http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0612/thomasson_dan.php3
Quota system would dilute school's quality
By Dan K. Thomasson
Jewish World Review

One of the nation's top-ranked public high schools has run into a problem it probably never thought it would have to deal with, and many educators believe it portends some difficult times ahead for efforts to promote the nation's best and brightest students.

After several decades of rewarding excellence, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology finds itself with a third of its entering class facing remedial instruction in the very things for which they were supposed to be selected: math and related subjects. The culprit seems to be none other than political correctness, stemming from pressures to achieve diversity in its enrollment.

Administrators at the school in Alexandria, Va. -- appalled by the sudden rise of remedial instruction from just under 8 percent to 30 percent -- have rushed back to the chalkboard to find a solution to what many teachers, parents and national educators see as severely damaging the institution's elite status. It's usually ranked at or near the top by ratings agencies -- No. 2 this year by U.S. News and World Report -- and wealthy Chinese families reportedly search for ways to send their children to Northern Virginia for an opportunity to go to TJ, as it's known.

The magnet school's enrollment lacks ethnic diversity, with over 50 percent of its students of Asian extraction and only a relative handful of Hispanic and African Americans. But it was never meant to be a normal high school. Racial diversity wasn't a factor in deciding 30 years ago to create TJ, at the time merely a good secondary school in a string of them in the central part of the county. It was a roaring success because it was built on an admissions policy based solely on merit without consideration for gender or race. Going there meant a rigorous application process, followed by more rigorous classroom demands that frightened even some of the most gifted students.

But those who graduated from TJ found themselves courted by the nation's elite colleges and universities, from the Ivies to the West Coast. Harvard, it is said, has a quota on how many it will take. Is that an example worth saving and promoting across the country? Of course. And while TJ's mental giants still are being sought after and fought over, the new statistics have raised an element of doubt about how good it really is or will continue to be. If that is the case, it is a tragedy for a nation struggling to meet future needs in strategic areas.

...

What really ought to be done is to replicate whatever instructional models are being used at that school and other successful schools, and promote excellence in teaching instead of tenure. Then these sorts of issues would never arise.

In the short term, I'm not so worried about the plight of intellectual giants from wealthy families as I am about promoting more educational opportunity across the board. I don't see it as a tragedy that a few wealthy kids don't get instant ins to prestigious universities and may have to do so more on their own merits without elite-school cred-- and if they're capable of getting into TJ under a merit-based system, I'm sure that any who should succeed will succeed at getting into a good university.

I also don't think that losing a bit of elite status (if slipping from first to second on a ranking really causes that in an important way) dilutes a school's actual quality-- does it in your opinion? Do a bit of quota-based racial and/or economic mixing, and extra remedial classes for students who may have been educationally disadvantaged, really decrease a school's quality, or simply make it more open to serving a wider range of potential students? TJ and similar schools appear to be a valuable resource in short supply. If the students taking those remedial classes are experiencing benefits from the better school environment, is it harmful to anyone that they needed some remediation upon entry? Do disadvantaged students also have the right to a full spectrum of educational opportunities, or do only the intellectual elite with proven academic achievements have the right to seek entry to the better-run schools?

The tension for me is that I have these thoughts, while at the same time disliking over-inclusive GATE programs which may dumb down the content to the point that the programs may not serve the actually gifted children well, as we've discussed in other threads. I guess the reason that I find this situation different is that it's an entire school, and I don't see how including some children who need remedial classes drags down the quality of the non-remedial classes or the school as a whole. I guess it does take some extra resources to teach the remedial classes, but they're still separate.

I'd be interested to learn the extent to which the TJ environment winds up improving the outlook for the kids taking the remedial classes. If there's nothing in it for them in the end vs. their old environments, I'd wholeheartedly agree that the quota is harmful, in taking opportunity away from one group while providing none for another.

It is attitudes like this that make it even more difficult for gifted children from historically under-served populations to overcome society's barriers to their achievement and full participation in elite programs.

My 6 year old son is a profoundly gifted African-American male. He is already choosing to underachieve and hide his knowledge and skills because he does not want his peers to know how much he can do.

We thank the universe every single day for putting him into a school environment where his teachers recognize the unique challenges he faces and work hard to support him rather than writing him off.

If 30% of the student body requires remediation, then that means 70% does not, and I don't see how the 30% affects the 70% in any way. If Harvard only accepts a certain number of TJ students, then obviously they'll be picking from the top 70%.

I went to a public high school in a blue-collar exurb. Any macro-level study of the school would suggest that its primary contribution to the community came on the football field, as test scores were atrocious, truancy was high, ESL was in high demand, etc. But the school also had a robust AP program, a commitment to excellence in the arts, etc. The end result was that while probably more than 60% of my school required remediation in some way, those students and their needs had no impact on the quality of education available to me.

Not true- if your high school follows NCLBI, as most do, then alot of the money that could be spent on AP classes or enrichment for the top kids will get funnelled to the lower kids.

Here is the original opinion piece upon which the posted editorial is based:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...al-math/2012/05/25/gJQAlZRYqU_story.html

here is a piece about the demographics for the class of 2016: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ons-data/2012/04/17/gIQA6RdtOT_blog.html

Here is another piece, which is interesting mainly because it shows that the change in admissions policy hasn't changed the number of under-served minorities who get into the school: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/americas_best_high_school_soft.html

Well...it's possible that the difference is that the kids who got in under the old model might have been smarter. I agree with you about the tenure point, but replicating a model won't change the fact that only a small number of people have highish or better IQs. IMO, we'd do better to ensure that free school breakfasts and lunches have high nutritional content (substitute fresh fish, fruits and raw or steamed vegetables for pink slime hamburgers and french fries, for example, and get rid of soda in school).


I'm surprised to see this; this idea underlies the philosophy that gifted kids are elitist products of pushy parents, and that the school system doesn't need to focus any resources on them as a result. Gently poking here: perhaps your son's school feels the same way?



What you wrote is something of a myth.

Most people know that our school system spends billions and billions of dollars on disadvantaged students and next to nothing on high achievers. This is the first part of the myth: speaking from the perspective of educational resources and budgeting, the kids at the biggest disadvantage are the gifted ones.

It's less well-known that very little changes in spite of all that money being spent. I've seen this through seeing the results of education grants that get funded and in my own experience.

For example, I ran a program that devoted a lot of its funding to a project to get disadvantaged students ready for college. The people in charge of that project were talented and enthusiastic and worked hard. But in three years, exactly ONE out of a hundred or more made the jump to freshman-level college-level courses. This was a huge deal and this guy was touted as proof that "the program worked." IMO, it was great for him, but there must be a better way overall. We probably spent $300,000 or more getting one kid ready for freshman-level courses. This project really opened my eyes to the low effectiveness of this approach and the fact that it allows us to feel good while cheating our brightest students. Now I see this kind of (failed) romantic idealism all over the place.


I see "inclusiveness" of this type as dragging the school down because almost a third of the student body doesn't belong there. I predict that people will start to complain that those AP courses that intimidate the gifted students aren't "accessible" to the remedial students. Standards will have to go down to accommodate them. After all, it's not fair to give so much to privileged kids, is it?

This was precisely the argument used at a high school in Berkeley two or three years ago when they cancelled early morning science labs for AP students. Apparently they weren't fair to some of the disadvantaged students.

As you point out, there are kids who deserved to go to that school and can't because their slots were taken by remedial-level students in the name of diversity. Why do our schools take the position that it's okay to definitely harm gifted kids on the off chance that we might help some other students? And why do we let them do it?

From what I have read about this specific school and this specific admissions policy is that this is less about opening a high school for the gifted to the masses and more about whether the school mission be modified to make it a high school for the gifted versus a STEM high school for the gifted.

I suspect that "remedial" courses at this high school are not what most people think of when they think of "remedial."

The answer is that they're generally not really in the business of educating gifted kids.

Plus, gifted kids confuse them.

Bureaucracies generally don't like things that confuse them.

JonLaw, yeah, you're probably right.

