A favorite mantra of defenders of the status quo in Kentucky's public education system is that poverty is standing in the way of many students getting the education they deserve. However, the evidence does not support this claim.
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Friday, May 6, 2011
Education bureaucrats crying 'poor'
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I used to disagree with former chair of the Kentucky Board of Education Helen Mountjoy on many issues.
However, Ms. Mountjoy FREQUENTLY said that poverty is no excuse for poor education. On that issue, I agreed then, and I still agree.
Shortly after the Bluegrass Institute was established, I wrote a report titled "Bang for the Buck." During the research for that report, I discovered a number of schools that did exceptionally well despite relatively low funding and relatively high poverty.
For example, one of the top 10 elementary schools in the state strongly outperformed one of the bottom 10 for bang for the buck even though the former had much lower funding and notably higher poverty. Other researchers continuously find similar examples here and all over the country.
Poverty is challenging, but it is not an excuse.
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