Poverty, Attitude, and Complexity

Earlier I commented on two reports, both of which indicated an effect of poverty on academic success with one stating that "the strongest predictor of academic underperformance is poverty." Because I had just read the same day William Raspberry's Attitude Gap, I wondered about a possible connection between poverty and attitude. Raspberry wrote:

Speaking frankly and helpfully about the academic achievement gap between black and white students is a lot harder than it ought to be.

It is particularly hard if it is true -- as I believe -- that the gap has less and less to do with racism and more and more to do with the habits and attitudes we inculcate among our children.

Raspberry wasn't referring to poverty but to racism, saying that although racism still plays a role, attitude and habits were more important. That comment led me to wonder briefly how poverty might be "linked to attitude."

A response:
However, Stephen Downes, whose posts I appreciate and respect quite a bit, fired a shot across my bow:

In case we forgot, "the strongest predictor of academic underperformance is poverty." Whe the reminder? Because the denial is so strong. As in this post, where the very next line is "I wonder how poverty is linked to attitude" and where the author then quotes William Raspberry saying "the gap has less and less to do with racism and more and more to do with the habits and attitudes we inculcate among our children." Except that it doesn't. This sort of attitude suggests that poor children would learn better if only their parents were better parents. But if this were the case, then parenting - and not poverty - would be the strongest indicator of academic underperformance. In the same way, the improvement of children in military families is far more likly to have to do with the regular paycheque, not the military discipline (which doesn't even apply to the kids). Why the denial? Because it allows people to rationalize leaving children in poverty?

I almost stopped dead in water. I wasn't quite sure how Stephen jumped from "linked" to blaming parents and "denial." Setting up either-or fallacies of parenting vs. poverty and denial vs. acceptance dichotomies did not do justice to the complexity of interactions between poverty, families, communities, schools, attitudes, and academic success.

Theoretical possibilities:
Quite a few theories would support the notion that poverty would interact with attitude. From Bandura's self-efficacy perspective, people who believe they have control over their circumstances are more motivated to take action. It seems likely that a pervasive poverty could affect one's attitude negatively, lower one's sense of self-efficacy, and thus, also, one's academic achievement. (Also compare self-determination theory and "learned helplessness".) Or from a different perspective, could cultural attitudes, such as the "acting white" phenomenon posited by Fordham and Ogdu, intertwine with the effects of poverty?

Complex vs. simple analysis:
It would seem odd to suggest that wealth, or poverty, doesn't influence (not determine) one's attitude towards life and a variety of other factors. Focusing on "the strongest predictor" as if there were no other factors treats academic achievement as a linear, money input, success output model. If that were the case, we would have a linear graph mapping economic status to academic output: A's would go to the super rich, C's to the middle class, and F's to the super poor--without exceptions. Obviously, that's not the case. In attempting to help all students achieve academically, we have to consider education (and academic success) as embedded in nested and interacting levels of different ecologies. Stephen himself, commenting on a post by Miguel Guhlin on Data Analysis (which happens to include attitude), suggests tongue-in-cheek that many factors interact in affecting learning:

Be sure to have a look at the 'multiple measures of data' graphic in this post. It is a four-circle Venn Diagram identifying four corresponding measurement metrics and how they interact. Of course, once you admit these dimensions of measurement, what is to argue against a variety of other measurements - nutrition intake, for example, local crime rate, perhaps, or per-student computer budget - into the same sort of calculation. Of course, if you do that, then you have made a mash of the idea that you can nicely and neatly measure school achievement - and you can't have that, can you?

Povety's intertangling with other factors:
But let me back up a little. The quotation about poverty being the number one predictor of academic underperformance was in reference to English language (EL) learners in the California report, which also noted the low literacy skills even in the EL learners' native language:

Principals from participating schools frequently pointed out that, even apart from their EL status, the majority of their high-poverty EL population has low literacy in their home language as well. As one remarked, “What we now understand is that the kids really do not have the language to address much of the curriculum. [They] are not coming to us with the pre-knowledge that they need.” Another principal pointed out that “the awareness that some ELs are also English-only speakers is critical – they don’t have literacy in their home language either.” (IV-36)

It seems more than likely that their parents also have low literacy skills, and socioeconomic status has been linked to vocabulary, a relationship that also affects native English speakers (see Ten Hypotheses about Socioeconomic Gradients and Community Differences in Children's Developmental Outcomes). And, of course, Shirley Brice Heath's Ways with Words showed how cultural similarities/differences between school and home explained how children succeeded in school or didn't.