Momof1, I found the following in the Washington Post. It's written by a man who teaches physics at the school:

I told the hubby this story and he said it's like if there's a highschool track team and they told the fastest runner in the front "Stop! Let all these other people pass first. Ok now you can go". They wouldn't do that. Val I love your idea of helping disadvantaged kids by making the free lunches better. If it's eat fresh healthy vegetables or starve they'd be a lifelong change for the better. Lucounu ITA if the school's so great they should make copies of the school, not change it.

Of course, but some of the remedial students might also have depressed achievement because of lack of opportunity before getting in.

The criteria for entry to TJ under the old regime didn't include intelligence scores, as I understand it, but achievement.

While it's fine to set schools up to serve high-achieving children, an exclusive focus on high achievers who have been given every opportunity before entry, while excluding children who show promise but may need some remediation to rectify years of poor schooling due to their parents' low income, perpetuates injustice and inequality in the school system.

The first op-ed piece, so eager to return to the old ways, even notes that a lot of Chinese wealthy parents seek ways to move to the area so their children can get in. This isn't just innate ability of the children at work.

Nah. It's just a realization that being given lots of advantages from birth can have an effect on achievement. I'm also thinking that schools like TJ are simply doing things better than inner-city Title I schools, and could probably benefit lots of the children from poorer schools who happen not to be well served. Wealthy intellectual giants surely deserve a fair shake, but so does everyone.

Is it? Sure, plenty of money may be wasted on inefficient attempts to improve test scores due to NCLB, but that doesn't mean that there are no better methods. Maybe schools like TJ are simply superb, and even children with low achievement would benefit from it.

I'm guessing that there are some pretty terrible math teachers sucking up paychecks in Title I districts. I live in a Title I district (for math) where a person I consider to be incompetent has been hired as the district math consultant. His first move was to take a good number of weeks, IIRC about two months, at the start of every school year to have the chilren focus on math drills to memorize math facts better, taking away from the time devoted to conceptual math instruction. Do you think a highly gifted child would perform to his utmost abilities under this program?

I'll take your word for it, but that doesn't mean they were doing the best job possible, or that the students in that program were just like the remedial TJ students either. I'm guessing that relaxing the entry criteria at TJ a bit has resulted in entry for some students who need extra instruction with the goal of hopefully filling gaps not afflicting the average TJ student, not that those new admittees are poor prospects for getting into college at all. And honestly, I think I could take lots of disadvantaged but motivated children and get them ready college, given three years, in the absence of severe developmental problems. I don't have a shred of proof, though I've tutored before with good results.

They certainly didn't belong there under the old admission criteria, but now they're there; and I think that whether they belong depends not on whether some other excluded child could have gotten benefit there, but whether they can. That's what I'm mainly curious about: how much TJ is benefitting the new admittees.

Some of those children who "deserve" to go there apparently deserve it only because their wealthy parents moved to the area just for that purpose. This is economic advantage directly resulting in educational advantage, and it's unfair. Measures should be taken to increase fairness. This new admission policy is an attempt to do that, to spread the impact of a wonderful working school with proven results a little bit to other ethnic and economic groups, in the hopes that it will work. I don't see it as harmful to devote a percentage of the admissions at such a hugely successful school to this experiment, especially since those wealthy giants aren't going to be exactly disadvantaged elsewhere, and so many of them are excluded already.

Right. That is one of the links I posted. That is part of why I say the question is about whether or not TJ is currently a STEM school for gifted students or a high school for gifted students. No one is saying that the students who are getting in aren't gifted, or that they need remediation at the basic/below basic level. Just that the math scores aren't what they used to be.

Uh, if you are focused on achievement, you are focusing on something money can generally buy.

So, a school that is for high-achieving students is going to be filled with people who got advantages in life, generally associated with large amounts of money and parental involvement.

Achievement isn't potential achievement, it's actual prior achievement.

Uh, yeap. The point is to broaden the entry criteria so some previously disadvantaged children can get some of the advantages without having to be reborn to rich mommies and daddies. If one looks not just at achievement-- because looking just at prior achievement might give the little ones of rich mommies and daddies much more of an edge than their ultimate ability to achieve in life might merit-- but at some factors indicating potential to achieve, some of the little ones with poor mommies and daddies can be given more of a chance to reap the full benefits of your tax dollar.

Of course not. But why should we react to bad Title I schools by sacrificing the needs of gifted students? What's the point of watering down entry requirements at the few public schools in this country that provide a stimulating, challenging environment for them? The system should force the crappy schools to change, not force the good schools to pick up their slack. As you said, changing the tenure system would help.

But the reality is that most kids just aren't smart enough for a school like the old Thomas Jefferson. Changing the entry requirements won't change this. As I mentioned, IMO, the best way to help disadvantaged kids would be to give them free nutritious food at school twice a day starting in kindergarten. Ensuring that they have highly capable teachers would also go a long way, but the unions won't allow it.

Are you under the mistaken impression that TJ is some expensive private school? It's a Virginia state-chartered magnet school. The cost of running the school is shared by several school districts in the area, including my own.

Edit: I see now that you don't mean to imply that the rich are directly buying their way in, but rather doing so indirectly.

Where is the assumption that the new admission requirements are leading to students who are less smart? My understanding is that there are thousands of students in the cachement area who are more than qualified for admissions.

While I applaud efforts to increase the quality of school lunch programs, I really don't think that it is the surefire way to improving student achievement. Similarly, in Virginia, there are no collectively bargained union contracts, so blaming this on "the union" is an irrelevant argument.

I do think that improving math and science instruction for all students starting in kindergarten is a good first step. My understanding is that Fairfax County has a fair amount of tracking occurring under the guise of "gifted services" that may very well prevent such high-quality instruction from filtering down to the masses.

I inferred it from the high rate of remediation.

Relatively low intelligence is an elephant in the room in US education. No one wants to admit that some students aren't very smart, so we find other ways to explain differences in ability. It's the teaching methods or bad schools or socioeconomic status or whatever. We'll do almost anything to avoid saying that some students just aren't smart enough to take a rigorous physics course or go to a traditional college (and that there are lots of other ways to be a productive person). Just last night at DS's 8th grade promotion ceremony, a speaker announced cheerfully that every student is capable of doing anything s/he wants, whether it's being famous or being a scientist, or whatever. Everyone!

This is not true.

(As for the unions, I'm not trying to blame unions for everything. No way. And VA teacher unions may not have the same type of bargaining clout that other states do, but this doesn't change the fact that teacher's unions in this country do a lot of harm by retaining mediocre and poor teachers).

Given the recent changes in wage and working conditions, it's a wonder that we can retain even mediocre teachers. These days, it seems that a career in education is a sucker's bet. Wages are stagnant, hours are up, hiring standards (and the expenses to acquire them) are up, benefits are being gutted, classrooms are being micromanaged, inspiring passion has given way to teaching to the test, extracurricular budgets are being slashed... and on and on.

Did you read any of the links I posted? My reading of all of them is that this is not about letting in unintelligent students in the name of diversity. And, i take tremendous, personal offense (as the mother of an African American male who has tested as profoundly gifted) that the presence of under-served minority students in gifted programs can only be achieved by lower the requirements to let in stupid children. Believe me when i tell you, we've already heard it about our child--who is only just finishing up kindergarten--from upper middle class white parents who don't understand why he is getting services their children aren't receiving.

Honestly, some of the opinions of people on this forum are the reason we have not yet applied for DYS, even though we are sitting on test scores that would qualify him.

While I agree that there are significant differences in intelligence between students, I wholeheartedly disagree that the reasons for racial differences in achievement are due to innate differences in intelligence.

Mom of 1, I did not mean to offend you or make any implications about your son or about anyone else. I simply said that I inferred that many or most of the kids who need remediation probably need it because they're not as smart as many of the kids who don't. Given the lockstep pacing of schools today, this was a reasonable conclusion.

I didn't say anything about race in that regard and wasn't even thinking about it. Given that I have no idea about the makeup of the remedial classes, it would silly to make that assumption anyway.

