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The apparent inference here? Either poverty itself really isn't that important a factor in determining student success rates on state assessments, or, alternatively, free and reduced lunch simply isn't a very good measure of poverty even if poverty is a good predictor. Either way, something's clearly amiss if we have so many higher poverty schools outperforming lower poverty ones. In fact, the only dots included in the graph are high poverty districts outperforming lower poverty ones. There can't be much of a pattern between these two variables at all, can there? If anything, the trendline must be sloped up hill? (that is, higher poverty leads to higher outcomes!)

Fall 2011 Issue of PATHWAYS A magazine on poverty, inequality, and social policy Trends in poverty and inequality: Periodic reports on key poverty and inequality indicators Cutting-edge research: Concise summaries of research that is changing how we understand the sources and consequences of poverty and inequality Bold new visions: Must-read discussions of how labor market, poverty, and inequality policy might be rethought and changed Debates: Leading scholars and policymakers weigh in on the crucial poverty and inequality questions of our time

America does not have a general education crisis; we have a poverty crisis. Results of an international student assessment indicate that U.S. schools with fewer than 25 percent of their students living in poverty rank first in the world among advanced industrial countries. But when you add in the scores of students from schools with high poverty rates, the United States sinks to the middle of the pack. At nearly 22 percent and rising, the child-poverty rate in the United States is the highest among wealthy nations in the world. (Poverty rates in Denmark and in Finland, which is justifiably celebrated as a top global performer on the Program for International Student Assessment exams, are below 5 percent). In New York City, the child-poverty rate climbed to 30 percent in 2010.

There is some controversy over the fact that Florida's recently-announced value-added model (one of a class often called "covariate adjustment models"), which will be used to determine merit pay bonuses and other high-stakes decisions, doesn't include a direct measure of poverty. Personally, I support adding a direct income proxy to these models, if for no other reason than to avoid this type of debate (and to facilitate the disaggregation of results for instructional purposes). It does bear pointing out, however, that the measure that's almost always used as a proxy for income/poverty - students' eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch - is terrible as a poverty (or income) gauge. It tells you only whether a student's family has earnings below (or above) a given threshold (usually 185 percent of the poverty line), and this masks most of the variation among both eligible and non-eligible students. For example, families with incomes of $5,000 and $20,000 might both be coded as eligible, while families earning $40,000 and $400,000 are both coded as not eligible. A lot of hugely important information gets ignored this way, especially when the vast majority of students are (or are not) eligible, as is the case in many schools and districts. That said, it's not quite accurate to assert that Florida and similar models "don't control for poverty." The model may not include a direct income measure, but it does control for prior achievement (a student's test score in the previous year[s]). And a student's test score is probably a better proxy for income than whether or not they're eligible for free/reduced-price lunch.

Amid the debates about our public schools and the need for education reform, the impact of poverty on student learning outcomes seems to be missing. Research has established a clear link between poverty and student performance. Yet many critics of public schools deride the poverty-achievement link as an excuse for poor teaching. What do the data show about the relationship between student poverty levels and schools' performance?

As someone who escaped extreme poverty through education, I would be the first to object to any suggestion that poverty is intractable. But I would also BE the first to object to any suggestion that it does not matter. And neither Ripley nor Ravitch appears to be that extreme. In fact, on the surface, they seem to be in complete agreement: Poverty matters but the purpose of education is to help overcome poverty.

A penchant among far too many education writers who embrace the Poverty Myth of Education is to oversimplify the debate over the role of education in stemming the long-term effects of poverty. First, they argue that school reformers proclaim that education is the sole solution for economic development in poor communities - even though no one ever says this. Then they argue that education can't possibly be either the long-term or short-term solution for poverty - and find some flimsy data or examples to back it up.

"It is all the rage among the pseudo-reformers to dismiss the importance of poverty. Although most of the pseudo-reformers grew up in affluence, attended elite private school, and send their own children to equally splendid private schools, they feel certain in their hearts that poverty is a state of mind that can be easily overcome. All it takes is one great teacher. Or three effective teachers in a row. Or lots of grit. Or a no-excuses school where children dress for success, follow rules without questioning, and act like little test-taking machines. One by one, the pseudo-reformers insist, they will end poverty."

Regardless of political partisanship, the ruling and corporate elite share a notebook of narratives that simultaneously recognizes poverty by ignoring it. In the contorted logic of political and corporate discourse, poverty is both a primary correlation with social and educational problems needing reform and a fact of existence those in privilege are not allowing those living in poverty to use as an excuse.

