The Citizens�Commission in Civil Rights met withand interviewed educators at some ofthese schools (and many others acrossthe country) as part of our Title I moni-toring project and found some com-mon themes: 1) an overarching beliefamong staff that all children could suc-ceed (and with it a refusal to make ex-cuses or to blame parents); 2) a re-lentless focus on literacy and gettingall students to read on grade level bythe third grade; 3) continuous exami-nation and use of data, including peri-odic assessment in reading and math,to implement instructional improve-ments and changes; 4) a strong princi-pal and senior staff who respect teach-ers, encourage collaboration and cel-ebrate success but who also communi-cate and enforce high standards; and5) a sense of connection to a largercommunity (e.g., through parent in-volvement, adult volunteers, businesspartners and support from clergy andfaith communities). Significantly,very few of these schools received any�extras� above and beyond their regu-lar district allocations for staffing andmaterials and their Title I grants. Butwhat they did with their resources wasto use them in the smartest, most effi-cacious ways to improve achievement.

Finally, Rothstein fails to addresshow schools and school officials them-selves are often responsible for per-petuating and exacerbating achieve-ment gaps. Many more kids wouldsucceed in school and huge parts ofthe gaps would be erased if adults incharge of schools ended policies andpractices we know are bad for kids,including the following:

1. The persistent, widespread ineq-uitable distribution of education re-sources, including teachers. In manyparts of the country, rich students getmore and poor students get less. Weare dismayed that in an entire work on

(PICHÉ/RUTH: Continued from page 17)


Rothstein fails toaddress how schoolsand school officialsthemselves are oftenresponsible forperpetuating andexacerbatingachievement gaps.

the achievement gap, Rothstein makeslight of perhaps the most consequen-tial maldistribution of resources, thatof good qualified teachers. He writesoff closing the well-documentedteacher quality gap as �politically un-realistic� (p.132 of the book). Butthis �in-school� problem is one of thelargest contributing factors to theachievement gap in the first place. Anextensive and growing body of researchby Richard Ingersoll (Univ. of Penn.),Jennifer King Rice (Univ.of Md.),William Sanders (Univ. of Tenn.) andothers has established that teacherquality is the most signficant in-schoolvariable that influences studentachievement.

2. Tracking and academic-contentgaps. Rothstein acknowledges that poorand minority students have the sameeducational aspirations as middle-classand white students: to go to collegeand make a good living. But with aset of widespread practices that expandrather than close gaps, schools them-selves make attainment of these goalsvirtually impossible for many students.These practices include: a) trackingpoor and minority students into wholeclasses or, in the earlier grades,groups, where expectations and stan-dards are low and remain low through-out students� educational careers; b)counseling and steering similarly situ-ated minority students into less chal-lenging and dumbed-down high schoolclasses, while white students are en-couraged to take honors, AdvancedPlacement and other more rigorouscourses; c) in some schools, not re-quiring, encouraging or even offeringa full sequence of college-preparatoryclasses; and d) the failure of states anddistricts to ensure that the same courses(e.g., algebra, biology) in fact havethe same or comparable rigor acrossschool class and race lines.

3. Bad adult behavior toward chil-dren and their parents. In many high-poverty communities, there are adultsworking in and supervising schoolswho are downright disrespectful of stu-dents and their families. Rothstein ad-dresses the impact of discriminationoccurring off school premises, butneglects to acknowledge the poison-

ous impact of within-school discrimi-nation and other demeaning conduct.Under the category of �bad adult be-havior,� we include both overtly andcovertly biased remarks and practices,schools that are managed as if theywere prisons and not places of learn-ing, and school environments that areunwelcoming to both students and par-ents. We also include the persistentoveruse of suspension, expulsion andso-called �zero tolerance� policiesthat, as applied, deny students an on-going opportunity to learn and oftenhave an adverse and disproportionateimpact on minority and male students.

4. Dishonest grading and promo-tion practices. While we do not favorlarge-scale retention, we also know,as reported by the National Assessmentof Title I, that in general students inpoor urban schools receive �A�s� forwork that would only pass for a �C�in the better-off suburbs. Children donot ultimately benefit when they arepromoted from grade to grade with-out having attained the grade-level mas-tery of reading and math skills neces-sary to do core subject coursework (in-cluding comprehending more complextexts) in succeeding years. Interven-tion and additional assistance shouldbe immediate and targeted to preventan accumulation of deficits that ulti-mately will lead to dropouts or failureto meet graduation standards.

To his credit, Rothstein does ac-knowledge the persistence of and harmcaused by segregation, and calls forschool and wider community (e.g.,residential) integration, proposals withwhich we agree. In addition, his rec-ommendations for addressing povertythrough progressive policies in the ar-eas of preschool and child care, health

care, housing and income security areall very important. We do not dis-agree with any of them.

But, as discussed above, we dis-agree completely with his thesis inClass and Schools that schools them-selves can do little to close achieve-ment gaps.

Not only is Rothstein�s thesis incor-rect, it also provides ammunition toan entrenched, retrograde educationestablishment desperate to excuseachievement gaps at a time when thereis a growing public consensus that suchgaps are neither inevitable nor mor-ally defensible. This �establishment�includes some (though by no meansall) public officials, school adminis-trators and classroom teachers who arechallenged, and in some cases person-ally threatened, by the gap-closingpromises and requirements of the bi-partisan NCLB. It also includes manymiddle- and upper-class parents andvoters who, historically, have beenreluctant to send their tax dollars tothe other side of town to improve theschools of poor and nonwhite students.

