What Do We Know About High Poverty Schools? Summary of the High Poverty Schools Conference at UNC-Chapel Hill

Abstract

Despite a century of alternating progressive and traditionalist reforms and despite the unselfish and creative efforts of many in high-poverty schools and of the profession as a whole, such schools generally remain highly ineffective in terms of their ability to reduce the learning gap or to accelerate their students after the third grade. S. Pogrow, 2006 Discourse about high poverty schooling generally revolves around three points of view. In the first, equity of school resources is considered to be the key ingredient in school improvement. In the second, no matter the school resources, there are successful high poverty schools, so therefore policy should focus on their example and not use poverty as an excuse for low performance. (1) Finally, some hold that without significant changes in overall social policy and economic opportunity, the impact of school reform will be limited. (2) This article summarizes the main points that emerged in the High Poverty Schooling in America conference which took place on October 13, 2006 at UNC-Chapel Hill and incorporates some of my own reflections about the conference. It focuses on the implications for policy and unresolved research and policy questions. The discussion at the conference mostly represented variants of the first two points of view, but in her keynote, Gloria Ladson-Billings eloquently raised the challenge the third point of view poses to all of us who sincerely want to improve educational equity. At the conference, there was consensus on the unsurprising point that high poverty schools are below average in student achievement, graduation rates, and other important school outcomes. There was disagreement on the significance of the schools' contribution (as distinct from the contribution of external societal factors) to these negative outcomes, but agreement that schools should, at least, not reinforce social inequalities and hopefully play a significant role in alleviating them and promoting equality of opportunity. Even Russell Rumberger, who emphasized the importance of non-school inequalities, stated that in his study of elementary schools, the gap (while already significant at kindergarten) increased somewhat for African-Americans and decreased somewhat for Latinos. First, the conference schedule (names in brackets refer to speakers listed below, unless otherwise indicated): Welcome Julius Chambers, UNC Center for Civil Rights Introduction of Keynote Speaker Howard Machtinger, UNC School of Education Keynote Address Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison PANEL ONE: What Do We Know About High Poverty Schools? Parsing the Data on Student Academic Performance in High Poverty Schools Russell Rumberger, University of California--Santa Barbara Are These Conflicting Data: What Do They Tell Us About Cause and Effect? Ross Wiener, The Education Trust What Are the Data on Post K-12 Academic and Life Trajectories? Jomills Braddock, University of Miami Discussant: John Charles Boger, UNC School of Law PANEL TWO: What Are the Mechanisms of High Poverty Disadvantage? Special Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Teachers and Administrators, Helen Ladd, Duke University On the Relationship Between Poverty and Curriculum Hank Levin, Columbia University Teachers College Poverty and Workforce Development Capacity Building in Schools Dennis Orthner, University of North Carolina School of Social Work Discussant: William Darity, UNC-Chapel Hill PANEL THREE: What are the Limits and Possibilities of Legal Remedies? Equity/Adequacy Litigation: Helpful to Students and Justiciable for Courts Michael Rebell, Columbia University Teachers College Litigated Learning, the Limits of Law, and the Urban School Challenge Michael Heise, Cornell University Law School Does Adequacy Litigation Shortchange High Poverty Schools? David Hinojosa, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund Discussant: Ashley Osment, UNC Center for Civil Rights PANEL FOUR: What are the Most Promising Strategies for Improving Achievement in High Poverty Schools? …