Saturday 7 April 2012

Education outcomes and family

In Family matters for education outcomes – and we have to accept and celebrate this Stephen King has a look at The Australian's headline story on wealth being the key to the success of schools:
The story is behind a paywall. But it notes something that anyone involved in the education system knows: Family background (including parental education), family income (probably because it is correlated with parental education) and family attitude matter a lot for the educational outcomes of children. Children are not equal before they arrive at their first day of school. Children from families that value education cluster in selective government schools and the more expensive private schools. And they are more successful at school.

Unfortunately the accompanying story – The evidence is in, not all children are equal – does not address this difference but focuses on money.

He argues that:
Undoubtedly, funding for students is part of the answer. But if family background and attitudes are a source of difference in education outcomes, throwing money at schools cannot be the whole solution. And the approach of focussing just on school funding can lead to attempts to bring the high achievers ‘back to the pack’.

So – a simple prediction. Even if ‘all schooling were equal’, so that children from families that value education highly and children from families that value education less highly, received identical schooling, my prediction is that the children from families that value education would still outperform the others in terms of education achievement.

No comments:

Post a Comment