15
By Dr. Peter Flynn
Every school district in Illinois and our nation is
concerned about improving student achievement for
all students. To help all students we must examine
the results of sub-groups, where we see the most
startling differences invariably emerging among racial
minorities and students of poverty. Are these
differences just a “fact of life” or is it a challenge that
we can overcome?
From research on the national level we know that
there is a high correlation (as high as .97 and .98)
between students scoring lower on high-stakes tests
and their parents’ income level. The same statistics
emerge when looking at children in Illinois. In a
February 2011 article in
Catalyst
Chicago Magazine
titled “More Illinois children living in poverty, at risk of
school failure,” it reported:
“
Among the 10 largest states, Illinois had the
second-widest achievement gap between students in
poverty and other students. In the 2010 Illinois
Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), only 60% of low
-income 8th grade students met state standards,
while 88% of other students did so.”
Poverty in and of itself is not necessarily a
debilitating factor. Some families in poverty lack
resources for such important skills as language
development. For example, a lack of books,
magazines or conversations with children by the
adults puts children of poverty at a distinct
disadvantage when it comes to the opportunity to
hear and learn words.
We can safely draw the conclusion from the
research on poverty and achievement that there is a
strong likelihood that children from conditions of
poverty will not score as well on state assessments
or nationally standardized tests without some
intervention.
The intervention that is required to overcome any
anticipated disadvantage for the condition of poverty
is usually a combination of three or more elements
such as: lower class size (especially with K-3), a
developmentally appropriate curriculum, and the
consistent use of research-proven best practices.
In the interest of time and space, let us deal with
instructional practices, and for that we turn to the
research of Marzano, Pickering and others.
Robert Marzano, based upon his many years
working for the Mid-Continent Research for
Education and Learning (McREL), conducted a meta-
analysis of more than 1,200 experimental studies on
instructional strategies that had high success as
evidenced on more than 100,000 student
achievement scores.
Through this analysis, Marzano developed a way
of notating the potential success of specific
classroom practices with “effect size,” or the strength
of a phenomenon. A classroom strategy with an
effect size of 1.0 could yield as much as a 34
percentile gain on a standardized test.
For example, if a teacher were to faithfully and
consistently use the practice of helping students to
see the similarities and differences between the new
skill or knowledge they are learning with something
that they already know, this could have an effect size
of 1.6 or an impact that is far greater than that of
(Continued on page 16)
Poverty & achievement gap:
Teachers can be most important factor
Dr. Peter Flynn served as
superintendent of schools in
four states for a total of more
than 33 years, including 12
in the Freeport School
District until his retirement in
2012. His previous
experience included 21
years as a superintendent of
schools in Kentucky, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Prior
to that, he was a central office administrator, college
professor and a classroom teacher. Dr. Flynn for the
past 13 years has co-chaired a poverty working
group in Stephenson County. He is a current
member and past president of the Urban
Superintendents Association of America and a
current member and Past President of the Century
Club (100 Superintendents in the United States). Dr.
Flynn was honored by IASA as the 2012 Illinois
Superintendent of the Year.
Dr. Peter Flynn
Poverty in the public education classroom
