New Study Details Factors Leading to Poor School Performance

According to a new study just released by the Educational Testing, services, poor academic performance can be traced to factors outside of the school systems. The study The Family: America’s Smallest School, details factors outside the classroom such as poverty and lack of adequate government support for families including high quality day care and paid family leave. Based on four independent variables measured by state, the researchers were able to predict statewide results on required standardized testing of eighth graders. These variables were: per cent of eight graders missing school more than twice per month, percentage of five year olds whose parents read tot hem daily, percentage of children living in single-parent household, and the percentage of eighth graders who watched five or more hours of TV daily. According to the results of this study, these four variables accounted for approximately two-thirds of the variance among states.

This study points out hat in education, as in so much of social welfare policy, if we were to take a holistic approach, and address the multi-causality of most social problems, we could vastly improve the quality of education. But, as we tend to do as a society, if we continue to see each social issue and problem as mutually excusive and address symptoms rather than causes, we will continue to fail and watch as more and more families fall further behind.

The full study can be accessed at: www.ets.org/familyreport