The Left thinks poor kids can't learn

Marilyn Payne teaches reading to kindergarteners at Clarksdale Collegiate Charter School.

"Progressives" seem hostile to the idea that schools can teach low-income students, writes Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Once moderate Democrats like Barack Obama backed reforms they hoped would improve achievement and provide upward mobility. Now, critics from the left "tend to dismiss any plan to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students." They "support public schools as community centers and providers of child care and secure middle-class jobs," but not as places to educate children.

Mississippi implemented "a set of educational reforms including teacher training, testing, retention (i.e., whether kids move forward or are held back), and a mostly phonics-based reading instruction," and moved from 49th in the nation to the top 20 in a 10-year-period, Chait writes. "Adjusted for race and income, Mississippi now does a far better job of teaching literacy than do many northern states seen as leaders in public education."

But left-wing critics of education reform aren't cheering. They're circulating the message that it's all a hoax, citing a new paper by Howard Wainer, Irina Grabovsky, and Daniel H. Robinson.

Many liberal minds have come to see as an eternal truth about education reform: It does not and cannot work.

The paper claims Mississippi is raising its test scores by holding back underperforming third graders," writes Chait. "But as the moderate-liberal education-reform advocates Karen Vaites and Kelsey Piper note, Mississippi’s test scores have risen steadily over the past decade, yet the average age of students taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the state has held stable in recent years, and the share of students held back has actually declined." They also note that students improved in every group, from high achievers to low achievers. And the lowest-performing students are still in Mississippi schools taking tests.

"This is not a story that poses a threat to leftist ideals," they conclude. "The fact that through sustained investment in high standards for public schools, we can better equip our poorest and most disadvantaged students with the life skills they need the most is great news."  

In an aside, the paper claims Mississippi’s fourth and eighth graders rank last in math, Chait writes. This is false. The state’s fourth-grade math scores rank 16th nationally, its eighth-grade math scores rank 35th. Adjusted for demographics, Mississippi students are first in the nation in math.

"That such a flawed paper would have such a rapturous reaction on the left indicates just how eager progressives are to debunk any apparent success in education reform," he writes.

Many "cities, states, and school systems that have developed effective and scalable ways to shrink education gaps," Chait writes. "Urban public-charter schools regularly outperform traditional public schools. Testing and accountability measures supported by both parties beginning with 2001’s No Child Left Behind Act produced slow but steady national gains until the pandemic’s disruptions in 2020."

But these reforms generate political resistance from teachers' unions, which hate accountability, and affluent parents, who don't like testing. So many Democrats have given up on reform.

Teaching reading effectively in the early grades produces quick results, writes Natalie Wexler. "As the grade levels go up, and the texts and curriculum increasingly assume knowledge and skills that students don’t have, it becomes much harder to bring about significant improvements." But not impossible. "Schools that align their instruction with principles of cognitive science can see huge gains, even at higher grade levels."