If you work in the K-12 education orbit ? or anywhere even near it ? you've heard this argument before: Increasing numbers of poor students in a school or a district over time will negatively impact overall performance.
Now, what we mean by ?increasing numbers? and ?over time? will vary. Some contend that once a school/district reaches a tipping point of poor children (I've heard anywhere from 60-some to 80-some percent), it's very hard to maintain academic achievement levels. Overall, racially and socioeconomically integrated schools tend to fare better, and even well-meaning parents who want a ?diverse? school actually mean a school with some minority/poor kids, but not an overabundance. Enough to reap the merits of diversity, but not so much that the school's behavioral expectations and achievement decline.
Recently Fordham hosted an event in its hometown of Dayton to discuss findings from a student mobility study it commissioned from a University of Dayton economist. In addition to shedding light on several fascinating findings related to mobility (read more on the study via the Dayton Daily News), the conversation diverged into a useful tangent when (greater Dayton-area) West Carrollton superintendent Rusty Clifford described the district's increasing student poverty rates and struggles with mobility alongside strategies to ensure that such challenges don't impact their high academic performance.
Here's the thing you should know about West Carrollton ? its student poverty rate has risen from seven percent at the start of the decade (2001-02) to nearly fifty percent (49.4) last year, but the district has managed to hold academic achievement steady that whole time and has actually improved its state academic rating.
Ok, Ms. Ohio Anecdote, what's your point?
Thinking about West Carrollton's success instigated us to do a quick analysis of other districts in Ohio that have had high growth in poverty (specifically, we looked at those witnessing a 75 percent or higher growth in the numbers of economically disadvantaged kids, from 2003-2009 ? and they had to have at least a final poverty rate of 40 or higher). What happened to their academic performance during that time? Inspiring anecdotal evidence aside, did they experience sliding achievement levels? For all we hear about the negative impact of poor kids in a district, certainly scores must have stagnated, right?
The results are surprising, and hopeful. Across Ohio, 38 districts saw a 75 percent or higher growth in economically disadvantaged students (either through influx, or students falling into poverty via family circumstances ? probably more of the latter). Of those, only four saw their Performance Index (a weighted average of student scores from all tested grades) fall. The vast majority actually saw improvements, with four of those districts experiencing a 15 percent or higher incline.
Something counterintuitive is happening here, and we have a few theories. Stay tuned for next week's Ohio Education Gadfly as we'll delve into this phenomena more, provide a list of those poverty-growth districts holding the achievement line steady (they deserve congrats!), and put forth some hypotheses about what's happening.
(Note: these 34 districts whose PI scores went up and whose poverty rates went up don't necessarily disprove the tipping point hypothesis. Most poverty-growth districts on this list still only have poverty rates in the 40s or 50s, though a handful have poverty rates that do fall in the 60-80 percent range.)
- Jamie Davies O'Leary