Ironically, 50 years after Brown v.Board of Education, those very pro-visions in NCLB that call for racialand economic justice in the provisionof educational resources (includinghigh-quality teaching) are among themost threatening to some otherwisemoderate to liberal constituencies, in-cluding the nation�s largest teachers�union. These NCLB provisions in-clude the requirement that states putall schools on a trajectory to ensurethat all children, including poor andminority students, can read and domath at the state�s own levels of pro-ficiency within 12 years (a timelinedecried as unrealistic by many in theeducation establishment, but way toolong for most parents whose childrenwill have fallen far behind, or droppedout, by the time the deadlines rollaround). Less widely discussed (per-haps because the Bush Administrationhas been complicit in state and localdisregard of these provisions) are ad-ditional requirements in NCLB to re-direct resources to the schools withgreatest needs, including closing the



well-documented �teacher qualitygap� between rich and poor schools.Compliance with this provision (whichwas supported by a coalition of civilrights organizations but opposed by theteachers� unions) could involve the re-deployment of highly qualified teach-ers at well-off schools to those withhigh concentrations of poverty and/orthe provision of economic and otherincentives for good teachers to remainin high-needs schools.

Most of us who support a broadprogressive economic and civil rightsagenda know the playing field in andout of school very likely will not beleveled in our lifetimes, nor during theschool careers of millions of poor Af-rican American and Latino childrennow in or about to enter the publicschool system. But we refuse to giveup on a generation or even a classroomof children, or to stop pushing law-makers, school administrators andother educators to do their very best,even as the Right Wing pushes formore shredding of the safety net andthe Left backs off its commitment toenforcing racial equality in education.It is not only reasonable but also mor-ally imperative that we expect allschools to do right by all students.

Dianne M. Piché ([email protected]), a civil rights lawyer, is Ex-ecutive Director of the Citizens� Com-mission on Civil Rights, where she wasprincipal editor of CCCR�s 2004 pub-lication, Choosing Better Schools: AStudy of Student Transfers Under theNo Child Left Behind Act, and their2002 report, Rights at Risk: Equalityin an Age of Terrorism. She alsoteaches education law and policy atthe Univ. of Maryland-College Park.

Tamar Ruth ([email protected]) is an award-winningelementary school teacher in Mont-gomery Cty., MD, a doctoral studentin education policy and leadership atthe Univ. of Maryland, and on theboard of the Montgomery County Edu-cation Assn. (the NEA teachersunion). ❏

(PICHÉ/RUTH: Continued from page 19)


Rothstein RespondsSeveral commentators charge that

I devote too much attention to socialreform and not enough to school im-provement as a strategy for equalizingoutcomes between blacks and whites.Getting the balance right is difficult,but the biggest obstacle to doing so isan excessive emphasis on the role ofschools. Were the obstacles reversed,I would have written a different book.

My summary for P&R of Class andSchools insisted that both are needed:�Improvement of instructional prac-tices is among [policies to narrow theachievement gap], but alone, a focuson school reform is bound to be frus-trating and ultimately unsuccessful. Towork, school improvement must com-bine with policies that narrow the so-cial and economic differences betweenchildren. . . . Only if school improve-ment proceeds simultaneously withsocial and economic reform can [thegap be closed].� In Class and Schools,I explain that I devoted this work pri-marily to the social and economiccauses of the achievement gap, notbecause school inadequacies are unim-portant, but because our public discus-sion of school and socioeconomic ef-fects is now so imbalanced: Volumesare produced weekly on how schoolsshould improve (and with many ofthem I agree), leaving me little to add.But silence on the complementary im-portance of social and economic re-form is deafening.

In neither my summary nor mybook do I deny that schools like KIPP,or those cited by The Heritage Foun-dation or The Education Trust, arebetter than most and succeed in nar-rowing the achievement gap. What Ido deny is the claim of some of theirfans that such schools can close theachievement gap without simultaneoussocial and economic reform. Interest-ingly, leaders of these schools, whenpressed, almost never make suchclaims. They realize, as many policyanalysts do not, that their efforts alonecan be only modestly successful if so-cioeconomic deprivation remains un-addressed.

Some of the commentators (PedroNoguera, for example) appreciate theneed for complementary work on bothsocioeconomic reform and school im-provement, but think I have gotten thebalance wrong. Perhaps so. Butclearly the emphasis in public policytoday is so exclusively on schools thata correction is in order. If, in someunimaginable (in today�s political en-vironment) future it swings too far inthe direction of social and economicjustice, my book may serve a less use-ful purpose.

Other commentators, however, whoclaim to have read both the summaryand the book, stubbornly misrepresentthe argument as �school reform willnot produce results unless and until theentire liberal social and economicagenda is fully enacted� (Dianne M.Piché and Tamar Ruth). These com-mentators go on to assert, with no evi-dence whatsoever, that �education con-tinues to be the single most importantand effective �equalizer� of opportu-nity in our society.� Is educational im-provement more effective than fullemployment, anti-discrimination poli-cies in housing and labor markets, pro-gressive taxation, adequate publichealth, and unionization? Perhaps so,but I�d like to know the basis for sucha claim. Recent research on inter-generational mobility suggests that weare less mobile than we thought andless mobile than other advanced coun-tries � most of which pay more atten-tion to social and economic equalitythan we do. The conundrum is that itis difficult to overcome class differ-ences using a tool � schools � whoseoutcomes are themselves heavily in-fluenced by social class.