Unfortunately, even suggesting that differences in achievement in school may be due to differences in ability is often taken out of context as making some kind of racial slur.

For the record, I think that it's possible that poor pre- and post-natal care as well a nutrient-poor diet can lower intelligence and that feeding poor children properly and ensuring that they have access to medical care are critical to helping them achieve more (I didn't say anything about race here). This is why I keep harping on improving the quality of school lunches.

Mom of 1, I hope you don't believe that most of us here agree with all the racist and/or pseudoscientific and/or politically regressive and/or exclusionary opinions voiced above.

IMHO: Many people don't leap in because this forum has been around this loop a few too many times. Bostonian posts these inflammatory things regularly (surely from a conservative education listserv somewhere) and trolls for responses. I do not think most of us have the energy to take the bait any more. I certainly don't have hours to spend in debate. Which is not to say that we find those views any less repellent than you do.

Thanks for speaking up, Mom of 1. I hope your son, all our kids, and yes, all kids, get an excellent education. Each of them.

DeeDee

Respectfully, this is precisely what I mean about the elephant in the room. Anyone who says that some people are less intelligent is automatically labeled a pseudoscientific racist troll. This type of reaction squelches debate and leads us to the mess that we're in with our schools right now. Toe the line or else! Conform!

It's okay to say that not everyone is tall or good at sprinting or good at drawing. But suggest that some people aren't good at academics and people jump at the chance to call you names.

Well, I think the less-intelligent bit is actually a bit off topic anyway, isn't it? Wouldn't you agree that top-notch achievement depends on environment too? Isn't it likely that some of the people who just missed the cut in the old days were laboring under the effects of some relative disadvantages?

Some families are much less intelligent than other families.

My father's side is much less intelligent than my mother's side.

Yes, and if you want to have a school for high achievers, then you will get people from families with money.

If you want to have a school to *develop* high achievers, then you look for *potential* achievement, which means that you use IQ scores (or whatever measure you want to use).

So, the question is whether this school wants people who are *already* high achievers or whether it wants those with the *potential* for high achievement.

No. Given the fact that "race", "class" and "successful at school" are not mutually independent categories means that any discussion of "lack of success at school" that attributes that lack of success to intelligence instead of including a full discussion of the incredibly detrimental and real effects of racism in the US means that people will call you racist.

I just finished Lisa Delpit's new book "Multiplication is for White People" about racism and education and it is an incredibly engaging read--less academic and detached than her first book "Other People's Children" but still well worth it for people who want to spur their thinking around these issues.

The admissions policy of a high school for gifted students is a valid topic for this forum. Several people besides me in this thread -- Val, DAD22, master of none, and La Texican -- think the article made valid points. That's about as many people as who have objected to it. You don't need to speculate about my sources, since I identify them. I deliberately have not commented on this thread yet, but I agree with what Val has written.

some issues that i think have been overlooked.
1) TJ's enrollment with new criteria is more Asian, more Male
and less white and less female. the black, hispanic and poverty enrollment DID NOT Change.
2) remediation has not been defined. the only article that mentioned remediation was written by what might be a cranky old physics teacher that doesnt like change. ( read some of the comments written by TJ students on the articles and in face book) It may just mean that kids have not been required to already have both algebra one and geometry before high school as they used to. That would reflect the middle scholls feeding in, since not all of the feeder schools offer double advanced math. this meant previously none of their kids got in and now some of them do.
3) this has been a long contensious issue in NOVA. there are lots of articles to read over the controversy from the last 4-5 years of the recent retooling. and even further back to other changes.
4) the quota thing in the title is really deceptive. there are no quotas.
Ironically the people wanting quotas now are the rich white families that are increasingly shut out. the school is now 2/3 asian and 25% white.
5) Virgina completely shut down many of its public school systems in the late 50's for as long as 6 years to avoid integration. It was called massive resistence. there are still many wounds in VA because of it. it gives overtones to any discussion of education in VA.

6) there are no real labor unions for teachers in VA. they cannot set work rules or contracts or curriculum. look at TJs web site. they are advertising for teachers now. they get to pick who they want it seems. they just use Fairfax for the application process. tons of good and bad teachers have been laid of in VA due to state education budget cuts, even those with tenure. Sped teachers, social workers, school counselors reg ed teachers. yet the gifted school is hiring.

7) there are tons more applications and preapplications for TJ than there are spots. noone gets into TJ without being gifted. it is just the flavor of gifted that is altered. the concern is that they are now using criteria that can be gamed, much like new york gifted kindergartens. if there were enough spots for all the qualified kids, perhaps there wouldnt be a problem. the former white elite are being outcompeted by the tigermoms. and they dont like it. it is not a matter of less intelligent needing remediation.

Used to live in VA. familiar with controversy.

Here's their mission statement:
http://www.tjhsst.edu/abouttj/plans/mission.php

and, actually, a group of people in Loudoun County is looking to start a science and tech charter school similar to TJ to provide another option to the students who can't get into TJ due to space constraints.

I think the article I linked that said that this has not allowed more under-served minorities into the school was really telling.

So they have decided that they want high achievement, not potential for high achievement.

High achievement can *always* be gamed.

i dont think they intended to create a gameable system. I think they underestimated the tenacity of the tigermom.
I think the were trying to be more fair and just ended up being unfair in a different way.
whenever you have to disperse a limited resource the criteria for chosing will inevitable skew in some direction. sometimes it just doesnt happen in the ways the planners predict.

Yes, which is why I keep mentioning nutrition and medical care. But for schools...I agree with La Texican when she said "if the school's so great they should make copies of the school, not change it."

You need to train the parents in tigermomming.

Nutrition won't do it.

You have to dig deep into the family structure and make psychosocial changes.

True, but nutrition would help. So would prenatal care.

Good prenatal nutrition and childhood nutrition are the most easily changed aspects of IQ. Most controlled studies show a disparity of 20+ IQ points between poor and good nutrition.

The next is expectations set by the parents and by the culture the kids are raised in. Mom_of_1 hits it right and having played on "select" teams when I was young, I know what the "expectations" are in the black community. They suck. And it sucks on the Rez and it sucks in the Barrio, too. My friends knew the playbook inside and out and could diagram the other teams' plays right after the game, but few of them could read and many were actively hazed if they so much as showed in interest in books. They stories I could tell. I am bitter to this day about what happened later in life to some of my childhood friends. That is not IQ, its expectations.

Most of the Flynn Effect is due to nutrition and expectations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Finally, its the schools. A well fed kid with parents who will support them can make it. But add in a good school with a solid teaching cadre and curriculum, and nothing will stop them.

But if nutrition sucks and parents don't care, then no school can make a difference for most.

I agree genetics comes into play. But its only clear that the Ashkenazim really stand out here among well fed and educated elite.

As for "opportunities" I am not so sure any more what that means. You cannot escape your boundary conditions and you cannot escape the fact that there are real costs to going down the wrong path.

Val's comments about working with kids of limited ability are reality and we have to accept that. In order to give them real opportunity in life, we have to educate them with realistic goals in mind.

As for the OP. The tigermom comment brings up the real concern. Living in DFW I see that little johnnie plays soccer four nights a week while Li and Krishan study. After ten years one is REALLY good and soccer and the other gets into Harvard. Again, its expectations.

TJ is a great school and for those who begin with the end goal in mind, TJ is just another step to take. If you start thinking about TJ in the 8th grade when others started thinking about it in the first grade, that is a lot of ground to make up. It probably won't happen. You just cannot walk onto the varsity squad at top HS and play starting quarterback having never played football at a high level.

prenatal care, parent support, early childhood education interventions. preK, early structured reading instruction for all kids. and i agree with better nutrition and less toxins.

wouldnt it be great if all kids had a free Appropriate public education!

by the time the kids were in your program Val it was too late to do much accelerating into college without intense specific one on one attention to individual needs and major boot strapping. most kids arent up for it. if you wnet back and reassed your group after whatever interval its been, you might find that there has been a delayed effect. even it it wasnt 4 year college and STEM PHDs.

