Is socioeconomic status the principal driver of classroom achievement?

From the Home News Tribune:

Key to school success: It’s the economy, stupid!

The latest state report card on the performance of New Jersey students highlights once again that socioeconomic status is the principal driver of classroom achievement. That conclusion isn’t a revelation. It has long been understood that poverty and all of its hardships weaken the ability to learn. Knowing as much, however, is it not time for the state to view its educational policies a bit differently? Is it not time to acknowledge that at least some of the billions of dollars it spends on public education could be better invested in attacking the core of the problem, that of growing its economy, of creating new and better jobs, of improving the financial status of families themselves?

The correlation between the economic security of households and the educational achievement of their children is too clear and too direct to be ignored. In short, the biggest issue isn’t that Johnny can’t read, but why Johnny can’t read. In too many cases, it is because his parents are so poor, so caught up in earning the bare minimum just to stay afloat, that there’s no time left to help him learn the skills required for academic success — and that is assuming those parents possess those skills themselves.

No matter how wonderful a school or its educators may be, teachers can’t do the job on their own, nor should they be expected to. Ultimately, strong education is up to parents. And parents are better educators when they are economically self-sufficient and able to spend more time at home.

Take the area of multilingualism as just one example. The state Department of Education data shows that in schools where numerous languages are spoken, the language factor ceases to be much of a barrier to learning after the early grades in districts where the median income is high. But the opposite is true in districts where the median income is low. As many as 48 different languages are spoken in some grades in the East Brunswick schools, yet the system still produces some of the highest test scores in the state. Other districts with as great a language diversity, but where family income is low, can’t compete.

New Jersey has devoted a massive share of its educational dollars in recent years to per-pupil spending in its poorest school districts, known as the Abbotts, with dismal results. No one is saying that the New Brunswicks or the Asbury Parks of the state are not owed the extra help. But what of proportion? Do they need so much help that spending in those districts outstrips suburban districts by as much as $10,000 per student in certain cases? Judging from the results, the answer is no.

A better use for some of those dollars includes investment in targeted programs to grow industries and jobs, which in turn feed families. And to be fed and clothed and secure is to be free — free to tend to one’s children. Only then can the cycle of low academic achievement be reversed.