As to Piché and Ruth�s historicalillustration, their memories are short.They correctly note that �in the yearsfollowing enactment of the CivilRights Act of 1964 and the inceptionof Head Start and Title I programs in1965, along with court-enforced de-segregation, we saw dramatic narrow-ing of the gap between African Ameri-can and white children on the National


Assessment of Educational Progress.�But they fail to note that these werealso years in which Medicare and Med-icaid were enacted, in which the mini-mum wage was higher (in real terms,and relative to the median wage) thanit is today, when affirmative action inemployment was aggressively pursued,when suburban housing was opened forthe first time to black families, andwhen black family size decreased (giv-ing children more parental time andattention). Did these play no role?Surely, school improvements such asTitle 1 were important, but the yearswhen the gap on the National Assess-ment narrowed were those when schooland socioeconomic policies to addressinequality were pursued simulta-neously. In the 15 years from 1965 to1980, the poverty of black childrendeclined by over a third (from 66% to42% of all black children). Subse-quently, black children�s poverty con-tinued to decline, but at a much slowerrate. The 1965 to 1980 period providesno support for believing that schoolimprovement can close gaps withoutcomplementary progress in the socialand economic conditions experiencedby poor and minority children. (Pichéand Ruth cite Head Start in support oftheir complaint about my thesis, butas my summary and book stress, I re-gard expansion of early childhood pro-grams as one of the most importantinitiatives we can take. Whether thisis considered an educational or socialreform is beside the point.)

I frequently encounter caricaturesof my argument, such as that of Pichéand Ruth, by liberals who retain, withthe Bush Administration and other con-servatives, a belief that the only im-portant barrier to equality worth ad-dressing is schools� �soft bigotry oflow expectations� and other failures,such as inadequate financing, classesthat are too large, and teachers whoare too poorly trained. While these arecertainly barriers, I wonder why thereis such resistance to acknowledgingthat there are others outside of schoolsand that these are also worthy of at-tention. One need not let schools offthe hook and deny that our educationalsystem is unequal in order to contend

that schools are not unique in their in-equality.

For conservatives, the reason for anemphasis on schools is obvious.Schools are tax-supported institutions,and an attack on the public sector is atthe core of a conservative agenda. Pub-lic sector employees (both administra-tors [�bureaucrats�] and unionizedworkers) are enemies conservativeslove to have. Proposals to narrow in-come inequality, or to intervene in theprivate housing, employment or healthsectors, are attacks on private inter-ests at the core of the conservativebase. Far better to blame schools forall our ills.

But why do liberals join in this dis-tortion? Is it because an excessive fo-cus on school reform brings the flat-tering support of conservative allies?Truthfully, I don�t know the answer.

Pedro Noguera offers a possibleexplanation. He agrees that both so-cioeconomic and educational policyare necessary to enhance equality, butthinks that school improvement is morepolitically practical: �for the time be-ing at least, there is far greater sup-port for improving education.� Heworries that, in the present politicalenvironment when public funds arescarce, advocacy of social and eco-nomic reform will undermine supportfor school improvement, leaving fundsfor neither.

In response, I urge him to considertwo points. First, in the long run, ef-fective public policy cannot proceedfrom a myth. Denying the obviousimportance of socioeconomic condi-tions in perpetuating inequality may,in the short run, build support forschool improvement efforts, but thesequickly degenerate into an excessiveattack on schools, as in present fed-eral policy with its exaggerated em-phasis on testing, basic skills and ac-countability, and its nonchalance about

In the long run,effective public policycannot proceed from amyth.

the need for better and more equitableschool funding. We also set schoolsup for failure when we discuss closingthe achievement gap with schoolsalone. Even if school improvementwere our exclusive concern, would weachieve it by establishing goals (clos-ing the gap) that can�t be achieved andthat make no distinction betweenprogress and failure?

Second, I think Professor Nogueramay not be making the best estimateof political practicality. We�ve not,after all, been so successful to date inimproving schools to the point wherethey come anywhere close to generat-ing equal outcomes for children fromdifferent social classes. And reformslike universal health care, full employ-ment policy, more progressive taxa-tion, adequate housing (consider theSection 8 program) are not wild pie-in-the-sky ideas but policies that arevery much part of a practical agenda,and very much needed. Certainly, thepresent administration has no interestin them, but the prior administrationmade some progress in all of them,despite daunting political opposition.If, by some chance, advocates of so-cial and economic reform can wingreater power in our political institu-tions, we can hope that they will notbe hindered by arguments of liberalsthat only schools can make a differ-ence.

