It is a question that affixes itself to countless debates in education: To what extent do poverty, instability at home, and other socioeconomic factors undermine the ability of students and schools to prosper academically?
Now, a new study attempts to quantify the advantages and disadvantages students face outside of school鈥攄efined as 鈥渢eachability"鈥攁nd to evaluate how successful states are in helping them learn, despite those hurdles.
is available online from the .
鈥淭he Teachability Index: Can Disadvantaged Students Learn?,鈥� released by the Manhattan Institute last week, concludes that students are somewhat easier to teach, given socioeconomic factors, than they were 30 years ago.
The report shows that 鈥渟tudent disadvantages are not destiny,鈥� its authors say. 鈥淪ome schools do much better than others at educating students with low levels of teachability.鈥�
Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the institute, who co-wrote the report with his colleague Greg Forster, said the findings point to a 鈥渇alse sense of nostalgia鈥� that pervades discussions about schools, in which the public imagines a past with fewer out-of-school distractions, when students were easier to teach.
鈥楾eachability鈥� Index
The report bases its teachability index on 16 factors that affect students鈥� ability to learn, and tracks them from 1970 to 2001. Those factors include preschool enrollment, the proportion of non-English-speaking students, levels of parents鈥� education, family poverty, and health measures. It also includes race, the authors note, because research shows minority students face particular disadvantages, such as potential discrimination. The researchers relied on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Education, and other existing sources.
The authors then ranked each state on what they determined to be the teachability of its students. North Dakota ranks at the top, followed by Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and South Dakota. The District of Columbia ranks lowest, with New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana also near the bottom.
The study then couples the teachability index with an analysis of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress to establish a 鈥渟chool performance index,鈥� or a ranking of how well states are teaching students, given socioeconomic disadvantages. Montana ranks first as gauged by that measure, followed by Colorado, Kansas, Texas, and North Carolina. The District of Columbia is rated at the bottom, with Hawaii, Mississippi, Alabama, and California also ranking low on the index.
Mr. Greene, who heads the Manhattan Institute鈥檚 Davie, Fla.-based education research office, said states with the strongest performance rankings tended to have strong systems of testing and accountability and allow for school choice, through charter schools and other options. In previous research, Mr. Greene has argued that school choice benefits disadvantaged students and raises performance among regular public schools that face new competition.
But Larry Mishel, the president of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, said he doubted the findings of the new study. He questioned the conclusion that student 鈥渢eachability,鈥� or the ability to learn given their circumstances, remained mostly stagnant during the 1970s and 鈥�80s, then leaped upward during the 1990s. The Manhattan Institute attributes that trend partly to more favorable economic conditions, student academic readiness, and family environments.
鈥淒oes anyone really think that something changed dramatically during the 1990s?鈥� said Mr. Mishel, whose organization studies economic policy and its effect on low- and middle-income workers. Teachability is 鈥渟omething that should be studied,鈥� he added, 鈥渂ut I don鈥檛 think [they鈥檝e] done the job.鈥�
