This article continues the debate on private and public schools and the
quality of education of both.
The reason why I found this article so interesting, was that it
suggested factors outside of the
school which affect the academic success or failure of a student or school. For
example:
''It's not the type of school that changes
[the result], it's the things that are being done for the child at home” (emphasis added).
The author acknowledges the common perception that ‘you can’t go wrong
when you’re at a private school’, but she draws our attention to a field of
research which is not commonly looked at in these types of debates.
Researchers in this particular study claim to have found a link between
birth size and success at school. Another link to children’s success was the
educational level of their parents:
“Children who weighed less than 2.5
kilograms at birth achieved ''significantly lower'' test scores, especially in
grammar and numeracy, with the researchers suggesting low birth weight
correlated with longer term developmental delays … Children whose parents had
completed year 12 had significantly higher test scores across all subjects”
These suggestion of external factors influencing academic success are
not new, but this is the first time I have ever seen them discussed in a public
forum. Explanations for academic failure almost never discuss factors that are
uncontrollable to a student- such as the accident of one’s birth.
A study which will always stick with me is that by Hart & Risley
(1995) called ‘The Early Catastrophe- The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3’. The
researchers in this study followed children from different socio economic
backgrounds in a longitudinal study from the age of 7-9 months up to the age of
3. The followed children from professional families, working class families and
welfare dependent families. Their goal was to examine the “terrible effects
that poverty was having on some children’s academic growth” (1995: 1). Children
at such a young age do not attend school and sit formalised tests, so how did
they test academic growth? They examined vocabulary use in their home
environment. They observed vocabulary use (both what their parents said to their children and around them, or incidentally),
vocabulary resources (like books), and language and interaction styles between
the child and those in their home. They recorded the amount, style and quality
of vocabulary the child heard per hour in their observation sessions. They then
calculated these figures into yearly data, and the result was astounding. They
found that over 4 years, a child from a professional family would have
accumulated experience with 45 million words, whereas a child from a welfare
family would have accumulated experience with only 13 million words- roughly a
30 million word gap. They lamented that “By
the time children were 3 years old, trends in amount of talk, vocabulary
growth, and style of interaction were well established and clearly suggested
widening gaps to come” (1995: 2).
To put together Hart & Risley’s (1995) research with Marriner’s
(2013) article, I would argue that they are both in essence arguing the same
thing- poverty affects academic results. Again, this is not totally new and
groundbreaking information. It is well known, and has been for many years- but
is rarely discussed in public forums. Perhaps this is because of the all too
common belief that, as Connell et. al.(1991) put it, that ‘poverty is welfare business and the schools’ job is just to teach’.
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References:
Connell, R. W., Johnston, K. M. & White, V. M. (1991) Rethinking
the relationship between poverty and education. In Connell, R. et. al. (Eds.) Running Twice as Hard- The Disadvantaged
Schools Program in Australia’. Deakin University Press: Victoria, Australia.
Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995) The Early Catastrophe- The 30
Million Word Gap by Age 3. American
Educator, 27(1): 4-9
Marriner, C. (2013) Private
schools no guarantee of higher NAPLAN scores, study finds. Accessible at http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/private-schools-no-guarantee-of-higher-naplan-scores-study-finds-20131012-2vf63.html#ixzz2izKgYSR1
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