http://www.nber.org/papers/w11909

Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Jeffrey R. Kling, Greg J. Duncan, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

NBER Working Paper No. 11909
Issued in January 2006
NBER Program(s): CH ED


---- Abstract -----

Families originally living in public housing were assigned housing vouchers by lottery, encouraging moves to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates. Although we had hypothesized that reading and math test scores would be higher among children in families offered vouchers (with larger effects among younger children), the results show no significant effects on test scores for any age group among over 5000 children ages 6 to 20 in 2002 who were assessed four to seven years after randomization. Program impacts on school environments were considerably smaller than impacts on neighborhoods, suggesting that achievement-related benefits from improved neighborhood environments are alone small.

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Unfortunately, the rest of the paper is pay-per-view... but this study brings up and interesting point. If improving the social climate children grow up in does not improve their academic achievement, then maybe it's more "nature" and less "nurture" when it comes to intelligence. Or maybe you can take the kid out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the kid.

I think nurture has a lot to do with it. If a kid's parents still don't have a highschool education, how can they expect to get help with their homework? They don't have the same amount of support as middle class kids with college educated parents. I would expect a more significant difference within a generation or so. And I would also think that completing school would be more significant than merely raising scores.

A. Test scores are useless. There is no correlation between test scores and a child's likelihood of doing well in future classes, graduating, attending college, or being in any way successful later in life. So who gives a shit about them?

B. The biggest correlative for success in school seems to be a nurturing home environment with learning and reading role models from ages 0-10.

C. There are a lot of studies stating what this one says...and a lot saying the opposite. Not enough pull in either direction to be certain.

I do not believe this is true. All tests carry an element of bias, but I think that IQ tests and other similar testing methodologies are good predictors of people future abilities. As flawed as it was, the old SAT was a decent predictor or success in college. We as a society openly recognize the effects genetics have on everything except intelligence, why is that? We accept our genes changed us from bacteria to humans. Are we really to believe that genes determine everything from caner resistance to bone density to propensity to addiction but play no role in intelligence?



I agree with this. There are no substitutes for good parenting.

This leads to an interesting question, can children older than 10 be "reformed" into good learners, or by then is it too late?

I've got no response to IQ testing. I'm looking specifically at the kinds of tests routinely used to evaluate ability and performance. For those, the issue is in no way related to recognizing the impact of genetics, and is completely about the inability of a test to effectively evaluate learning, perception, thinking skills, etc. Can these things be evaluated? Absolutely. Is there any evidence that the tests used in schools today are significantly effective? No.



Der. A child with fat parents is more likely to get fat as well, but obviously they can become fit adults. It's just not the norm.

My son, 12, switched this year from a school in a lower income neighbourhood, with nearly 40% falling in the English As A Second Language category. He now goes to a school in amiddle to upper class neighbourhood where there are about 5% English As A Second Language students.

He has noticed the difference in the schools. Teacher expectations are much higher now. School resources are greater now as it is the norm to donate to the PTA for things like field trips, computers, musical instruments, etc.... English As A Second Language students don't slow down the class as much . I would think this would be the normal experience.

Does this reflect in my son's test scores, no. He's still the same kid with the same intelligence. But do I think the chances of him and the average student finishing high school and going after additional education is higher at the new school, hell yes. Do I think there is less chance of him joining a gang, hell yes.

My son knows he's way better off at the school in the moe affluent neighbourhood. My son still likes his friends from his old school but is smart enough know that he is better off not having their issues affect his education.

Question: Who ever came up with the idea to put English As A Second Language students in a mainstream classroom? They should be drawn and quartered.

I've always wondered if you could call a darwinist racist if they believe one race is more intelligent or superior to another.

Facts is facts. The tests are flawed, but they're not random. Japan has consistently tested to an average IQ of between 105 and 110 based on the USA's 100 average. Some families are obviously more intelligent than others. The larger the sample group, the more likely it is to average out, but there can still exist differences between groups.

Looking at this I was wonder if anyone has ever done a study regarding busing. , meaning kids that were bused to schools in more affluent areas. To see if those kids did better in school and life in general than their peers that did not get bused.
Also I do believe that genetics plays a part in intelligence, but that does not mean the genes that are relevant to how smart you are, are the same genes that control superficial racial and sexual characteristics.
But also nurture plays apart not just rich and poor, but things like diet and exercise. Also social and cultural attitudes about education.

I think most of a kid's scholastic achievements will be directly related to the help, expectations and resources coming from the home. But going to a good school doesn't hurt either. Most of my son's friends take pride in doing okay in school. I can't think of a single one that is ignorant about the education level that will be required to be able to provide a decent income when they're older and/or have a job they really enjoy.

I went to public school for many years. My elementary school class was 38 kids--I live in a tiny town. The teachers were very hands on and I had 15-20 kids in my classroom each year throughout elementary school (very good numbers). I got to know the teachers very well, my parents became friendly and involved with the teachers and classes, etc. Also, having a small group of all white, middle/upper-middle class kids that became very close was probably condusive to learning. porbably 90% will go to college.

I went to public middle school, but it was a regional middle school. There were 600 kids in my grade, split up into 5 "teams" that took classes together. So basically each year I had 125 kids (that got mixed up different;y each year) that were potentially in my classes. Class sizes were in the 23-28 student range, with teachers that saw 125 kids a day, instead of 30. Much less parent interaction and less hands on time with teachers. There were svereal black and chinese kids, but in that 600, there were probably 15 minorities total. Socioeconomically, my town was the wealthiest in the region so going to the regional school we got more lower/lower-middle class kids, and there was less tax-dollars-per-student spent. I started smoking pot relatively frequently in 8th grade (as did MANY others) and wasn't too happy. I was in "advanced" classes but I had no trouble getting As and Bs with almost no effort. It was a much more depressing learning enviornment. probably 60-70% will go to college.

Now, for high school, I got to a, secular, somewhat prestigious private school. Classes are harder, and I learn far more. Having a class full of upper-middle/upper class kids with sucessful parents, most of whom want to learn and most of whom will no doubt be very succesful later in life is very condusive to learning. Interestingly, there are more minorities in this school than any other prior school. My class sizes are in the 10-15 range mostly, with a few large classes having 17-18 kids. Teachers are always available for extra help, and I have become friends with some teachers, moreso than any other time in my life. I stopped doing any drugs in 9th grade (mostly because no one else was) and now in 11th grade I only do them ocasionally, and not because I am unhappy, more just for fun. For as long as I have been there, 100% of the seniors each year have gone to college.

I haven't a doubt in my mind that going to private school will give me many advantages in life and in applying to college. I think that the distorted world view I've gotten in high school is mostly offset by the experiences in middle school, but I know my experiences in high school aren't "average". I think the social climate of the school is of the utmost importance.

I went through the reverse, I was bused into a predominantly black (80%) school in a "magnet" program. Basically they convinced middle class parents to send their kids to a urban, underfunded school by moving a bunch of good teachers and creating a stratified school. There were remdial classes, average class, honors classes, and "magnet" classes.

The school's average test scores certainly improved with the magnet program, but it was very clear while walking the halls, that there was no "unity". It really was a seperate school in the same buildings.

Yes there have, and the upshot was that kids who were bused tended to perform even worse, than before. And as it also turned out, the Court was unable to prevent "white flight", and public shcools got blacker and blacker in city areas, meaning, unfortunately also, poorer and poorer. That meant, those schools started doing worse too.

As much as I think the Supreme Court is the most honest and decent arm of government, they really, really fucked up most of the schools cases after Brown.

Why don't tests work again?

They disprove certain dogma about equality and the success of wealth redistribution. Anything that disproves the Standard Social Science Model is heresy.

http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/papers/rid ... node1.html

Depends what you're testing.

If you are using standardized "achievment" tests to test how much a child has learned, then they work pretty well. If you use such tests as indicators of ability to learn, they are not good indicators at all. Culturally disadvantaged kids will do poorly on such exams because they haven't learned enough, not because they are incapable of learning (unintelligent).

There are actually two key errors for standardized tests. One is that tests are used as the primary method of determining school success even though they show no correlative tendencies with student ability to apply, perform, create, or think. Just remember. Hopefully we expect schools to do more than teach kids to remember isolated facts.

The other error is that most tests are multiple choice based, creating a 12-15% measurement error on a day-to-day basis (in other words, a child who scores 90% today could take the exact same test in two days time and score a 75%...that's a big gap), and other studies show that social background creates an additional 20% variance, even among students who attend the same classes in the same schools. This would suggest that the success being measured isn't really the schools at all.

And I know I say this time and again, but to me the major issue is that a child who scores in the 90% percentile on a standardized test is literally 0% more likely to graduate, or attend college, than a child in their same social class who scores 60%. To me, that makes the entire test useless.

In your first paragraph, I disagree that tests do not show the ability to think. Create and perform, absolutely not, and I don't see how they could be intended to do those things. But tests like the english SAT definitely require thought. If you are talking about the standardized state tests like the TAAS or TASP in Texas, then I can understand, because those tests are unbelievably basic and easy.

I agree on multiple choice tests. They are horrible indicators of anything. One of the reasons I got through high school was because of multiple choice tests, and my ability to reason out answers with absolutely no knowledge on the subject. It is also much easier to grade multiple choice tests, you can do an entire class in a matter of minutes, were as fill in the blank could take hours. Plus, if all tests in a high school were made to be fill in the blank, I think average grades would drop significantly. Multiple choice favors people who do not know the information, and gives no advantage to those who actually do.

I'm not sure where you got your 90% 0% 60% numbers in your 3rd paragraph, but they don't sound very accurate to me. Just because someone scores very high does not mean they are going to college, obviously. But I don't know that there could be absolutely no correlation.