My son's school was the birth place of a "I have a dream" class 13 years ago. Those 60 kindergartners are graduating from high school tomorrow. Of the 60, 3 graduated early, 5 got GEDs and the remaining 52 are all walking tomorrow. Many of them are using their Dreamer money for technical certificates at the community college, but, we are in a city with a 70ish percent graduation rate for low income children of color, of which 85% of the Dreamers are.

Clearly, catching them early, providing them and their families with support and giving them hope that college is actually an attainable goal financially does wonders.

Yes, I agree. This was what I was getting at when I said there has to be a better way. Early intervention helps. Nutrition and medical care help, too.

But there's still the reality that some people just aren't bright enough for traditional college, not to mention the social realities that Austin mentioned. Pretending that everyone can or should go to college doesn't change the fact that for a lot of people, other options are better (and are especially so because they don't involve student loans).

The problem comes when one applies those statements to groups of people instead of to individual people. I am a former special education teacher in an inner city middle school. I certainly understand that not everyone can or should go to college. But, when programs that aim to increase college access for under-served minorities are written off as pointless because "not everyone is smart enough for college", it becomes problemmatic and racist.

No one here has said that minority students should be written off as being not smart enough for college. I did not say that and specifically said so earlier. If you're making accusations, please stop.

This is the quote. The issue is that in many school systems, "many or most of the kids who need remediation" ARE under-served minorities. if you look at any of the measures of achievement used in this country, white children and Asian children ON THE WHOLE are significant out performing black children and latino children ON THE WHOLE. I personally cannot believe that racism (and racism absolutely translates into economic inequalities as well) is not a significant piece of the equation. But, you said in this comment that the unequal achievement is because the remedial students aren't as smart. I take offense to that conclusion.

Take three families that are economically equal, and whose kids are equally intelligent. The family that emphasizes academics will likely have more academically successful kids than the family that emphasizes sports, which will in turn will likely perform better than the family that doesn't care about the kids. Take another two families. If the parents love each other and stay together, they will likely have academically more successful kids than families that do not. These factors vary across race, but it is not racism.

I am torn as to what the right answer is. How does one choose between the child that grew up in a supportive environment and has then put in a lot of effort to learn, vs. the talented child that was never encouraged to learn? Affirmative action may seem like a good idea in theory but it seems to often be gamed (e.g. Elizabeth "High Cheekbones" Warren, and many Blacks at Ivy League coming from wealthy West Indies families).

I'm sorry that you're reading racism into my comments, but it's in your eyes and not my intent. In that case, I was speaking specifically about the kids at the school in Virginia, and I made that clear.


If g2mom is correct, the remedial students are most likely male and/or Asian. YOU are assuming that the students in those remedial classes at TJ are black and Latino or poor, not me. I originally said that I had no idea about the composition of those classes. I simply said that because our schools force everyone to move in lockstep, it's reasonable to assume that many or most of the 30% of kids at TJ who need remediation aren't as smart as many of the kids who don't.

Calling me a racist because I also made a general statement that some people aren't as smart as others is just looking for a reason to get wound up. Given the overall IQ distribution, most people would not be called "smart," regardless of race, ethnicity, or SES.

This sounds very nice and all that, but how about some back-up?

The best ways to help disadvantaged kids aren't really that big of a mystery. We don't want to invest in them because they're expensive and because many people would perceive them as intrusive. You invest in young, disadvantaged mothers when they are pregnant and you visit them in their homes. Then you start with their kids when they are VERY youn, and you provide families with very high-quality daycare. YOU REACH THESE KIDS WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG. That is the key. .

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/?page_id=57

Nurse-Family Partnership

______________________________________________________________________________________

HIGHLIGHTS

Intervention: A nurse home visitation program for first-time mothers – mostly low-income and unmarried – during their pregnancy and children’s infancy.
Evaluation Methods:Three well-conducted randomized controlled trials, each carried out in a different population and setting.
Key Findings: Pattern of sizable, sustained effects on important child and maternal outcomes in all three trials. The specific types of effects differed across the three trials, possibly due to differences in the populations treated. Effects found in two or more trials include (i) reductions in child abuse/neglect and injuries (20-50%); (ii) reduction in mothers’ subsequent births (10-20%) during their late teens and early twenties; (iii) improvement in cognitive/educational outcomes for children of mothers with low mental health/confidence/intelligence (e.g., 6 percentile point increase in grade 1-6 reading/math achievement).

hild FIRST
_____________________________________________________

HIGHLIGHTS

Intervention: A home visitation program for low-income families with young children at high risk of emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems, or child maltreatment.
Evaluation Methods: A well-conducted randomized controlled trial.
Key Findings: 40-70% reduction in serious levels of (i) child conduct and language development problems, and (ii) mothers’ psychological distress, one year after random assignment. 33% reduction in families’ involvement with child protective services (CPS) for possible child maltreatment, over three years.
Other: A study limitation is that its sample was geographically concentrated in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Replication of these findings in a second trial, in another setting, would be desirable to confirm the initial results and establish that they generalize to other settings where the intervention might be implemented.

Especially look at the Abcedarian project:

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/?page_id=70

and Perry Preschool:

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/?page_id=65

Mithawk,

I totally agree with you. The success of kids in school based on motivation of the kids, parental involvement and teacher (school). What I have noticed is that the weakest link has been the parents. The parents left the kids' education to the teachers and do not bother to check the homework, etc...(but will attend all soccer games, football games).

The matter of the fact is well-to-do families often are educated and they encourage their kids' education and not poor families often do not have proper education and they do not worry about the future. Unfortunately many minorities are poor and the cycle continues.

There are many programs in different parts of the country but the most important thing is we have to get the parents buy into the idea that the education is important for their kids. (It is really hard for an individual teacher to have impact on the kids because most of them spend only 1 year with them).

Educational success in Europe and many Asia countries is because the parents nurture their kids. I heard a teacher said some incoming kinder does not know how to read A,B,C and some kids are reading independently. You can guess who are the parents of those kids? Any government program without parental involvement will fail or cost tremendously. The parents (parents in this forum not included) need to step up.

David Brooks has a recent column on this, although he cites data from Robert Putnam that disparities extend to sports participation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/opinion/brooks-the-opportunity-gap.html
The Opportunity Gap
New York Times
July 9, 2012

Over the past few months, writers from Charles Murray to Timothy Noah have produced alarming work on the growing bifurcation of American society. Now the eminent Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and his team are coming out with research that’s more horrifying.

While most studies look at inequality of outcomes among adults and help us understand how America is coming apart, Putnam’s group looked at inequality of opportunities among children. They help us understand what the country will look like in the decades ahead. The quick answer? More divided than ever.

Putnam’s data verifies what many of us have seen anecdotally, that the children of the more affluent and less affluent are raised in starkly different ways and have different opportunities. Decades ago, college-graduate parents and high-school-graduate parents invested similarly in their children. Recently, more affluent parents have invested much more in their children’s futures while less affluent parents have not.

They’ve invested more time. Over the past decades, college-educated parents have quadrupled the amount of time they spend reading “Goodnight Moon,” talking to their kids about their day and cheering them on from the sidelines. High-school-educated parents have increased child-care time, but only slightly.

A generation ago, working-class parents spent slightly more time with their kids than college-educated parents. Now college-educated parents spend an hour more every day. This attention gap is largest in the first three years of life when it is most important.

Affluent parents also invest more money in their children. Over the last 40 years upper-income parents have increased the amount they spend on their kids’ enrichment activities, like tutoring and extra curriculars, by $5,300 a year. The financially stressed lower classes have only been able to increase their investment by $480, adjusted for inflation.

As a result, behavior gaps are opening up. In 1972, kids from the bottom quartile of earners participated in roughly the same number of activities as kids from the top quartile. Today, it’s a chasm.

Richer kids are roughly twice as likely to play after-school sports. They are more than twice as likely to be the captains of their sports teams. They are much more likely to do nonsporting activities, like theater, yearbook and scouting. They are much more likely to attend religious services.

...

Because a generation ago, two incomes were not necessary for survival in a working-class family.


