Bill Jackson, the founder and head of GreatSchools.org uses the term “parenting gap” to describe “the gap in knowledge, attitudes and behaviors between more effective and less effective parents.” By Jackson’s estimate, closing 1% of the parenting gap nationally “would have about the same impact on college-ready high school graduation rates as replacing dozens of low-performing schools with about 150 high performing schools like KIPP.” He’s quick to point out that his estimate is merely a back of the envelope calculation. But the number is plausible and the reasoning unassailable.

An email from Jackson to Whitney Tilson was featured in the latter’s most recent ed reform email blast (it will appear on Tilson’s blog eventually, I assume) and is quoted here with Jackson’s permission. Arguments about how best to teach poor children tend to come down to fix schools by addressing poverty, or address poverty by fixing schools, he notes. But both sides are missing something. “You don’t have to be rich to have high expectations for your children,” Jackson writes. “You don’t have to have a lot of money to make school and working hard a huge priority in your family’s life.”

“Here’s one way to dramatize this: If you’re a poor kid in New York, there is one ‘intervention’ that is at least as powerful as KIPP and other high-performing schools: having an Asian parent. I looked at the NYC NAEP data and the evidence is pretty compelling on that. I’m not saying that all parents should try to be ‘Asian’ in their parenting approach (or even that there is one ‘Asian’ way to parent). One sees effective parenting in all ethnic and income groups. I am saying that parents have a huge impact, and their potential impact depends only partly on how much money they have.”

“If we’re serious about education reform, we can’t ignore the parenting gap anymore,” Jackson concludes.

Like curriculum, parenting is a powerful lever—and both are potentially much more impactful than the structural reforms in the standard ed reform playbook. “Education reform is not just about school improvement,” Jackson concludes. “It’s also about informing and inspiring parents so that they can ‘come on the team’ with high expectations and high levels of support. We’ll get much farther much faster if we think this way.”

33 Comments »

[...] Closing 1% of the “Parenting Gap” is Worth 150 KIPPs « The Core Knowledge Blog Filed under: education — coopmike48 @ 11:55 am Closing 1% of the “Parenting Gap” is Worth 150 KIPPs « The Core Knowledge Blog. [...]

Pingback by Closing 1% of the “Parenting Gap” is Worth 150 KIPPs « The Core Knowledge Blog « Parents 4 democratic Schools — September 9, 2010 @ 2:55 pm
“Like curriculum, parenting is a powerful lever—and both are potentially much more impactful than the structural reforms in the standard ed reform playbook.”

Minus the word “potentially”–and including “high-quality instruction”– and you’ve neatly summarized the (mainly futile, increasingly bitter) efforts to improve education in America for the past decade. Nice work!

Let the recriminations begin.

Comment by Nancy Flanagan — September 9, 2010 @ 3:10 pm
It drives me crazy that schools are treated as the alpha and the omega of an individual’s education as opposed to one of many agents of education.

While I fully recognize the importance of parenting as a determinant of student achievement, I just don’t know how you can legislate it.

Maybe it’s the social studies background that gives me pause for concern, but I’m sort of afraid to imagine what it would be like if we COULD legislate parenting.

Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 9, 2010 @ 3:24 pm
When I was in school, starting in the mid-50s, there wasn’t much parental involvement in school. Most parents -and all kids lived with their married biological parents (windowhood aside) – did a decent job of teaching appropriate behavior and of making sure kids did their homework. They weren’t expected or needed to do more than helping with holiday parties, Christmas and spring concerts and the occasional field trip. That was still pretty much true of the suburban schools my kids (now mid-20s – mid-30s) attended. The increased frequency of divorce changed the dynamic, but most kids still had two reasonable parents and perhaps step-parents. One of the largest elephants in the room is the impact of very young, poorly-educated, never-married mothers/grandmothers and no fathers/grandfathers. Pretending it is a satisfactory child-rearing situation, with no social stigma – doesn’t make it satisfactory.

Comment by momof4 — September 9, 2010 @ 8:42 pm
[...] The rest is here: Closing 1% of the “Parenting Gap” is Worth 150 KIPPs « The Core … [...]

Pingback by Closing 1% of the “Parenting Gap” is Worth 150 KIPPs « The Core … | Atworkcom.com Blog — September 10, 2010 @ 6:37 am
If parental commitment to education is the key factor, doesn’t that mean that it’s more important to focus on that than on implementing a “core curriculum”?

