Why Poor Children Score So Poorly - The Achievement Gap

The CT Mastery Test results are sortable by many subgroups. One of the most predictive indicators of how a child will perform is whether they qualify for free or reduced price meals at school. Why is this? Why do poor children score so poorly.

In her book At a Loss for WordsBetty Bardridge argues that, "The Achievement Gap is really a vocabulary gap and it is evident at age 3." Research done by Hart and Risley (1995) found that 3 year old children of professional parents had vocabularies twice as large as those of 3 year olds being raised in poverty. As they examined possible causes for this finding they discovered that children in highly educated (professional) families heard many more words. By age 4 children in professional families had heard an average of 50 million words. Working class children had heard 30 million, while the children in poverty had heard only 15 million words. Most shocking was that when the researchers counted the number of words spoken by the three groups of children and their parents, they realized that the 3 year olds in the professional households used more different words than the parents in the poverty families.

Reading, Reading, Or Not Reading!

As a community New Britain needs to be very concerned about the latest 3rd grade reading scores. We came in 3rd worst in the state, only ahead of Hartford and New Haven.

To view the scores, click the link above. Select "State by District/School Interactive Report." Chose the grade and District or Schools and click continue. You can then choose Math, Reading or Writing and indicate if you want to see information about subgroups (English language learners or special education students)

How poorly did New Britain's 3rd graders do? Less than 1 in 5 are reading at the state goal. Just 36.7% are reading at the lower proficient rate and fully 47.3% are reading at the lowest below basic level. In some schools it is much worse. At Lincoln Elementary School just 16.3% are reading proficiently and over 3/4's are reading at the below basic level.

When children aren't reading well by the end of third grade their prospects for future school success are dim. Those are the findings of national research. Prior to 3rd grade children are learning to read. After 3rd grade we expect they will to read to learn. More and more of what they are learning comes from the content of what they are reading. So when children aren't reading well when the get to 4th grade they start to fall further and further behind.

We frequently hear that that our scores are so low because we have so many poor children. Clearly poverty is a factor, but in Bridgeport (98.8%) and Waterbury (76.8%) of the 3rd graders qualify for free or reduced price lunch (compared to 73.4% in New Britain) and they both have better reading scores (Bridgeport 42%, Waterbury 46.4% vs. New Britain 37.6% of 3rd graders reading proficiently).

We also hear that we have so many English Language Learners. This is true, only Hartford has more ELL students. However, in every community besides Meriden, ELL students score better on the 3rd grade reading tests than they do in New Britain. Even in Hartford and New Haven where overall scores are lower, the ELL students are reading better than ELL students in New Britain (Hartford 15%, New Haven 19.3% vs. New Britain 12.9% of ELL 3rd graders reading proficiently).

New Britain needs to have a concerted effort focused on getting all children reading well by the end of 3rd grade. That will take new resources or the diversion of existing resources to the early years. However, without this investment of additional resources focused on literacy in the early years, we will continue to find ourselves spending inordinate amounts on remedial education with limited impact. When we interviewed Dr. Kurtz for the job of superintendent she reminded us that the, "Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results." Its time New Britain stopped expecting that most of our school children will be poor readers and do something to make sure they read well by the end of 3rd grade.