There's undeniable, powerful connection between the socioeconomic status of students and the achievement they experience in school. This gap follows students into "real life."
At the heart of the achievement gap lies Literacy. It's a skill many of us take for granted: read a street sign, pick up a newspaper (those the numbers are dwindling), complete a job application and the list goes on. We rarely question how life would be different if we lacked what seems to be a relatively easy skill. Or let's scale it down a notch, think about how life would be if you were perpetually stuck on a 3rd grade Reading level?
Children living in low-income, high needs communities face this reality every day and it doesn't seem to be changing. Resources in the schools are lacking and there's often little support coming from home. Most material learned during an effective school year is lost over the summer. How does a child possibly learn and retain a functioning vocabulary?
Oh wait, this happens before a child is even enrolled into school. By the age of 3, children in low SES are already experiencing a 30 million word gap. 30 MILLION WORD GAP. Who realized that it was even possible for a 3 year to 30 million words? Children in an SES are exposed to less than half the amount of words that a children in an average professional family is. The problem starts before school even starts.
That's what's astounding. The next 18 years of a children's life can one long epic struggle.
How is this fixed? It's not early intervention programs. It's not prescriptive reading programs. Shoot, it's not even "great" teachers. It's not different parents. The solution lies in poverty and the solution that people claim isn't available. How do we fix poverty? I can save those musings for another day, but you can be guaranteed the fault isn't with the parents or schools.
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