Statistical averages vs. interesting anomalies:
However, these points refer to statistical averages for groups. Poverty cannot predict for a specific student. Otherwise, no poor person would become academically successful, and that's obviously not true. Poverty can influence academic achievement, but it cannot determine it. Consequently, studies that report findings that are not average are more interesting. Consider this study by Jewel Evans Hairston on "How Parents Influence African American Students' Decisions to Prepare for Vocational Teaching Careers" in the Journal of Career and Technical Education. Hairston stated:

In summary, all parental influences derived from this study have implications for vocational education. These influences, which include parents serving as role models of altruism, parental support for career goal achievement, high grade expectations, introductions to the positive aspects of teaching and vocational subject matter, parents involving children in hands-on learning experiences, and the creation of environments that nurture the discovery of vocational content are all important in creating interest in vocational education and vocational teaching. Each factor serves as a necessary element that creates excitement in vocational subject matter and incites desires to be a part of vocational teaching.

Once again we see that (1) positive attitude from parents is important and that (2) each factor is important. The California report also looked at schools with achieving students in high-poverty areas, finding that vision and attitude were important:

“We need to prepare our children to go out and compete with everyone else,” states Hobart Elementary Principal Mercedes Santoyo-Villavazo when questioned about her school’s transition from a bilingual to an SEI model post-Proposition 227. With 81 percent of the student population designated as English learners, Santoyo-Villavazo felt it was a major problem “that the children were spending way too much time in primary language reading and writing and were not transferring the skills into English.” This emphasis on English language development, along with high expectations, extra time, and data-driven instruction, has earned Hobart Elementary recognition as a school with high achievement despite a near 100 percent poverty level.. [bold mine]

According to leadership, high expectations and hard work drive student achievement. While some feel that society at large has watered-down expectations for low-income urban schools, this attitude is not tolerated at Hobart. “Our children might be poor,” states Principal Santoyo-Villavazo, “but they’re not brain dead. They have just as much brainpower as anyone else, and they can do it. They will achieve and they will meet our expectations.” (IV-47)

This vision and attitude of high expectations were held by school staff, which brings us back to interactive effects. When all--students, parents, schools, and communities--hold the attitude that academic success is expected, then, for the most part, it apparently will follow.

Teacher quality:
One can imagine that attitude interacts with teacher quality. Claire Campbell writes about a recent report that finds,

The Illinois research also demonstrates the clear link between teacher quality and student achievement. In the highest-poverty high schools with high teacher-quality indices, twice as many students met state standards as did students in other similarly high-poverty high schools with low teacher-quality indices. ...

“Rather, we take the children who come to us with less and give them less in school, too--including less of the very resource they need the most: high-quality teachers," Haycock said.

These results are related to poverty in that schools with more money can attract more than their share of quality teachers and administrators. The report recommends distributing teachers more equitably through schools.

Measuring attitude:
Back to the 227 Report: Although attitude was mentioned with respect to staff, it did not seem to be measured. It would be interesting to see how attitude compares with poverty (or teacher quality) as a predictor. If attitude were a better predictor, that result wouldn't let poverty off the hook. Again, factors do not act in isolation but in interaction with one another. However, while poverty is outside of a school's control, attitude and vision are not.

Teacher attitude:
As one who teaches first-year composition to ESL students, I'm constantly reminded of the importance of attitude, including my own. Many of my students work full time and have families, and they have first-hand experience in the frustration of learning to write in a second language, facing one "error" after another. Attitudes of mistakes as a normal part of learning, attitudes of respect, and a vision of high expectations help motivate students to keep learning more than an attitude of "Why can't you get this right?" and "Don't bother me, I'm busy."

Ideology vs. common sense:
I doubt that Stephen would disagree with that. Instead, he knows that people are often ruled by ideology instead of common sense (see Emotion Overrules Reason). Diano Schemo (It takes more than schools to close achievement gap, NY Times) writes:

In 1966, Prof. James S. Coleman published a Congressionally mandated study on why schoolchildren in minority neighborhoods performed at far lower levels than children in white areas.

To the surprise of many, his landmark study concluded that although the quality of schools in minority neighborhoods mattered, the main cause of the achievement gap was in the backgrounds and resources of families.

For years, education researchers have argued over his findings. Conservatives used them to say that the quality of schools did not matter, so why bother offering more than the bare necessities? Others, including some educators, used them essentially to write off children who were harder to educate.

Knowing that ideologues easily find excuses to justify their own agendas can make it difficult at times to allow for complexity. Raspberry commented on that point:

Does giving voice to this message amount to "giving racists a stick to beat us with"? It's an interesting question. Here's a better one: How do we best use our intellectual, political and moral capital -- priming our children for success, or merely supplying them with excuses for failure?

The complexity of the interactions between poverty and other factors requires a systemic approach to dealing with them. Neither should we excuse ourselves from attending to poverty's effects on learning and life, nor should we turn away from considering other factors that may interact with poverty, exacerbating the problem. Thus, in "priming our children for success," shouldn't we consider attitude?