Income and attainment are linked, why?

[Arkadia]

This article is just out:

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Closing disadvantage gap will take 'over a century' - www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44927942

Nothing new really, but I often wonder, why is attainment linked to income and not to parental involvement or school choice? I remember seeing a documentary on the BBC where it was stated, but not explained, that parental involvement does not matter, only income is a good predictor of how well you will fare at school. There was also a ted talk on the matter I seem to remember...
Anyway, my question is, why is income deemed SO key? Why are kids from rich but totally uninvolved parents in theory more likely to do well than kids from poor, but involved parents? One could say that it is the school because the rich parent tend to send their offspring to schools where parents are generally involved and in so doing they benefit from some kind of herd effect. But if that is the case, what matters is still the parent, and the school while the money is simply a side issue.
I am not talking about children from addicts parents or in the foster system and such like, but normal NOT well off families. Why should they be at such a disadvantage?

The statistics on outcomes for pp children say quite clearly that they do not get good grades. Even if you ploughed £££ in, there is no guarantee this can be turned into As. You are all failing to realise that a lot of pp children are also Sen with learning difficulties and a relatively low IQ. I am a pp Governors and have been in deprived areas. This notion that with help these children will be in a Grammar school just isn’t realistic. A few more could be but it’s a massive stretch. The bright ones with educated parents can get there. All the reasons described above stop this for the majority. You are not going to change this but you can get much better achievement by starting early and targeting the money. It is £1300 pa and that’s not a bad sum over 13 years.

@BubblesBuddy, but why would a lot of pp kids have SEN? I can understand that children with complex needs and perhaps a single parent may end up with pp because the parent cannot realistically both work FT and take care of the child, but does this category comprise a lot of families?
Also you have the families where nobody works and where children seem statistically to have a higher percentage of SEN, but, unless there is inbreeding, there must be something else at play that is different from income and work.
Again, probably the definition of SEN is too wide to make constructive suggestions.

“unless there is inbreeding”

Blimey. You really don’t like poor people, do you?

This thread is starting to make me sick!

So bubbles buddy in one breath tells us that statistics tell us pp kids won't get good grades - statistics tell us so!

In another breath tells us that a lot of pp kids have sn - the same statistics tell us.

So poor people are thick, poor people have sn and low IQ.

Disadvantaged by being poor or disadvantaged by having SN? Or are you really putting both together in a stupid generalisation?

"It also begs the question why the janitors at the top have not made alternative use of their intelligence. That is perhaps where choice comes in. Do they like this job and do not want the extra responsiblity and training that other jobs entail?"

My parents both test at genius level. My Dad was told he was thick. My Mum was encouraged into secretarial work. This is the reality for working class people.

Again OP, what do you think is the issue? You’re saying you don’t buy every single option offered up on the thread, so what do you think?

According to “the smartest kids in the world” by Amanda ripley it’s not necessarily about genes or money, but about expectations. They found the highest performing countries work wide (educationally) were not necessarily wealthy (Korea, Poland, Finland) but had High expectations and educational standards, including rigorous selection and high pay for teachers. The U.K. is in with the counties where expectations and standards are lower. However, it stands that higher income families will generally have higher expectations and potentially standards for their children

The statistics on outcomes for pp children say quite clearly that they do not get good grades.

What exactly does that tell us? The statistics on outcomes for independent school children say quite clearly that they get better grades than those in the state sector. By your reasoning does that imply that independent school children are more intelligent than state school children?

This notion that with help these children will be in a Grammar school just isn’t realistic.... All the reasons described above stop this for the majority.

The topic of this thread is the extent that income and educational attainment are linked, and why. Most of the reasons described above relate to the disadvantages driven by lack of resources. Many of the other reasons involve family culture and ambition. You are the only one asserting that the major reason is that PP children are less intelligent than non-PP children. Where is your evidence for this?

I am a pp Governors

For the sake of your charges, I hope the other governors think more clearly than you do.

Maybe drug and alcohol use play a role in both poverty, low focus on children’s education and higher risk of giving birth to children with SEN?

This pisses me off too. I'm a professional with a degree, 2 post grad diplomas and a specialist qualification in my field but my children are classed as disadvantaged because I'm currently on income support until I return to work in a few months once my youngest starts nursery. They will stay on pupil premium for 6 years after I come off income support because apparently that's the way the system works We have a lovely home that's privately rented (and no the government don't pay my rent before anyone says they do), and live in a nice, highly sought after area. My children are doing very well in school with no academic difficulties. My eldest got above standard in her SATs and my middle child looks set to do even better. Both are bright, active learners who can turn their hand to anything and are in no way disadvantaged. Unless you count me not being able to afford holidays abroad??

@glintandglide, that is actually a good suggestion. It would be interesting to run an experiment for some years in a bog standard school where rather that concentrating on pupils you concentrated on teachers.
I often wonder, who in their right mind would want to become AND remain a teacher? Say, being an NHS dentist or, even worse, a GP must be awful, but these jobs come with respect from the community and a good pay check. Teachers really have neither...

Why does it piss you off? Do you not understand statistics?

Has anyone seen "Stand and deliver"? A film on a teacher teaching maths to some HS students in a deprived neighborhood somewhere in the States. His drive was so strong that when it came to sitting some math exam his pupils did SO well that they had sit the exam again because they thought they had to have cheated.
I haven't seen it in years, but it made a big impact in me.

I haven't read the whole thread but someone very far upthread was talking about not being able to afford music/sport/enriching lessons and clubs for their children. And it made me recall a conversation I had with someone about children's events and in particular free events.