Finally, I am gratified by the reac-tion of Mark Simon�s teacher groupto my book. One reason I wrote it wasthat I have been troubled by the de-moralization I have encounteredamong dedicated, highly skilled andindefatigable teachers in schools serv-ing disadvantaged children. Theyknow that they make a difference andbitterly resent being labeled �failures�and considered indistinguishable fromteachers who are far less qualified,only because their students don�tachieve at the same level as privilegedsuburban children. If my book canhelp, in a small way, make them feelbetter about their selfless and unrec-ognized dedication, it will have beenworth it for that reason alone. ❏


Resources

Please drop us a line letting us know how usefulour Resources Section is to you, as both a listerand requester of items. We hear good things, butonly sporadically. Having a more complete senseof the effectiveness of this networking function willhelp us greatly in foundation fundraising work(and is awfully good for our morale). Drop us ashort note, letting us know if it has been/is useful toyou (how many requests you get when you list anitem, how many items you send away for, etc.)Thank you.

When ordering items fromthe Resources Section,please note that mostlistings direct you tocontact an organizationother than PRRAC. Pricesinclude the shipping/handling (s/h) chargewhen this information isprovided to PRRAC. �Noprice listed� items oftenare free.

When ordering items fromPRRAC: SASE = self-addressed stampedenvelope (37¢ unlessotherwise indicated).Orders may not be placedby telephone or fax.Please indicate fromwhich issue of P&R youare ordering.

Race/Racism

� Standing in theShadows: Understanding& Overcoming Depressionin Black Men, by JohnHead (2004), has beenpublished by BroadwayBooks. [8957]

� �Affirmative Action& Diversity: The Begin-ning of the End? Or theEnd of the Beginning?,�by Mark R. Killenbeck(32 pp., March 2004), isavailable ($10,downloadable free) fromthe Educational TestingService, Rosedale Rd.,Princeton, NJ 08541,609/921-9000,www.ets.org [8975]

� �Next Steps for USActivists: Building onCommitments Made atthe UN World Conf.Against Racism� (57 pp.+ Apps., March 2004) isavailable (likely free)from Global Rights, 120018th St. NW, #602,Wash., DC 20036, 202/

822-4600,[email protected], www.globalrights.org [8976]

� �National Survey ofLatinos: Politics & CivilParticipation,� by thePew Hispanic Ctr. (2004),is available at www/pewhispanic.org/page.jsp?page=Reports-Reports%20Section[8980]

� �The Long Shadowof Jim Crow: VoterIntimidation &Supression in AmericaToday,� a joint report bythe People for theAmerican Way Fdn. andNAACP, is available atwww.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?old=16368 [8987]

� Equal Justice Societye-Newletter just beganpublishing with itsSummer 2004 issue. Toget on (free) sub list,contact [email protected][8988]

� Small Grants - Race/Ethnicity, Immigration& Poverty: The Natl.Poverty Ctr. seeksproposals to broadenunderstanding of therelationships betweenrace, ethnicity, immigra-tion & poverty. Up to 5proposals will be funded,with a max. $20,000 peraward. Drafts of fundedresearch will be presentedat a Jan. 2006 Ann Arborconf. Feb. 15, 2005deadline, [email protected] [8993]

� �Exploring theComplexity of Diversity:Culture, Competences &Ethics,� the 5th annualDLF practitioners conf.,will be held Oct. 21-23,2004 in Miami. Inf. from

DLF, 877/590-6492.[8979]

Poverty/Welfare

� One Nation, Under-privileged: Why Ameri-can Poverty Affects UsAll, by Mark Rank (356pp., 2004), has beenpublished by OxfordUniv. Press. [8930]

� �Financial Education& Asset-Building Pro-grams for WelfareRecipients & Low-Income Workers: TheIllinois Experience,� byDory Rand, is a 15-pagearticle in the May-June2004 ClearinghouseReview: Journal ofPoverty Law & Policy,available from theSargent Shriver Natl. Ctr.on Poverty Law, 50 E.Washington St., #500,Chicago, IL 60602, 312/263-3830, [email protected],www.povertylaw.org[8935]

� �Welfare Reform inMiami: Implementation,Effects & Experiences ofPoor Families & Neigh-borhoods,� by ThomasBrock, Isaac Kwakye,Judy C. Polyne, LashawnRichburg-Hayes, DavidSeith, Alex Stepick &Carol D. Stepick (41 pp.,

June 2004), is available(possibly free) fromManpower DemonstrationResearch Corp., 16 E. 34St., NYC, NY 10016-4326, 212/532-3200,www.mdrc.org [8938]

� �From Jobs toCareers: How CaliforniaCommunity CollegeCredentials Pay Off forWelfare Recipients,� byAnita Mathur, JudyReichle, Julie Strawn &Chuck Wiseley (2004), isavailable from the Ctr.for Law & Social Policy(headed by formerPRRAC Bd. member AlanHouseman) atwww.clasp.org/Pubs/Pubs_PostsecEd [8959]

� The ASPIRE Act(America Saving forPersonal Investment,Retirement & Education)was introduced July 22,2004, in both Senate (bySens. Jon Corzine & RickSantorum) and & House(by Reps. Harold Ford,Tom Petri, Pat Kennedy& Phil English). It wouldestablish a KIDS Accountfor every newborn childin America. Inf. [email protected][8989]

� �Hidden in PlainSignt: A Look at the$335 Billion FederalAsset-Building Budget�(16 pp. Summary, Spring2004) is available