And not coincidentally, working-class incomes have been stagnant for the last generation, whereas upper-class incomes have risen sharply over that same span.

Google "malnutrition affects intelligence" or something similar on Google or Google Scholar.

Malnutrition In Early Years Leads To Low IQ And Later Antisocial Behavior, USC Study Finds.

or

Effects of nutrition on learning


One hit from Google scholar says a lot:

"Many policymakers propose early childhood nutrition programs as a way to increase students’ academic achievement. This paper investigates the nutrition–learning nexus using a unique longitudinal data set that follows a large sample of Filipino children from birth until the end of their primary education. We find that better nourished children perform significantly better in school, partly because they enter school earlier and thus have more time to learn but mostly because of greater learning productivity per year of schooling. Our cost–benefit analysis suggests that a dollar invested in an early childhood nutrition program in a developing country could potentially return at least three dollars worth of gains in academic achievement, and perhaps much more." (Glewwe et al Journal of Public Economics 2000; 81:345).


There are reams and reams of studies supporting this idea. I also mentioned the importance of making high-quality prenatal care available to poor people.


A much larger study repeated the Abcedarian project and found that early gains had been lost by age five in the target children (low birthweight). They also found a positive correlation with high-birthweight children, but it was after the fact, and they hadn't made this prediction when they started the study. Thus they probably didn't control for it properly during study design. I believe that this is a statistical no-no (could be wrong).

AFAIK, Abcedarian project wasn't a randomized study; I'm not sure. If it wasn't, there could have been a bias that affected the results (another statistical no-no). It was definitely small.

I'm not saying that early intervention isn't worthwhile. I'm just saying that the evidence I've seen doesn't support the dramatic claims that some people make.



Here's more information on both Perry and Abcedarian.

[/quote]

Val, those studies are looking at malnutrition in developing countries and in birds. The article on Filipino children you cite includes this info: "Almost half of the children in the sample are currently stunted, i.e., their height-for-age is at least two standard deviations below the mean for a healthy US population." We are talking about apples and oranges here. I'm certainly not disputing that malnutrition of the type seen in developing countries affects development, growth, and learning. I'm sure a degree of actual *hunger*, which, true, isn't as rare as we might think, also affects some American children's ability to learn, but it's not typically developing-world style hunger, andwe already have free and reduced-price lunch and breakfast. I quite agree that the quality of these meals is poor and would like to see it improved. However, I quite strongly disagree that we have the evidence to say that THIS is where the money should go to improve academic outcomes in low-income kids. Show me a large study, randomized, where school lunch and breakfast quality was dramatically improved and test scores went way up. It would be a bombshell and I would love to use it in my line of work!

You are incorrect.

"This program was evaluated in one randomized controlled trial of 111 participating children, followed through 21 years of age."

Here's a nice article that summarizes a recent article that came out on the participants, who are still being followed. Very few programs get results like this.

http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5032/107/

Supporting the idea that starting adequate nourishment in kindergarten, limited to 180 days a year, reverses the effects of 5 years of inadequate nutrition? The two human studies you provided were working with much younger kids.

I could get behind "free nutritious food every day, starting significantly prior to conception," as a best way, but free school breakfast and lunch is a day late and a dollar short.

Also, I'm naturally going to be skeptical of the practice of citing Charles Murray as though he is a neutral academic.

I never said that you can reverse the effects of 5 years of inadequate nutrition (??). Please don't make unfounded accusations that derail a debate and turn it into a shouting match.

I did say (more than once) that access to prenatal care is very important. I absolutely agree that our society should help poor kids get nutritious food starting very early. I also think that the easiest place to start is in school, because free lunch programs are already in place. But they need to substitute good food for fried food and get rid of soda machines (as I also mentioned earlier).

As for the Abcedarian project, the study was very small and the larger study didn't get the same results. Also, this peer-reviewed critique of the project says that the IQ differences found at ages two and three had disappeared by age five. The abstract notes that "these results are typical of early intervention studies." The paper itself presents a detailed critique of the study and raises specific points that weren't addressed by the Abcedarian authors. This is not typically a good sign. It also raises some signficant weaknesses with Abcedarian. If anyone wants the critique, PM me and I'll email it.

I've read many education studies that claim incredible/miraculous/fantastic results. On close inspection, the studies have more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese (this one stands out as being a particularly bad example of pseudoscience), yet it's been widely cited. But the problem is that most people accept what the authors claim at face value. People rarely take the time to carefully analyze miraculous findings of an education study. When someone DOES make a criticism, s/he's often ignored or shouted down with epithets that distract from the actual criticism.

Honestly, this stuff drives me nuts because I see so many of these kinds of studies being funded and published, and we waste money and effort chasing fantasies.

I agree that his most recent book didn't make strong points and relied too much on emotional arguments.

But The Bell Curve and Real Education use numerous peer-reviewed citations to support their contentions. I read some of the papers they cited and didn't find evidence that the conclusion of the original authors had been manipulated. And Murray didn't write The Bell Curve by himself; his co-author was a respected academic from Harvard.

The problem, IMO, is that people don't like what the books say and react emotionally to them. I think that people also make invalid assumptions about what those books say. The books (especially The Bell Curve) are reporting results of studies other people did, not making their own original judgments.

The truth is that... well, there probably aren't any silver bullet solutions which will improve outcomes for all children.

There are also probably any number of interventions which are simply a good idea because they are, from a humanitarian standpoint, a good thing to be doing for children who are disadvantaged in one way or another.

But it's quite a leap to suggest that any of those things is "The Solution" to educational disparity, much less that they'll result in performance parity.

Some kids no doubt are smarter than others via genetics. No doubt, also, that some kids are stunted intellectually by poor environment.

In between is a vast gulf of hairs to split and experimental error to lose ourselves within. Maybe there is no one "best way" to solve all problems here, hmm?

Just a thought.

Please support your assertions with relevant research, rather that citing studies that don't support your claim, or by referring to "reams and reams of studies" not in evidence.


If you'd said "easiest," to begin with, I'd have no issue with your earlier statement. "Easiest" is why there's already free school breakfast and lunch in the US. My gripe was with the unsupported assertion that free breakfast and lunch are "best" - if we're already doing the best thing, there's no need to do anything else.

This one studied over a thousand kids.

Longitudinal study; not randomized: behavior improved significantly, including fewer dropouts. The article also says this:


See page 5 of this report, which has references at the end:


Or just do a Google search.

Look, I'm not saying that improving food quality is a magic solution to solving underachievement. But I've seen enough to know that it's a good start.

That is still correlative, though, rather than a mechanistic explanation.

Could be that any time-intensive/attention-intensive intervention would have the same impact.

One of the problems here is that designing a large study with ONLY the studied variable in play is virtually impossible-- and frankly, probably more than a little unethical, at least with those interventions that have demonstrated positive impact on children.

So does improved access to healthcare improve school performance? Yes.

Does improved nutrition? Yes again.

Does improved access to library services? Yes, though not as much as EARLY childhood literacy efforts in those same SES disadvantaged neighborhoods.

I'm just not convinced that we truly know which of these is the "best" intervention to be using. Probably all of them.

Don't misunderstand me-- I don't think that even all of that is going to magically eliminate disproportionate performance that reflects SES. Part of the problem there, I hypothesize, is that we don't really know what the distribution SHOULD look like if there were no bias created by opportunity scarcity.

But when resources to implement interventions are scarce, then it really matters that we are doing the things that have the very best chance of doing the most good for the most children. Is that nutrition?

Honestly? I have no idea. It might be. It might just as readily be better healthcare or childcare, though.

I think it's a matter of values and knowledge, not just income.
As Brooks writes in his latest column "Why Our Elites Stink" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/opinion/brooks-why-our-elites-stink.html ,

"I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families. They spend enormous amounts of money and time on enrichment. They work much longer hours than people down the income scale, driving their kids to piano lessons and then taking part in conference calls from the waiting room.

Phenomena like the test-prep industry are just the icing on the cake, giving some upper-middle-class applicants a slight edge over other upper-middle-class applicants. The real advantages are much deeper and more honest."