Comment by AB — September 10, 2010 @ 9:58 am
I thought the point of the post was pretty clear, but if not, I’ll restate it: “fixing” parenting like enhancing curriculum, is a broad, generally applicable and highly impactful reform that is seldom mentioned. Ed reform tends to focus on small, costly, hard-to-scale reforms like charter schools, for example or “improving teacher quality.” But what I find curious, AB (and depressing, frankly) is the either/or formulation. Fix parenting OR curriculum. This is a problem with reform efforts in general: the tendency to focus on a particular reform as The Answer. I’m a curriculum advocate. Would I argue that if we simply instituted a core curriculum in every school that all other problems would go away? I would not. In my personal pantheon, I’d probably put parental involvement and curriculum at the top. But it doesn’t follow that every other problem goes away if you address one or the other. Schools are complex mechanisms with lots of moving, interdependent parts. There’s no such thing as a one-shot cure-all.

Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 10, 2010 @ 10:15 am
Anything that can be done to help parents, students, and schools make stronger, more viable connections is very much needed in today’s society.
I am trying to do that with my website.
In addition to my articles, I also provide a link to the CK Foundation, hoping that parents will begin to make more demands on the public school system.
Parents need to be educated so they know what and how to make their voices heard in public education.

Comment by Bob Hamm — September 10, 2010 @ 11:56 am
Robert,
You are absolutely right that there is no such thing as The Answer (I think you’ve previously called it the “magic bullet”). Parenting, curriculum, well-trained teachers, effective school boards, and good administrators – they all have a role to play in education reform.

I struggle, though, to see how reforms that target cultural characteristics will be achieved. The only thing I can think to do to address the parenting issue is raise awareness and provide information, but will that be enough?

Given that so many Americans ignore messages like “eating too much fast food will kill you,” “driving while texting is dangerous,” etc., I worry that messages to parents about their role in educating their children may be lost.

How would you propose the parenting issue be addressed?

Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 10, 2010 @ 12:39 pm
“While I fully recognize the importance of parenting as a determinant of student achievement, I just don’t know how you can legislate it.”

Legislation, no. Social pressure, yes. Public service announcements (PSAs) encourage parents to talk to their babies and toddlers even though they can’t respond. Use places where people congregate comfortably, like hair salons, to get out the message that parents need to:
* get their kids to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep
* see that they are fed
* give them a time and place to do homework (or read if there is no homework)
* talk about their day at school

How about using school buses on weekends and in summer to take families to libraries and museums?

Comment by Homeschooling Granny — September 10, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
PSA’s and providing communities with information sounds great, but the question is whether or not people use the information that is given. Are these methods really effective?

I can tell a parent until I’m blue in the face that their student can’t concentrate in class because they spend all night every night playing video games, but that doesn’t mean the parent will then make sure the student gets some sleep. Normally, my advice goes unheeded.

Why would delivering these messages through PSA’s make any difference? I think there is already a great deal of social pressure.

Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 10, 2010 @ 3:25 pm
Applying social pressure (it used to be called social stigma) to discourage kids from creating kids they are unprepared – socially, emotionally and economically – to raise decently would be a good start. As for using school buses as Granny suggests, I can see some benefit in rural areas. In cities, libraries, museums and historic/cultural sites are easily accessed; the families (MS-HS kids themselves) need to be convinced to visit them. It starts with culture and the anti-academic, anti-effort culture has to be changed if progress is to be made. Schools can help, by frequent and explicit instruction (all personnel, all levels) in the habits and behaviors that enable success, but they can’t do it all.

Comment by momof4 — September 10, 2010 @ 3:28 pm
I agree with momof4 and Anthony Guzzaldo (above) who note that it’s very important for families to appropriately support their children (schools can’t do it all). In my opinion, it will be very difficult for the children of young, under-educated parents to succeed in school(especially if they are raised in a culture that does not strongly value academics, like the Asian example noted in the original post) no matter how much the teachers try. I actually think the best bet (or at least a novel approach) toward improving school performance on a long-term basis is to find some way to strongly discourage people from having children that they are (to quote momof4) “socially, emotionally and economically” unable to raise. I’m not entirely sure what this approach would be (or if it would even be possible in a democratic society) but I have little hope that the average child of a 16 year old mom with no job, education, or husband is going to get very far in life.

The other prong of this issue that I feel is often neglected is that schools need to have more power to enforce behavior codes (e.g., students who curse at their teachers and disrupt their fellow students’ educations shouldn’t be tolerated, again and again, like they usually are in today’s public schools, due to political pressure and a combination of local and federal laws).

Comment by Attorney DC — September 10, 2010 @ 4:15 pm
We can’t give them Asian parents. Lets give them the next best thing – Asian teachers.