(possibly free) from theCorp. for EnterpriseDevelopment, 777 N.Capitol St. NE, #800,Wash., DC 20002, 202/408-9788. The full study,containing complete datasources & methodology,is downloadable atwww.cfed.org. [8990]

� �Why Did theWelfare CaseloadDecline?,� by CarolineDanielson & Jacob AlexKlerman, a 2004 reportfrom the National PovertyCtr., draws on monthlycaseload data from Oct.1989 through June 2003.Contact: [email protected] [9000]

� �2004 Report onIllinois Poverty: AnAnalysis of RuralPoverty� (40 pp.) isavailable (possibly free)from the Illinois PovertySummit, c/o HeartlandAlliance, 208 S. LaSalleSt., #1818, Chicago, IL60604, 773/728-5960,x274, [email protected],www.heartlandalliance.org[9004]

CommunityOrganizing

� The Midwest Acad-emy Organizers/LeadersTraining Sessions willtake place in Chicago(Oct. 18-22, 2004),Maryland (Nov. 15-19,2004), Chicago again(March 7-11, 2005),Calif. (June/July tba),Chicago again (Oct. 17-21, 2005), and Marylandagain (Nov. 14-18, 2005).Inf. from the Academy,28 E. Jackson Blvd.,#605, Chicago, IL 60604,312/427-2304,[email protected],www.midwestacademy.com[8965]

CriminalJustice

� �Schools and Pris-ons: Fifty Years afterBrown v. Board ofEducation� is a 6-page,2004 report from TheSentencing Proj. ContactMarc Mauer at the Proj.,514 10th St. NW, Wash.,DC 20004, 202/628-0871, [email protected] fora copy. [8953]

� �Reforming thePolice: Racial Differ-ences in Public Supportfor Change,� by RonaldWeitzer & Steven A.Tuch, a 26-page article,appeared in the May2004 issue of Criminol-ogy. Reprints may beavailable from Prof.Weitzer, [email protected] [8974]

� �Reforming Correc-tions� is a 350-page,2004 report onCalifornia�s prisonsystem, which it charac-terizes as �dysfunctional�in recommending whole-sale reforms.The reportemanates from a 40-member panel appointedby Gov. Schwarzeneggerand chaired by ex-Gov.George Deukmejian.Available at www.report.cpr.ca.gov/corr/index.htm[8997]

Economic/CommunityDevelopment

� The Center forNeighborhood Technol-ogy 2001-2002 AnnualReport is available (likelyfree) from the Ctr., 2125North Ave., Chicago, IL60647-5415, 773/278-4800, www.cnt.org[8951]

Community Develop-ment: A highly recom-mended website is comm-org.utoledo.edu/index.html# [8984]

� �States of Change:Innovative Policy &Investments for StrongerCommunities,� theFannie Mae AnnualHousing Conf., will beheld Nov. 10, 2004 inDC. Inf. from www.fanniemaefoundation.org[8942]

� NeighborWorks 2005Training Institutes willbe held in Denver (Feb.7-11), Mpls. (April 18-22), Boston (June 20-24),DC (Aug. 22-26) & SF(Dec. 5-9). Inf. from theNeighborhood Reinvest-ment Corp., 800/438-5547, [email protected],www.nw.org/training[8954]

Education� �Using RigorousEvidence to ImprovePolicy & Practice� is the102-page report of theJan. 2004 High SchoolReform Conf. in NewOrleans. Available (likelyfree) from ManpowerDemonstration ResearchCorp., 16 E. 34 St.,NYC, NY 10016-4326,212/532-3200,www.mdrc.org [8931]

� �Beyond theEmperor�s New Clothes:The Role of the CentralOffice in SystemwideInstructional Improve-ment,� by Larry Leverett,is the 10-page Summer2004 issue of Benchmark,the quarterly newsletterof the Natl. Clearing-house for ComprehensiveSchool Reform, 2121 KSt. NW, #250, Wash., DC20037-1801, 877/766-4277, [email protected],www.goodschools.gwu.edu[8936]

� �The State of theSouth, 2004: Fifty YearsAfter Brown v. Board ofEducation� (78 pp., May2004) is available ($20)from MDC, PO Box17268, Chapel Hill, NC27516-7268, 919/968-4531, www.mdcinc.org[8937]

� �Affirmative StudentDevelopment: Closing theAchievement Gap byDeveloping HumanCapital,� by Edmund W.Gordon (11 pp., Spring2004), is available(possibly free) fromEducational TestingService, Rosedale Rd.,19-R, Princeton, NJ08541-0001, 609/734-5694, [email protected],www.ets/org/research/pic[8948]

� �Learn. Vote. Act.The Public�s Responsibil-ity for Public Education�(16 pp., 2004), a nationalsurvey of public opinion,is available (likely free)from The Public Educa-tion Network, 601 13thSt. NW, #900N, Wash.,DC 20005, 202/628-7460, www.PublicEducation.org[8955]

� Natl. Ctr. for RuralEarly Childhood Learn-ing website has beenestablished at MississippiState Univ., www.ruralec.msstate.edu [8961]

� �No Child LeftBehind: What�s in it forParents� is a travelinginformational andmotivational workshop,organized by the Centerfor Parent Leadership.For inf. and scheduling,contact Kim Gardner,859/233-9849, x229,[8963]