Val, none of those are published, peer-reviewed academic studies. The Ecoliteracy packet sounds nice but you must know that they're sort of spouting off and that their endnotes are not rigorous. The first one you link to looks promising, but they have not published anything yet. These are their preliminary results and they seem to be focused on BMI: http://www.agatstonresearchfoundation.org/HOPS_Study_Preliminary_Results_HOPS_1_and_HOPS_2.pdf

I actually follow this general subject quite closely for work and I really don't think anyone's come out with anything major on this WRT performance. You say "just do a Google search" as though one is going to come up with lots of solid science on this. You will come up with lots of people making conjecture, sure.

BTW, I don't want to give the impression that I am uninterested in improving childhood nutrition or unconcerned about childhood obesity or the abysmal state of school lunch. None of this is true. We are on the brink of a major public health crisis; I'm terrified by what I've seen WRT type 2 diabetes rates in children. However, if you think this is the primary way to improve academic underachievement in disadvantaged children, I really do think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Birth-5 intervention, excellent prenatal care, daycare and preschool. If a child is behind by third grade, chances are that he/she will never catch up.

Do you know a working-class family that wouldn't LOVE to spend more resources on helping their children get a leg up? If you don't have the income, your values and knowledge don't matter. You have to have it to spend it.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/retirement/2008-05-19-generation-x-retirement_N.htm

All of the following in inflation-adjusted dollars:

- The median income for men now in their 30s is 12% lower than what their dads earned three decades earlier
- From 1974 until 2004, family income rose only 9%.
- Health insurance soared 74% since 1970
- The mortgage payment that a median-income family is paying for a three-bedroom, one-bath house jumped 76%
- The average cost of owning a car has declined from a generation ago. But auto-related expenses jumped 52% because the typical family now owns at least two vehicles. (because both parents work)

The fact that working class families have managed to increase their spending on their children at all despite all these crushing economic forces clearly shows that their values are in the right place.

On the other end, what's an extra $5300 a year in non-inflation-adjusted dollars to a typical affluent family whose income has skyrocketed over the same span?

A lot of these people spend money on things like travel, going out to eat, cable, cell phones, etc.

Life really isn't that expensive unless you buy a ton of useless stuff.

Granted, I don't have a mortgage and we have two older cars, but I still spend about $2000/month for a family of four.

Costs of living vary greatly by location. $2000/mo wouldn't cover my mortgage and transportation costs, and I also have older vehicles. Anything less would require relocating to an area with higher crime and even worse schools than we're dealing with now.

Eating out is not a luxury when two wage earners are spending significantly more time outside the house earning wages, between increased working hours and commute times. It's an opportunity cost that must be absorbed. There are far more opportunity costs, relating to health, child development, etc.

Throwing resources at low-income households can make things worse, because the resources are misused. Here is an example.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/new-digital-divide-seen-in-wasting-time-online.html
Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era
By MATT RICHTEL
New York Times
Published: May 29, 2012
In the 1990s, the term “digital divide” emerged to describe technology’s haves and have-nots. It inspired many efforts to get the latest computing tools into the hands of all Americans, particularly low-income families.

Those efforts have indeed shrunk the divide. But they have created an unintended side effect, one that is surprising and troubling to researchers and policy makers and that the government now wants to fix.

As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.

This growing time-wasting gap, policy makers and researchers say, is more a reflection of the ability of parents to monitor and limit how children use technology than of access to it.

“I’m not antitechnology at home, but it’s not a savior,” said Laura Robell, the principal at Elmhurst Community Prep, a public middle school in East Oakland, Calif., who has long doubted the value of putting a computer in every home without proper oversight.

“So often we have parents come up to us and say, ‘I have no idea how to monitor Facebook,’ ” she said.

********************************************************

A similar story from a few years back:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/weekinreview/15read.html
WHEN COMPUTERS HURT INSTEAD OF HELP
New York Times
June 15, 2008

Ray Fisman writes on the Web site Slate about why giving computers to poor children won’t necessarily help educate them.

Parents are more worried than ever about making sure their kids can compete in today’s high-tech world, and the growing digital divide is a subject of great concern for educators and policymakers. Federal subsidies in the United States provide billions of dollars for computer access in schools and libraries, and billions more may soon be spent in the developing world through programs such as One Laptop per Child. But even O.L.P.C.’s $100 laptop comes loaded with more distractions than my PET [the world’s first personal computer] ever had. So will kids use these subsidized computing resources to prepare for the demands of the 21st-century job market? Or do computers just serve as a 21st-century substitute for that more venerable time-waster—the television?

New research by economists Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches provides an answer: For many kids, computers are indeed more of a distraction than a learning opportunity. The two researchers surveyed households that applied to Euro 200, a voucher distribution program in Romania designed to help poor households defray the cost of buying a computer for their children. It turns out that kids in households lucky enough to get computer vouchers spent a lot less time watching TV — but that’s where the good news ends. “Vouchered” kids also spent less time doing homework, got lower grades and reported lower educational aspirations than the “unvouchered” kids. ...

***************************************************

People have discussed improving nutrition as a way to help low-SES children in this thread. Obesity is a bigger problem than undernourishment for America's poor, and free breakfasts, which have been touted by nutrition advocates, can worsen the obesity problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/n...akfasts-some-children-may-eat-twice.html
With Classroom Breakfasts, a Concern That Some Children Eat Twice
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: April 19, 201

It is an innovative, intuitive and increasingly common way to ensure that food reaches the mouths of hungry children from low-income families: give out free breakfast in the classroom at the start of each school day.

The results, seen at urban districts across the country, are striking. Without the stigma of a trip to the cafeteria, the number of students in Newark who eat breakfast in school has tripled. Absenteeism has fallen in Los Angeles, and officials in Chicago say children from low-income families are eating healthier meals, more often.

But New York City, a leader in public health reform, has balked at expanding the approach in its own schools, and City Hall is citing a surprising concern: that all those classroom Cheerios and cheese sticks could lead to more obesity.

Some children, it turns out, may be double-dipping.

The city’s health department hit the pause button after a study found that the Breakfast in the Classroom program, now used in 381 of the city’s 1,750 schools, was problematic because some children might be “inadvertently taking in excess calories by eating in multiple locations” — in other words, having a meal at home, or snacking on the way to school, then eating again in school.

****************************************************

The food stamps program may increase obesity in low-income women.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...the-link-between-food-stamps-and-obesity
Food Stamps and Obesity
Diane M. Gibson
UPDATED SEPTEMBER 28, 2011, 12:17 AM

Forty-two percent of low-income women in the United States are obese, and the rate of obesity is even higher among women who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- formerly the food stamp program.

Researchers have spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether this is the result of receiving SNAP benefits or whether there is simply a correlation between obesity and SNAP participation that arises because the low-income women who are more likely to be obese are also those most interested in getting SNAP benefits. The research suggests that SNAP participation may actually cause an increase in the likelihood of obesity for low-income women. A relationship between SNAP participation and obesity has not been found for low-income men.

****************************************************

Higher obesity rates in the poor is not caused by their living in food deserts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/h...s-and-obesity-challenged-in-studies.html
Studies Question the Pairing of Food Deserts and Obesity
By GINA KOLATA
April 17, 2012

It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said.

Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods. Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.

“It is always easy to advocate for more grocery stores,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who was not involved in the studies. “But if you are looking for what you hope will change obesity, healthy food access is probably just wishful thinking.”

***********************************************

If spending more on the poor does not help them overall, consider spending less and letting productive people keep more of their earnings.

I don't think I'd use the term "primary way." But I would say "ensuring good nutrition and good pre-natal care are really important things to do and will do a lot for cognitive and other forms of childhood development."

I stand by my assertion: there's a huge body of evidence showing solid links between malnutrition and cognitive impairment. I linked to studies on Google scholar in one of my messages. All those studies are peer reviewed. Here's one.

