What is the cost?

Pedro Noguera — an urban sociologist and a professor at New York University — is one of the founders of A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, an organization which advocates for education policy taking account of societal and economic conditions, notions which have long been the focus of Noguera’s studies.

Education Next sat down with Noguera and Joe Williams of the Education Equality Project recently to discuss education policy and the full interview can be found here. Noguera was up first, facing the question, “Can you explain the key reforms the coalition is calling for?”

His reply:

The basic principle underlying the Broader, Bolder Approach to school reform is that efforts to raise student achievement cannot ignore the unmet social needs of children, particularly those related to concentrated poverty—inadequate health, housing, and nutrition. These conditions have a tremendous impact upon child development and learning.

Poverty does not cause academic failure, but it is a factor that profoundly influences the character of schools and student performance, in at least three broad and interrelated ways: 1) in most cases, considerably less money is spent on the education of poor children. Per-pupil spending has bearing on the quality of facilities, the availability of learning materials, and the ability of schools to attract and retain highly qualified personnel. While high levels of funding do not guarantee that children will receive a quality education, money matters, and many of the most acclaimed charter schools spend more per pupil than public schools, even though they generally serve fewer high-need students (i.e., special education or English language learners); 2) the unmet, nonacademic needs of children (social, emotional, and psychological) often have an impact on learning; 3) schools serving large numbers of poor children typically lack the resources and expertise to respond to their academic and social needs.

Noguera pinpointed the assumptions that must be made if we are to tackle the achievement gap that separates low-income students from their higher-achieving peers.

What is the cost to educate students who come to school two or three grade-levels behind? When I served as Assistant Vice President at City On A Hill Charter High School in Boston, our administrative team grappled with how to quantify the true cost of educating the diversity of students we enrolled.

We settled upon a dollar cost of bringing students to grade level as the additional programming, such as student support services, summer school and extended-day offerings, were additional costs. We reached an understanding and belief that all students can achieve and that some cost more to educate. Our yearly budget was constructed with these assumptions embedded and we were very successful in reaching our achievement goals.

Yet when it comes to urban kids, the discussion often focuses on how little can be spent, a topic never discussed in the decade-plus I sat on the Board at Middlesex School. Within that environment was a language of possibility, creativity and innovation, not a deficit model.