� Community Actionfor School Reform, byHowell Baum (298 pp.,2003, $22.95), has beenpublished by SUNY


Press, www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=60769%20 [8968]

� Spencer Fdn. Disser-tation Fellowships forResearch Related toEducation have a Nov.10, 2004 application(which must be submittedelectronically) deadline.Inf. from [email protected] [8969]

� �The Talent Develop-ment High School Model:Context, Components &Initial Impacts on Ninth-Grade Students� Engage-ment & Performance,�by James J. Kemple &Corinne M. Herlihy (47pp., June 2004), isavailable (possibly free)from Manpower Demon-stration Research Corp.,16 E. 34 St., NYC, NY10016-4326, 202/532-3200, www.mdrc.org[8973]

� �Equal from theStart: Promoting Educa-tional Opportunity forall Preschool Children �Learning from theFrench Experience,�from the French-Ameri-can Foundation, isdownloadable atwww.frenchamerican.org/htm/LeGoneFAFBrochure.qxp.pdf [8986]

� America�s UntappedResource: Low-IncomeStudents in HigherEducation, ed. RichardD. Kahlenberg (197 pp.,2004), has been publishedby The Century Fdn.,www.tcf.org [9003]

� �Preparing Today�sLeaders for Tomorrow�sHigh Schools,� sponsoredby the Alliance forExcellent Education(1201 Conn. Ave. NW,#901, Wash., DC 20036),will be held Oct. 3-5,2004 in DC. Inf. from703/739-4480, [8939]

� �Parent Leaders: Anuntapped source ineducation,� sponsored bythe Ctr. for ParentLeadership, will be heldin Kansas City, MO (Oct.12-13, 2004) & Charles-ton, SC (Dec. 8-9, 2004).Inf. from 859/233-9849,x229, [email protected],www.CenterforParentLeadership.org [8983]

Employment/Jobs Policy

� �Where the FundsAre: Potential Use ofChild Support Funds forTransitional JobsPrograms,� by AbbeyFrank, is a Aug. 2004Policy Brief from the Ctr.for Law & Social Policy(headed by formerPRRAC Bd. member AlanHouseman), available atwww.clasp.org/Pubs/Pubs_Job [8998]

Environment� �EnvironmentThreatened� (July 2004),from the NationalPriorities Proj., offersstate-by-state numbers onBush Adm. budget cuts toclean water programs, thequality of the environ-ment & a variety ofhealth risks. Includes foreach state: % of peoplebreathing unhealthy air;number of people drink-ing unsafe water; % ofpeople living in an areawith 100 times the cancerrisk goal set by the CleanAir Act; and more.Available atnationalpriorities.org/issues/env/threatened/index/html?env1 [8991]

Families/Women/Children

� �Grandma andGrandpa Taking Care ofthe Kids: Patterns ofInvolvement,� by LinaGuzman (7 pp., July2004), is available(possibly free) from ChildTrends, 4301 Conn. Ave.NW, #100, Wash., DC20008, 202/572-6000,www/childtrends.org[8932]

� The EvaluationExchange devotes its 31-page Summer 2004 issueto �Early ChildhoodPrograms & Evaluation.�Issue (and subs) free fromthe Harvard FamilyResearch Proj., 3 GardenSt., Cambridge, MA02138, 617/496-4304,[email protected] [8947]

� Asian America &Same-Sex Marriage, aforthcoming (Fall 2005)issue of Amerasia Jour-nal, seeks submissions(March 15, 2005 dead-line; Oct. 1, 2004deadline for 1-pageabstract or prospectus).Submission guidelines atwww.sscnet.ucla.edu/aasc/rdp2/index/html [8949]

�Moving Forward: HeadStart Children, Families& Programs in 2003,�by Katherine Hart &Rachel Schumacher, a2004 Policy Brief fromthe Ctr. for Law & SocialPolicy (headed by formerPRRAC Bd. member AlanHouseman), is availableat www.clasp.org/Pubs/Pubs_New [8960]

� �I Can�t Give YouAnything But Love:Would Poor Coupleswith Children Be BetterOff Economically IfThey Married?,� byPaula Roberts (2004),

from the Ctr. for Law &Social Policy (headed byformer PRRAC Bd.member Alan Houseman),is available atwww.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1093288195.25/marr_brf_5.pdf [8966]

� �High-Wire Act:Balancing Families &Jobs at PrecariousPoints,� by Jodie Levin-Epstein (2004), from theCtr. on Law & SocialPolicy (headed by formerPRRAC Bd. member AlanHouseman), is availableat www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1092834134.29/High_Wire.pdf. [8967]

� �Religion & Mar-riage in UrbanAmerica,� a 3-page, June2004 Research Brief, isavailable (likely free)from the Ctr. for Re-search on ChildWellbeing, Wallace Hall,2nd flr., Princeton Univ.,Princeton, NJ 08544,[email protected] Brief was adaptedfrom �Then ComesMarriage?: Religion,Race & Marriage inUrban America,� by W.Bradford Wilcox &Nicholas Wolfinger,downloadable (go toFragile Families link,click on Publications,then click on WorkingPaper Series athttp:crcw.princeton.edu[8977]

� �Family Supportduring the Transition toAdulthood� (4 pp., Aug.2004) is available (likelyfree) from the Natl.Poverty Ctr., 1015 E.Huron St., Ann Arbor,MI 48104, 734/615-5312,[email protected],www.npc.umich.edu[8985]

� �Kids Count PuertoRico Project� (July2004), from the Natl.


