Boosting the Achievement of Low-Income Students

In this thoughtful article in American Educator, author Richard Kahlenberg cites research evidence that when less-advantaged students go to schools that are economically mixed – those with fewer than 40 percent low-SES students – they do better than they would in racially integrated schools and high-performing inner-city schools. He points to Montgomery County, Maryland and 80 other districts around the country as evidence that social-class integration is the most effective strategy for narrowing America’s achievement gap. Kahlenberg mentions that Finland, whose schools are in the top tier of academic achievement worldwide, has the lowest degree of socioeconomic segregation of all 57 countries in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study. 

Within Kahlenberg’s article is a provocative sidebar on the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools in which he argues that these remarkably successful inner-city schools prove his point about the critical importance of class integration.

Kahlenberg’s piece is more about policy than the usual Memo fare, but it’s an important big-picture look at promising practices that you may want to read in full.

“From All Walks of Life: New Hope for School Integration” by Richard Kahlenberg in American Educator, Winter 2012-13 (Vol. 36, #4, p. 2-14, 40),

http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter1213/Kahlenberg.pdf 

From the Marshall Memo #466