I don't really understand why the studies I've cited are being dismissed (and as a side note, why the criticisms of Abcedarian have been ignored). I mentioned published studies in at the end of the Ecopacket, like this one. I included the bird study because it was trying to control for factors that can't be controlled in humans. I'm not sure why studies in developing countries were dismissed; we have malnutrition due to poverty in this country too (as this study points out). Not to mention that malnutrition is a lack of nutrients, not necessarily calories. Obese kids may be malnourished.

There are multiple studies on this malnutrition and development going back decades. The idea that malnutrition affects development (cognitive and otherwise) negatively has been settled, and I'm not even sure why we're debating it.

Honestly, I'm trying to understand why anyone would necessarily even need a randomized study specifically showing that better food raises scores on standardized tests before adding it to that list you wrote at the end of your message. This requirement seems superfluous, given that the effects of malnutrition are so well-documented. IMO, the priority should be just getting to it and finding a way to feed people properly.

And I'm going to add this again. You haven't responded to my points about the Abcedarian study. There are have been serious criticisms of that study in peer-reviewed journals. Whenever you've critiqued a point I made, I've responded with more studies. You need to give me solid studies showing that Abcedarian-type methods produce long-term results of the types claimed, in the original study groups. And I'd like to see a response to my criticisms of Abcedarian (sample size, bias, etc.).

Food insecurity does exist in the United States, which is why in schools, we already have free and reduced-price lunch and breakfast programs. I would never advocate cutting or taking them away. I absolutely think they serve a valuable purpose. I just don't agree that we have evidence that eating, say, poor quality pizza, frozen green beans and canned fruit (typical school lunch now) makes you perform worse on tests than eating better quality pizza with whole grain crust, fresh fruit and salad (typical improved school lunch under lunch improvement programs). Wasn't that what you were talking about--improving the quality of school lunches and breakfasts? (Upthread: "IMO, we'd do better to ensure that free school breakfasts and lunches have high nutritional content (substitute fresh fish, fruits and raw or steamed vegetables for pink slime hamburgers and french fries, for example, and get rid of soda in school.") That's really a different thing than helping kids who are actually hungry. BTW, huge progress towards eliminating soda in schools has already been made. You'd be surprised how much, but if you have university library access, as you seem to, you could look this up. I think this is fabulous news, but the really interesting thing is that so far so one has been able to find any convincing drops in kids' BMIs or sweetened drink consumption. The theory is that kids are making up for it at home.

Mind you, I think it's a good thing to improve school food like that. I just really don't see evidence that it's going to suddenly give us high achievers.

BTW, we ARE in agreement WRT prenatal care. If we could reduce premature birth, which carries a horrendous cost, boy, we could do a lot to help kids, not to mention reduce healthcare costs. A lot of preemies have LDs. It's really tough for them. The hard thing is that we don't exactly know what causes prematurity, but we do know that women who don't get prenatal care are at a higher risk of it. There seems to be a stress connection, and something just came out about how being on your feet a lot of hours is connected.

Re Abcedarian, I'd have to go back and look at it again. It is repeatedly cited as a model program, as are a number of other intensive high-intervention quality programs with young disadvantaged children. It's pretty widely acknowledged in the family science field. You were griping earlier about them not being proven to raise IQ. So? Isn't IQ supposed to be fairly immutable anyway? I'm much more interested in other outcomes, such as lack of involvement in criminal activity, steady employment, HS graduation rates, income, etc. Here's another study:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01563.x/abstract

Using data collected up to age 26 in the Chicago Longitudinal Study, this cost–benefit analysis of the Child-Parent Centers (CPC) is the first for a sustained publicly funded early intervention. The program provides services for low-income families beginning at age 3 in 20 school sites. Kindergarten and school-age services are provided up to age 9 (third grade). Findings from a complete cohort of over 1,400 program and comparison group participants indicated that the CPCs had economic benefits in 2007 dollars that exceeded costs. The preschool program provided a total return to society of $10.83 per dollar invested (18% annual return). The primary sources of benefits were increased earnings and tax revenues and averted criminal justice system costs. The school-age program had a societal return of $3.97 per dollar invested (10% annual return). The extended intervention program (4–6 years) had a societal return of $8.24 (18% annual return). Estimates were robust across a wide range of analyses including Monte Carlo simulations. Males, 1-year preschool participants, and children from higher risk families derived greater benefits. Findings provide strong evidence that sustained programs can contribute to well-being for individuals and society.

Note that as usual, the programs for younger children were significantly more effective.

There are a ton of low cost states out there in less urban areas.

For instance, it costs even less to live in South-Central PA, where I used to live.

If I was there, I could probably save 60% to 70% of my gross income, as opposed to the more moderate 50% that I save where I am currently located.

But of course, people can't just pack up and move. They have family ties, etc. That said, we intentionally choose to live in an area with a low cost of living because we also have chosen careers that are not highly remunerative. We wanted to own a house and be financially comfortable, and there's no way we could do that in a lot of areas of the country and also do the work we choose to do.

"Working-class" does not equal "low-income." When I use the term, I'm generally referring to the second and third quintiles.

Housing is a demand-based commodity. Urban areas are where the jobs are. Employers are backing away from telecommuting. Hence, people live where their jobs are, or commute long hours, or both, incurring costs either way.

I'm not sure it's true that employers are backing away from telecommuting--do you have a cite on that? AFAIK, it continues to increase.

It's not scientific or anything, but I'm basing that statement on a number of recent news articles I've seen, like this: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-25/what-people-really-do-when-theyre-working-from-home

The attitudes of my own employer are also a factor.

I really think that parental involvement in the home with school is critical to children moving ahead (or falling behind) in the classroom.
We live in an upper income area but 30% of the kids are on the free/reduced lunch program. My husband and I volunteered once a week in my son's third grade class last year, at a public school. IMHO, 1/3 of his class was below the third grade level. It correlated highly with income- the teacher accidentally sent an email out to all of the parents about a field trip and inadvertently revealed who was on the free lunch program (it was just about all of the kids who were below grade level).
The teacher would always give me a few of those kids to work with on my volunteer days. I never thought they had a learning disability, etc. I felt like, gee, you need someone to buy Handwriting Without Tears and just have you work on your handwriting at home. Or spelling. Or have you read out loud to me for 30 minutes a night.
I'm not a teacher, so this is just my "I"m a mom" insight. That isn't to say, obviously, that poor nutrition or learning disabilities or whatever doesn't also play a huge role in the achievement gap.

You generally have a choice about where you want to look for work.

For example, back in 2000, I knew that living in the NYC or DC area was probably a bad idea. Yes, I would start at $125K and go up to $200K fairly quickly, but there were better places to work with shorter commutes and less stress.

Those places would have been much more fun to live, but with respect to raising children, you can find plenty of cheaper places in the U.S. to live.

You just generally have to take a pay cut if you want to change locations to a less economically congested area.

Last pay cut I took several years ago (for the purpose of avoiding billable hours) was 40% and I moved to an area with a higher cost of living. Now I did reduce my commute from 30 minutes. My commute is now at 7 to 10 minutes depending if it's a school day or not.

I'm just pointing out that you can generally find extra $$$ for kids if you are willing to adjust your life or lifestyle for that purpose if you want to accomplish that.

And my point is that most people do not have those same options. You do, sure... but you're not working-class. As a lawyer, you'd be in the professional class, and likely in the 4th quintile for your local area. Unless I'm very much mistaken, schoolteachers and HVAC repairmen aren't making $125k to start in DC. It's a lot easier to justify relocation costs for a lawyer's salary than a schoolteacher's.

I did exactly as you advise 5 years ago, but then again, I'm also solidly in the 4th quintile, and qualify for jobs offering low-six figures to start in DC. I relocated for a 25% pay cut and an area with significantly lower costs of living. I incurred no relocation costs, as they were employer-paid.

And then I found out that the figures I'd seen for insurance costs were grossly understated, and all the perceived savings in cost of living were offset entirely by those. So the grass is not always greener.

Many of the white collar workers I know, working in finance, technology, and pharmaceutical companies (I'm in MA) do a substantial amount of their work at home. Doctors have done so for a long time when they are "on call", and nowadays they use online programs to access patient records, make notes, and order prescriptions.