Some school reformers are fond of saying that "great teaching" can overcome the effects of living poverty on children, and that those people (me included) who insist that poverty matters are only supporting the status quo. The critics of school reform that I know are hardly happy with the status quo, nor do they believe that poverty must be eliminated for public schools to be improved.

There is much handwringing about low educational attainment in the United States these days. We hear constantly about U.S. rankings on assessments like the international PISA tests: The United States was 14th in reading, 21st in science, 25th in math in 2009, for example. We hear about how young children in high-poverty areas are entering kindergarten unprepared and far behind many of their classmates. Middle school students from low-income families are scoring, on average, far below the proficient levels that would enable them to graduate high school, go to college, and get good jobs. Fewer than half of high school students manage to graduate from some urban schools. And too many poor and minority students who do go on to college require substantial remediation and drop out before gaining a degree. There is another story we rarely hear: Our children who attend schools in low-poverty contexts are doing quite well. In fact, U.S. students in schools in which less than 10 percent of children live in poverty score first in the world in reading, out-performing even the famously excellent Finns.

If many so-called education reformers really want to close the student achievement gap, they should direct their fire away from public school educators and take aim at the real issue-poverty. This was the consensus of a panel of policy advocates and academics that convened recently on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. to discuss the impact of poverty on student learning over the past 40 years. The panelists presented data that showed the current state of student achievement and discussed what changes needed to be made to address the needs of students and schools in low socio-economic areas.

One of the central claims of the corporate-reform movement is that poverty is not destiny and that a school staffed with great teachers can eliminate poverty. This is a very appealing sort of rhetoric because we all harbor the hope that every single person can overcome the obstacles of poverty to achieve success in school and in life.

"NJ Spotlight today posted a story on upcoming Task Force deliberations and public hearings over whether the state should continue to target funding in its school finance formula to local districts on the basis of counts of children qualifying for free or reduced priced lunch.  That is, kids from families who fall below the 185% income threshold for poverty. The basic assumption behind targeting additional resources to higher poverty schools and districts is that high need districts can leverage the additional resources to implement strategies that help to improve various outcomes for children at risk. "

Although much has been written about the importance of leadership in the determination of organizational success, there is little quantitative evidence due to the difficulty of separating the impact of leaders from other organizational components - particularly in the public sector. Schools provide an especially rich environment for studying the impact of public sector management, not only because of the hypothesized importance of leadership but also because of the plentiful achievement data that provide information on institutional outcomes. Outcome-based estimates of principal value-added to student achievement reveal significant variation in principal quality that appears to be larger for high-poverty schools. Alternate lower-bound estimates based on direct estimation of the variance yield smaller estimates of the variation in principal productivity but ones that are still important, particularly for high poverty schools. Patterns of teacher exits by principal quality validate the notion that a primary channel for principal influence is the management of the teacher force. Finally, looking at principal transitions by quality reveals little systematic evidence that more effective leaders have a higher probability of exiting high poverty schools.

"I recently described a new study finding that public programs keep tens of millions of Americans out of poverty. The same study illustrates that after policymakers weakened certain elements of the safety net, deep poverty - that is, the share of the population with incomes below half the poverty line - rose sharply."

Now that I have suggested shifting the discourse about poverty and education away from the chick-and-egg problem to the role of sustaining and tolerating poverty for the benefit of the ruing elite, let's look at the central role testing plays in maintaining the status quo of power in the U.S. And let's build that consideration on a couple pillars of evidence.

Jim Taylor has entered the poverty and education debate by asking U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and billionaire/education entrepreneur Bill Gates a direct question: "I really don't understand you two, the U.S. Secretary of Education and the world's second richest man and noted philanthropist. How can you possibly say that public education can be reformed without eliminating poverty?" Taylor's discussion comes to an important element in the debate when he addresses Gates: "Because without understanding the causes of problems, we can't find solutions," explains Taylor, adding. "You're obviously trying to solve public education's version of the classic 'chicken or egg' conundrum."

The latest numbers on poverty among U.S. children are so striking that they make you do a double take. In 2009, 31 million kids were living in families with incomes below twice the federal poverty threshold.

The idea behind a poverty rate is that we set an income line below which people's resources are deemed insufficient for a minimally decent standard of living. The poverty rate is the share of people in households with income below that line. Because it's a binary measure, it's a crude one.