Blame poverty, not racism, for achievement gap in schools

There was a great opinon piece in the Register on Saturday that explains the situation in our schools and achievement gaps.

The "minority achievement gap" is, in reality, a poverty gap. One education expert calls the link between poverty and student learning "every bit as strong as the connection between cigarettes and cancer." Another study found that the cognitive scores of children in poverty are 60 percent lower than the highest socio-economic groups before they enter kindergarten.

Here in Marshalltown, in one Kindergarten classroom at one of the more affluent schools 17 out of 25 students tested at grade level in September. At the school I worked in, where many students live in poverty, out of the three Kindergarten classrooms just 4 out of 75 students tested were at grade level in September. These tests were given after just 1 month in school and clearly show difference a child's home environment.

The article also discusses the use of our tax dollars and show how we are choosing to invest in our future here in Iowa.

In 2004, Iowa was the only state in the nation to cut taxes by more than 1 percent of state revenues, (cuts that primarily benefited Iowa's wealthiest individuals), while 93,000 Iowa children (13.4 percent) lived in poverty and another 21 percent lived in low-income households. How many additional teachers of English language learners could that lost revenue have provided? What could that money have done for children in poverty at a time when service providers are experiencing budget cuts?

We'll never know.