Lots of museums, councils, libraries, children's centres and other places run free events. Most recently I took my kids to see Dippy On Tour, we also went into the art gallery and museum. It was a free event, anyone can go (though we booked I don't think you always need to) so you'd expect it to be full of all walks of life. But they aren't, the free events often aren't accessed by the poorest families as they don't feel they are for them, or they are concerned there will be peripheral costs or the cost of travel is prohibitive.

The same goes for quite a large number of local free events and I think it is quite misunderstood. The person I was talking to was saying they had listings for a high number of free events and they were very popular and so it followed that it was very popular with lower income families. While that may be true with some of the children's centres events, I find that most of the library and museum free events I attend are full of middle-class parents and not the poorer parents.

I have found that some of the poorest families don't do anything with their baby and toddlers, they might take them to family members for a cuppa or to other friends or the shopping centre but rarely to a child-specific event.

You really do not need money to enrich your children's life, but you do need the knowledge that events are there and the confidence to attend. I think many parents feel they wouldn't fit in or it isn't the norm among their peers.

Having some money and education means I have less fear about seeming weird or doing things differently. I couldn't care less about what other people do or how things look, we just do things.

I grew up very poor, but that was through family breakdown and a lack of available childcare to allow my mother to earn more. After-school care did not exist, she had to work school hours so she cleaned and did factory work but had a background in finance.

I didn't go on holiday abroad between the age of 4 and 18. I was able to learn the violin due to family members paying for it. The only club I did was brownies as it was cheap. But, my mother and more so my father both came from relatively affluent families. They had a social ease in situations that allowed me to gain valuable experiences. There was always an expectation that I would get an after-school job at 16 and I would go to university, even though my parents didn't.

We try and enrich our children's lives through variety, travel, language, experience and most of those are inexpensive, but only if you have the luxury of time and capacity to research and do them.

Arkadia I have not read all the thread so I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this.

Your children did not have a vocabulary gap. Vocabulary gap is not so simple as lack just not knowing as many words it is about having the language to understand complex concepts. Without language your can’t engage in lots of high order thinking.

There’s an assumption underlying many of the previous posts that high earners spend less time with their kids than low earners, because they’re out doing their high-powered work thing and paying for other people to raise their kids.
But I’m not sure that’s true at all.
One of the benefits I’ve experienced of being a high earner/in a senior role is the ability to ‘make my own hours’ and therefore spend a lot of time with my child, and the same is true of her father. We can be very flexible about what days we work, start and finish times and holidays - we have autonomy. I have a lot of friends who have similar flexibility because of the nature of their jobs/seniority/high earnings.

However I do not think this flexibility applies to the average lower earner who will typically have a very rigid employment structure which requires them to work long hours and whose time with their children will therefore be significantly less.

Ripely suggest that the most successful education systems have much more focus on quality teaching. Teacher training is hard to get onto. It’s a top % of students destination. It’s really not dissimilar in prestige to medial school or law school.

Teachers are paid well but rigorously performance managed. Poor teachers are dismissed. It actually happens! Due to the high standards (and autonomy granted to these highly skilled teachers) parents respect the education system more. Evidence shows parental involvement in school doesn’t do much- ie being in the PTA or similar- to your children’s results- but a respect for education does.

Also in a lot of successful countries testing is rigorous but standards are higher and tests are harder. People expect more, and children deliver it to them.

It’s also shown that both teachers and parents expect less from their poorest students.

I’m really starting to notice how little many people in the U.K. expect from their children now that I’ve started observing.

thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

There are people on low incomes who manage to give their children many advantages. But it is harder, so despite best efforts many can't. There will be good parents/people who can't give as much to their child (some will). There will also be not great parents.

Wealthier parents who aren't great will be able to pay tutors and nannies so the impact on the child isn't as big.

The cartoon above shows it perfectly.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/02/explaining-annette-lareau-or-why-parenting-style-ensures-inequality/253156/

This is a link to an article on differing parenting styles across classes (yes the exist - just not as entrenched across generations as in the UK) in the US. I read the book Unequal Childhoods when it came out and it was fascinating.

Many people on a low income can't afford to move to a catchment area for a good school. Parental "choice" doesn't exist in such circumstances.

A top-level education doesn't lead to highly paid work in every field. When you're young, you're advised to "do what you love and the money will follow" , but of course if that is a creative or humanities field, it often leads to culturally valuable but very poorly paid work.

I'm saddened to read the generalisations on here. It's as if many think poor people don't deserve the best educational opportunities, as most of us are supposedly too thick or lazy to benefit from it (yes, even with hasty disclaimers like "in general").

MN suddenly looks a lot less left wing than usual, when on the topic of education. It seems it's fine for education of a low quality to be provided.... for other people, who are not like us anyway. Of course "a bright child will do well anywhere" if the options are an outstanding leafy comp, a grammar, a naice selective independent etc. Not so much when a failing local school is the only option. They won't do as well. And then the champagne socialists can say "but of course, they weren't really very bright, their parents were low income you know".

I think it’s stress. As much as I believe money isn’t everything, it does make life easier. Children listen and feel and see so much without having to be explicitly told something. You know when you’re poor and your parents are stressed and that stresses you out. Stress does not help with learning.

There’s more but for me, that’s the nub.

MN suddenly looks a lot less left wing than usual

I have never remotely thought MN is left wing! It is reasonably socially liberal in some areas, but it's far from left wing on education, class, benefits etc. beyond the socially acceptable nod to generally supporting it.

Regarding free stuff, it's really area related. Yes, lots goes on in cities but for those of us who live very rurally, it's not on offer. And if you don't have a car, as many don't, you are marginalised because public transport is rare/expensive/disappearing. And so the gap between rich and poor continues.
OK, there may be a few free things for children in our town, but it's 10 miles away. No theatre. No museum.

The assumption that children eligible for pupil premium are less intelligent or more likely to have SENs than their peers isn't based on fact.

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