The correlation between high salaries and high costs of living discussed upthread does exist, but there is a trend in finance for some midlevel jobs to move to lower-cost areas, not just to foreign countries but to cheaper areas in the U.S.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/business/finance-jobs-leave-wall-street-as-firms-cut-costs.html
Financial Giants Are Moving Jobs Off Wall Street
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
New York Times
July 1, 2012

A long NYT article illustrates what Brooks is talking about, although the married couple profiled is middle class.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html
Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do’
By JASON DePARLE
July 14, 2012

Brooks and Deparle sound a bit like Charles Murray in his recent book 'Coming Apart' - here's an assessment:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/b...lass-in-coming-apart.html?pagewanted=all

I do a significant amount of my work from home, too. As an IT worker, I'm often called upon to respond to issues or to introduce changes at odd hours, so I do that from home. But for 40 hours a week, my employers want me present. In this way I would be counted among the statistics that measure telecommuting trends, yet I'm still commuting in the physical sense as well.

Any statistics depicting national trends on telecommuting are loaded full of people like me.

All my people fit in this boat. I don't need 40 hours of face time but 16 hours is nice. IMHO people with set tasks are more efficient working from home and they are a lot less stressed with conflicting family and work priorities.

On the contrary, for people who make less money, the difference in moving to a new location with lower taxes and costs of living are very significant. A move often increases disposable income by 100 to 200%. A few extra $K a year is a HUGE difference to "working class" people. Not to mention better environment for their families.

Working-class people often have stronger ties to an area, though. Their whole families may still live in the same town, or just about. It's a big step to leave that family love and support and what is often the only place you've ever really known. Family may also be providing free childcare and babysitting and other support, or you may need to stay there to provide care for aging family members. We aren't all scot-free to move about the country as needed. As I said earlier, we intentionally chose an area with a low cost of living, but our parents live far away (in high COL areas) and have been unable to help care for our kids. As they age, they may need us, which may present some major logistical problems (and possibly financial ones). There's been an emotional cost as well--the kids don't know their grandparents very well.

1) People who make less money can ill afford the relocation costs, which would eat up the entire "few extra $K" for the first year up front.

2) Disconnecting people from their local support systems can introduce new costs that eat up the perceived savings. For instance, that few extra K could end up going to child care expenses, because grandma's not around to do it for free.

3) "Better" is a subjective term.

Another point that seems to have been missed is that for some professions, it doesn't matter where you live: the jobs just aren't there. For example, two years ago, the unemployment rate for architects hovered around 70% according to the AIA. Bob the Architect could move from Utah to Iowa to Florida to Maine (assuming he wanted to and could pay for new licenses each time), and it wouldn't do him a bloody bit of good.

This only considers take home pay, not total cost to employer.

I can't place the source right now, but the total cost to employer has actually increased faster than inflation when considering the increased cost of benefits, particularly health care. In effect, working class employees are taking higher pay and using it towards higher cost health care.

I don't doubt that employment costs have increased faster than inflation, but how much faster? Employer-sponsored health benefits are being cut, so they provide less service and transfer more cost to the employee. Retirement costs are likewise being cut, as employers ditch defined-benefit programs.

The bottom line is that, between flat salaries and declining benefits, the middle-class is effectively enjoying a reduced standard of living. Meanwhile, CEO pay has multiplied over the same period, and companies are currently posting record-breaking profits.

More on Thomas Jefferson High School admissions:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...issions/2012/07/19/gJQAL011wW_story.html
Fairfax school board debates Thomas Jefferson High admissions
by Emma Brown
Washington Post
July 19, 2012
A majority of Fairfax County School Board members said Thursday they would favor changing admission policies for the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, addressing a perennial concern about underrepresented minority groups and more recent consternation about a spike in the number of students struggling to meet the school’s rigorous academic demands.

“We seem to have the worst of both worlds, unfortunately,” said Sandy Evans (Mason), speaking before a standing-room-only crowd at the school system’s headquarters in Falls Church. “We’ve got students being admitted now who are not prepared to do the work, and we also have not increased diversity.”

Seven out of 11 present members said they favored considering making some degree of change as early as this year. Many said some measures — such as middle-school grades and scores on the TJ math admission test — should count for more than they do now, while essays should count for less.

...

Partially in response to school board's deliberations, the NAACP has sued:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...alleges/2012/07/23/gJQAPOIO5W_story.html
Thomas Jefferson H.S., Fairfax schools shut out blacks and Latinos, complaint alleges
by Emma Brown
Washington Post
July 23, 2012
The disproportionately low number of black and Latino students admitted to Fairfax County’s prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology — long a subject of debate — has triggered a federal civil rights complaint.

The 17-page complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education on Monday by the Coalition of The Silence, an advocacy group led by former county School Board member Tina Hone, and the Fairfax chapter of the NAACP.

The complaint alleges that black and Latino students, as well as students with disabilities, are being shut out of Thomas Jefferson, or TJ, long before they apply in eighth grade because of Fairfax County Public Schools’ systematic failure to identify them for gifted-education programs that begin in elementary school.

Fairfax school officials could not comment because they had not had a chance to review the complaint, said spokesman John Torre.

The school system does not have numerical targets for minority enrollment at TJ. But officials have tried in recent years to increase the number of members of underrepresented student groups at the school.

Admissions experts visit every middle school to encourage and help prospective applicants; teachers are required in their recommendation letters to explain how students would contribute to diversity at the school; and the admissions process has been tweaked several times in an effort to capture the full range of students’ abilities. Some promising minority students are tapped for math and science enrichment programs.

Even so, the admissions gap persists.

Hone said she and others decided to file the complaint partly because they felt longstanding concerns about diversity at TJ have been drowned out in recent months by a new worry: that the admissions process is failing to identify the brightest math and science students.

************************************

It is not the job of the government to equalize results.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/08/aa_at_tj_redux.html
AUGUST 20, 2012
AA at TJ Redux
Bryan Caplan

Remember how GMU law professor Lloyd Cohen used the Freedom of Information Act to test for the extent of affirmative action at Thomas Jefferson High School? Nine years after Cohen filed an official complaint, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights finally got back to him. They find his case unconvincing.

**********************************************

More at the site, and statistical data on admissions is at

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/12/how_much_aa_at.html
DECEMBER 13, 2007
How Much AA at TJ?
Bryan Caplan

Two essays by Cohen on TJ admissions are

http://www.albanylawreview.org/archives/67/1/strawmenfibsandotheracademicsins.pdf
Straw Men, Fibs, And Other Academic Sins

and

http://mason.gmu.edu/~lcohen2/Cohen%20Final%20Final.doc
A Study Of Invidious Racial Discrimination In Admissions At Thomas Jefferson High School For Science And Technology: Monty Python And Franz Kafka Meet A Probit Regression

If you try too hard to push healthy food that people don't like to eat, it just gets thrown away, as this article describes. Furthermore, what's healthy depends on the individual.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/nyregion/healthier-school-lunches-face-student-rejection.html
No Appetite for Good-for-You School Lunches
By VIVIAN YEE
New York Times
October 5, 2012

...

They are high school students, and their complaint is about lunch — healthier, smaller and more expensive than ever.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which required public schools to follow new nutritional guidelines this academic year to receive extra federal lunch aid, has created a nationwide version of the age-old parental challenge: persuading children to eat what is good for them.

Because the lunches must now include fruits and vegetables, those who clamor for more cheese-laden nachos may find string beans and a peach cup instead. Because of limits on fat and sodium, some of those who crave French fries get baked sweet-potato wedges. Because of calorie restrictions, meat and carbohydrate portions are smaller. Gone is 2-percent chocolate milk, replaced by skim.

“Before, there was no taste and no flavor,” said Malik Barrows, a senior at Automotive High School in Brooklyn, who likes fruit but said his classmates threw away their mandatory helpings on the cafeteria floor. “Now there’s no taste, no flavor and it’s healthy, which makes it taste even worse.”