Comment by Anonymous — September 10, 2010 @ 5:05 pm
In the 1960s welfare rules required that recipients have their own home, requiring girls to move out from their mother’s place, depriving child and grandchild of mature support. Big mistake. I don’t know whether it has been corrected.

The reason that I suggested influencing parents where they are comfortable, such as at the hair dresser, it that many of the parents we need to reach never were at home in school, never had very good relations with teachers, and, no surprise, won’t listen to teachers now. There is a huge cultural gulf between people who elect to spend their entire lives in schools and those who couldn’t wait to get away from schools. We need a novel way to reach them.

Comment by Homeschooling Granny — September 10, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
Unfortunately, we are now at the point where we have multiple generations of never-married women who started having children at a very young age and the assumption that they are capable of “mature support” is questionable. In 1984, I remember a DC researcher talking about her work with grandmothers serving as primary caretakers of their grandchild(ren). The average age of the grandmothers was 34 and more than one was 28, and a number had children close in age to their grandchildren.

Asian teachers aren’t the answer; a culture that demands maximum effort directed toward academic achievement and stable,married families is. No, I have no magic recipe for creating that.

Comment by momof4 — September 10, 2010 @ 6:14 pm
Indeed, there are no silver or magic bullets. Nevertheless, we always tend to go for those easily measurable variables– money, curriculum, and testing to “fix” schools.
Parental support, cultural values, and all those other sensitive variables must be brought into the equation.
African, just like Asian children, tend to do much better in schools, so there’s something to be said about value for education.
Ads and PSA’s are good; legislation is probably not feasible, but parental support has to be coupled with parental empowerment. Schools can’t play lip service to wanting parents to be involved; they have to mean it.

Comment by globalprof — September 10, 2010 @ 6:38 pm
On a related note… When parents judge schools as “good” or “not good” how much is it a judgment on the school itself, and how much is it really a judgment on the parents of the kids their child will be in school with?

Comment by Rachel — September 10, 2010 @ 9:22 pm
“…but parental support has to be coupled with parental empowerment. Schools can’t play lip service to wanting parents to be involved; they have to mean it.”

When I read ‘parental empowerment’ I immediately think choice or vouchers.

Comment by Homeschooling Granny — September 11, 2010 @ 6:58 am
Parents who really care about their kids’ education will include other parents in their assessment of actual or prospective schools. I was one of them; I wanted my kids to be with kids who also had parents with similar academic expectations. It creates a success-oriented peer group. It’s the reason that many Asian parents in weak urban schools discourage mixing with non-Asians; the non-Asian peer culture is likely to be very non-academic in such settings.

Comment by momof4 — September 11, 2010 @ 11:29 am
The charter school movement is booming nationwide; in part due to Obama’s Race To The Top initiative, but more so because inner-city parents in the know want their kids to be in a safe school away from the felons that traditional public schools can’t terminate.

Comment by Paul Hoss — September 11, 2010 @ 11:52 am
Dr. Conant, President of Harvard, did a very involved study in the 1950s that came to this same conclusion. School facilities, text books, teacher degrees, had minimal impact on a child’s education, but the parental involvement was the key factor for student achievement.

Comment by Michael Burton — September 12, 2010 @ 12:35 pm
Mr. Pondiscio,

It’s obvious that parental involvement is The Answer because the more that parents take an interest in their children’s education either by helping them with homework, asking the teacher and school what curriculum they’re using, and other related matters, the kid is more likely to do well. Focusing on curriculum ignores the question of whether the curriculum is relevent to what the particular child should be learning and the aspirations that the parent has for their child.

If there isn’t a one-shot cure-all according to your stance, then how can you claim that an arbitrary curriculum sequence is an answer at all?

Comment by AB — September 13, 2010 @ 8:46 am
Paul Hoss,

Many charter schools are either run or staffed by felons.

Comment by AB — September 13, 2010 @ 8:47 am
I have never claimed an arbitrary sequence is the answer, or even an answer. Indeed, the point is that the vast majority of U.S. schools use an arbitrary sequence, if they have one at all. The point is NOT to have an arbitrary sequence, but a cumulative, coherent and cohesive sequence. Also, I’ve always found the “relevent (sic) to what the particular child should be learning” argument odd, frankly. Are children who should NOT, for example, learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide? Who should NOT learn the three branches of government and fundamentals of democracy? Who should NOT learn how weather works, the planets of our solar system, photosynthesis or other foundational concepts in science? I don’t think it can be seriously disputed that there is a body of knowledge, common to nearly all of us, that defines literacy and marks us as well or poorly educated.

Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 13, 2010 @ 9:30 am
[...] recent article on the Core Knowledge site lamented the lack of involvement by parents in their students’ education. Focusing on [...]

Pingback by Are Parents Holding Kids to Highest Expectations? | Arizona Education Network — September 13, 2010 @ 11:28 am
Mr. Pondiscio,

The curriculum you advocate is based on incoherent principles that don’t make any sense. Do all kids learn multiplication before addition? Do all kids learn about photosyntheses before pollination? Do all kids learn about the founding generation before Ancient Egypt? The Core Knowledge sequence is arbitrary because it says that all kids must learn these items in a particular sequence. None of these items can be moved to another grade level nor supplemented without violating the flow of the sequence. Do all kids even need the same time to spend on these items?

I’ve always found the argument odd that we need a national curriculum. What about the fact that many countries have national curriculums and still don’t score very high on tests? What about the fact that a mandatory curriculum will likely dumb down instruction?

Cultural information is constantly changing and a fact in one discipline(say the refraction of light in physics) isn’t likely to stay the same for very long with the exception of math and language. To define a core curriculum would be to deny everyone the tools they need to find information on their own. Do you seriously believe that a core curriculum can encompass all of the information out in the world without misinforming kids and leaving them intellectually stranded?

Comment by AB — September 13, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
<<< Do you seriously believe that a core curriculum can encompass all of the information out in the world without misinforming kids and leaving them intellectually stranded?

Do you seriously believe, by contrast, that the answer is to make no attempt to impart any body of knowledge? That children starting at age five will, guided by some innate sense of wonder, will discover of their own volition all they need to know?

Your example of language is instructive. Language changes constantly as new words enter the language and old usages become archaic. Pick up a dictionary from 50 or 75 years ago, however, and in the main it's still quite useful. A dictionary, in short, is a history book, not a rule book. The same applies to knowledge. Our understandings and interpretations of factual knowledge change with further study and understanding. But it simply does not follow from that than all attempts at imparting knowledge are therefore pointless.

The issue, again, is not whether any particular sequence or curriculum is better or worse, but whether there ought to be a sequence or curriculum at all. In our increasingly skills-driven conception of education, that answer tends to be "no." My answer, firmly, is "yes." Shared knowledge is the stuff that makes communication possible at all. The argument for a defined sequence by grade levels, or even a national curriculum, is also pragmatic. Given the extraordinary rates of student mobility, it makes all the sense in the world to have consistent curriculum across grade levels to reduce gaps and repetition.

Several of your comments are, with all due respect, just silly: it's a "fact" that a mandatory curriculum will dumb down instruction? It will "deny everyone the tools they need to find information on their own?" I'd be curious to know why you think so. Actually, on second thought, I'm not that curious. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. They are not, however, entitled to their own facts.

Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 13, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
“Our understandings and interpretations of factual knowledge change with further study and understanding”

You proved my point. We already have a shared body of knowledge. What we aren’t doing is imparting it effectively by putting books in kids hands and encouraging them to be self-sufficent in acquiring it.

Your assumption that education is viewed as “skills driven” in this country would ,in all due respect, be viewed as rather insulting by teachers who try every day to impart knowledge to students.

Do you seriously believe that having a national curriculum will solve all our problems? Or is it merely a wish to centralize education in the hands of self- appointed “experts” rather than parents and communities?

Comment by AB — September 13, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
Geez. AlexB is back.

Who are you and where do you get your information?

Seriously, you submit some of the most absurd arguments I’ve ever heard.

You’re that guy who, in the middle of a debate by two opposing sides, says something so off the wall that members of both sides of the argument are rendered speechless and can do nothing but wrinkle their eye-brows and continue their discussion as if the guy never said a word.

I’m heeding my father’s advice on this one.

Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 13, 2010 @ 1:35 pm
AB,

“Many charter schools are either run or staffed by felons?”

Oh? Can you cite references for this statement or is this simply another attention getting strategy?

Comment by Paul Hoss — September 13, 2010 @ 6:20 pm
In response to
AB> Cultural information is constantly changing and a fact in one discipline(say the refraction of light in physics) isn’t likely to stay the same for very long with the exception of math and language.

Do you know just how long the law of Refraction of light has held steady? Since 1621 to date. Look up Snell’s Law.

Comment by Sujata Krishna — September 14, 2010 @ 11:55 am
I would like to add to Mr. Hoss’s request that AB cite a reference for his assertion that charter schools are run by felons.

Can AB provide references or reliable literature for ANY of the statements he makes?

Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 14, 2010 @ 12:02 pm