Council of La Raza, is thefirst-ever comprehensivedata book on children inPuerto Rico. ContactSonia Perez, 787/641-0546, [email protected][8992]

Health� �Literacy and Healthin America� (48 pp.,April 2004) is available($15, but downloadablefree) from Educ. TestingService, Rosedale Rd.,Princeton, NJ 08541,609/921-9000,www.ets.org/research[8941]

� A New OnlineTutorial on the role ofrace & ethnicity in theUS healthcare system isavailable from the KaiserFamily Fdn. atwww.kaiseredu.org/Tutorials/index.cfm[8964]

� �Primary CarePhysicians Who TreatBlacks and Whites,� byP.B. Bach, H.H. Pham, D.Schrag, R.C. Tate & J.L.Hargraves, appeared inthe Aug. 5, 2004 NewEngland Journal ofMedicine. The 15-pagearticle reports results of atelephone survey of over4,000 doctors andanalysis of over 150,000doctor visits by Medi-care-covered Blacks andWhites. Among theconclusions: inferiorqualifications and lessaccess to resources amongdoctors who treat Blacksmay contribute to racialdisparities in the qualityof health care. [8995]

� The Calif. PrimaryCare Assn. 10th Anniv.Conf. will be held Oct. 7-8, 2004 in Sacramento.Inf. from the Assn., 1215K St., #700, Sacto., CA95814, 916/440-8170,x214, www.cpca.org[8952]

Housing� �HOPE VI Reloca-tion: Moving to NewNeighborhoods &Building New Ties,� bySusan Clampit-Lundquist,is a 33-page article inVol. 15, No. 2 (2004) ofHousing Policy Debate.Issue (and subs) free fromFannie Mae Fdn., 4000Wisconsin Ave. NW, No.Tower #1, Wash., DC20016-2804, [email protected][8944]

� �The HOPE VIProgram: What Aboutthe Residents?,� by SusanPopkin, Diane Levy,Laura E. Harris, JenniferT. Comey, MaryCunningham & LarryBuron, is a 29-pagearticle in Vol. 15, No. 2(2004) of Housing PolicyDebate. Issue (and subs)free from Fannie MaeFdn., 4000 WisconsinAve. NW, No. Tower #1,Wash., DC 20016-2804,[email protected][8945]

� �Housing ImpactAssessments: OpeningNew Doors for StateHousing RegulationWhile Localism Per-sists,� by Tim Iglesias, isan 82-page articleappearing in the Summer2003 issue of Oregon LawReview. Reprints may beavailable from Prof.Iglesias, Univ. SanFrancisco Law School,2130 Fulton St., SF, CA94117-1080, 415/422-5870, [email protected][8946]

� �Paycheck to Pay-check: Wages & Cost ofHousing in Counties,2004,� by BarbaraLipman, is available(possibly free) from theCtr. for Housing Policy,1801 K St. NW, #M-100,Wash., DC 20006-1301,202/466-2121,

www.nhc.org/nhcimages/Paycheck_Counties2004.pdf[8981]

� �Private SectorPartnerships: Investingin Housing & Neighbor-hood Revitalization,� byLeigh Bezezekoff, LouisA. Galuppo, H. BethMarcus, BarbaraMcCormick, RaymondSchmidt, RobinSynderman, Kari Stanley& Eleanor White (June2004), is available(possibly free) from theNatl. Housing Coal.,1801 M St. NW, #M-100,Wash., DC 20006-1301,202/466-2121,www.nhc.org/PrivateSectorFinal04.pdf[8982]

� �Boom or Bust?Public Investment inHomeownership� was a2004 program hosted byThe Population ResourceCtr. Speakers includedrepresentatives of TheCensus Bureau, Congres-sional committees and theHarvard Jt. Ctr. forHousing Studies. Copiesof the speakers� materialsare available atwww.prcdc.org/programs/housing04/housing04.html [8999]

� �Hedging His Bets:Why Nixon Killed HUD�sDesegregation Efforts,�by Chris Bonastia, is a33-page article in theSpring 2004 issue ofSocial Science History.Reprints may be availablefrom the author,cbonastia@ earthlink.net[9002]

� �The Housing JusticeNetwork,� coordinatedby the Natl. Housing LawProj., is holding its natl.meeting Oct. 3-4, 2004 inDC, with a Basic HousingTraining Session Oct. 2.Inf. from the Law Project.510/251-9400, x111,[email protected]

[8934]� �The Legal Effect ofBrown v. Board ofEducation on PublicHousing 50 YearsLater,� the Housing &Development Law Inst.21st annual fall legalconf., will be held Oct.12, 2004 in Baltimore.Inf. from HDLI, 630 EyeSt. NW, Wash., DC20001-3736, 202/289-3400, Among the speak-ers: PRRAC�s FlorenceRoisman, ElizabethJulian, Philip Tegeler andDavid Freund, as well asGeorgetown Law Prof.Sheryll Cashin. [8972]

