Do you know if anyone has worked on how equality of access would be measured? This is a real question, I’m not just asking it for sake of argument. I’m really curious to learn more about how some of the difficulties might be resolved. Take one of the typical complaints, schools in neighborhoods where parents have low average incomes seem to have higher rates of teacher turnover. Hence those schools have less experienced teachers on average which could effect the quality of education. So one might think that measuring the experience of teachers would be one element of equality of access. I’m sure there are other aspects of teachers that are important not to mention all the other aspects of a quality education. In practical terms I’d guess there will always be some inequality of access to education because there are only so many best teachers who can only teach so many students. But I’m wondering how we can measure it so that we could ensure that it is basically random in a mathematical sense.

I don’t want to disappoint you, but I think that this may result in some diminished social stratification (and increased social cohesion). I’m not sure why you want to hang on to that (it seems like one of those things we fought the Revolution to get away from). But I would be interested in how you would evaluate either ACCESS, or maximum potential.

You’re darned right if that means leveling the playing field by bringing down the high-achievers. I’m not concerned about equality of OUTCOME (what the social justice folks seem to place their priority on) but rather equality of ACCESS. I want every child to have an education that will enable him or her to reach his or her own maximum potential. But that’s a very different goal than wanting education to eliminate socioeconomic stratification in our society.

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear…

So you’re thinking that increased and sustained intervention is the approach public education should take?

This is really only one factor of many. Uneven distribution of school resources certainly plays in, low expectations in the schools, differences in social capital. Point is–it is possible to impact interactions between parents and kids–and some have.

I am not terribly convinced that we–as a society–are very interested in moving in a direction that would provide more equitable access to education (or anything else). We are very individualistic in our outlook. The downside of this is that those who have more are able to ensure that their kids have more. Those that have less pass this on as well. There are countries that have enacted policies to interrupt this kind of stratification. Public opinion frequently casts these policies as “freebies” that interfere with individual initiative. So–we have what we have.

Maybe it’s not difficult, but it’s light years away from where these families are or they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

Because in 2nd grade, the “average” kid who lacks conversational support at home is going to be able to go to the library by himself d learn about places and subjects he’s never heard of? You really think reading yourself picture books is going to open up the world?

:iterature like Charlotte’s Web, or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Swiss Family Robinson, The Hobbit, etc. isn’t accessible to a 2nd grader on his own, but is when Mom or Dad is reading it to him at night. The world keeps getting larger for these kids’ peers, increasing their experiences, their vocabulary, their sophistication in the world, while these children are now stuck in a 2nd grade world. They only far farther and farther behind without that determined level of intervention. AND if you give that same level of intervention to the Hobbit reader, they will fly ahead even more.

The Hart and Risley study that Barbash refers to was a very small study (a total of 6 welfare families were observed and a total of only 42 families overall). What there were observing was not the number of words that were known, but the amount of verbal interaction. There were differences, and they did make recommendations. The recommendations are not difficult to act on, mostly they have to do with developing a consciousness about asking questions and interacting with a child.

Regarding the amount of money/resources in low income neighborhoods–not sure what your point is, but any time you want to come show me what I’ve been missing in the mostly low SES neighborhood that I live in, just let me know.