� �NeighborWorksTraining Inst.� will beheld Dec. 13-17, 2004 inNew Orleans. Inf. fromNeighborhoood Reinvest-ment Corp., 1325 G St.NW, #800, Wash., DC20005, 800/438-5547,www.nw.org/training[8940]

Miscellaneous� You Call This aDemocracy? WhoBenefits, Who Pays andWho Really Decides?, byPaul Kivel (218 pp.,$17.95), will be pub-lished Oct. 2004 by ApexPress, 800/316-2739.[8943]

� �Leading by Ex-ample: Diversity,Inclusion & Equity inCommunity Founda-tions� (66 pp., 2004) isavailable (along with aResource Toolkit CDROM) from CaliforniaTomorrow, 1904 FranklinSt., #300, Oakland, CA94612, 510/496-0220;may be free. [8950]

� �Executive Excess2004: Campaign Contri-butions, Outsourcing,Unexpensed StockOptions & Rising CEOPay,� from the Inst. forPolicy Studies & United

PRRAC'S SOCIAL SCIENCEADVISORY BOARD

Frank BonillaCUNY Department of Sociology

Xavier de Souza BriggsHarvard Univ. Kennedy School of Government

Camille Zubrinsky CharlesDepartment of Sociology, Univ. of Pennsylvania

John GoeringBaruch College, City Univ. of New York

Heidi HartmannInst. for Women�s Policy Research (Wash., DC)

William KornblumCUNY Center for Social Research

Harriette McAdooMichigan State School of Human Ecology

Fernando MendozaDepartment of Pediatrics, Stanford Univ.

Paul OngUCLA School of Public Policy

& Social Research

Gary OrfieldHarvard Univ. Grad. School of Education

Gary SandefurUniv. Wisconsin Inst. for Poverty Research

Gregory D. SquiresDepartment of Sociology

George Washington Univ.

Margery Austin TurnerThe Urban Institute

Margaret WeirDepartment of Political Science,

Univ. of California, Berkeley


for a Fair Economy, isavailable atwww.faireconomy.org/press/2004/EE2004_pr.html [8956]

� �Litigating Eco-nomic, Social & CulturalRights: Achievements,Challenges & Strategies�(184 pp., 2003), featuring21 case studies fromaround the world (the UScase study, by MariaFoscarinis and AndrewScherer, is �Using Civiland Political Rights), isavailable (no price listed)from COHRE (Ctr. on

Housing Rights &Evictions), 83 Rue deMontbrillant, 1292Geneva, Switzerland,41.22.7341028,[email protected] [9005]

JobOpportunities/Fellowships/Grants

� The Natl. LatinoAlliance for the Elimina-tion of Domestic Vio-

lence is hiring a Directorof Policy & Research &a Director of Training &Technical Assistance andCommunity Education &Development. Inf. fromAdelita Medina at theAlliance, PO Box 672,Triborough Sta., NYC,NY 10035, [email protected], www.dvalianza.org [8970]

� The Fannie LouHamer Project seeks anExecutive Director. TheProject is a natl. org. that�reframes campaignfinance as a civil rights

issue & supports otherreforms that wouldenhance political partici-pation by people of color,such as restoration ofvoting rights to formeroffenders.� Board islooking to relocate theproject � DC, Atlantaand NC are leadingcontenders, but open toother sites. ContactKristin Bradley-Bull, NewPerspectives ConsultingGp., 1429 Broad St.,Durham, NC 27705,[email protected]. [8971]


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POVERTY & RACE RESEARCH ACTION COUNCILBoard of Directors

CHAIRJohn Charles Boger

University of NorthCarolina School of LawChapel Hill, NC

VICE-CHAIRJosé Padilla

California Rural Legal AssistanceSan Francisco, CA

SECRETARYjohn powell

Kirwin Institute for theStudy of Race & EthnicityOhio State University

Columbus,OH

TREASURERAnthony Sarmiento

Senior Service AmericaSilver Spring, MD

Sheila CrowleyNational Low IncomeHousing Coalition

Washington, DCThomas Henderson

Lawyers' Committee forCivil Rights Under LawWashington, DC

Elizabeth JulianDallas, TX

S.M. MillerThe CommonwealthInstituteCambridge, MA

Don NakanishiUniversity of CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA

Florence WagmanRoisman

Indiana UniversitySchool of Law

Indianapolis, INTheodore M. Shaw

NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund New York, NYCathi Tactaquin National Network for

Immigrant & RefugeeRights

Oakland, CAWilliam L. Taylor Washington, DC

[Organizations listed foridentification purposes only]

Philip D. TegelerPresident/Executive Director

Chester W. Hartman Director of Research

Brenda FleetOffice Manager

Rebekah ParkResearch Associate

Nisha AgarwalElizabeth GroteLaw Student Interns

Poverty & Race Research Action Council3000 Connecticut Ave. NW � Suite 200

Washington, DC 20008202/387-9887 FAX: 202/387-0764

E-mail: [email protected]: www.prrac.org

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Welcome new subscribers!

Thanks to the Clearinghouse Review for helping to distribute Poverty & Race to its legal services subscribers.Clearinghouse Review is published bimonthly by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. With thisissue, we also welcome the members of the Coalition for Human Needs, an alliance of national organizationsworking together to promote public policies that address the needs of low-income and other vulnerable populations.