family - am smallest sch 10-2007

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The Family: Americas Smallest School

Policy Information Report


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Table of Contents

Preace ...........................................................................................................2

Acknowledgments .........................................................................................2

Highlights ......................................................................................................3

Introduction ..................................................................................................6

The Parent-Pupil Ratio .................................................................................8

What Research Reveals .......................................................................8

Out-o-Wedlock Births ......................................................................10

Number o Parents in the Home ......................................................11

The New Inequality ...........................................................................13

Family Finances ..........................................................................................14

Median Family Income .....................................................................15

Children Living in Poverty ................................................................16

Food Insecurity ..................................................................................17

Parent Employment ..........................................................................17

Literacy Development in Young Children .................................................19

Early Language Acquisition ..............................................................19

Reading to Young Children ...............................................................20

The Child Care Dimension .........................................................................23

A Look at Day Care or the Nations 2-Year-Olds .............................23

Type o Day Care .......................................................................24

Quality o Day Care ...................................................................25

The Home as an Educational Resource .....................................................26

Literacy Materials in the Home ........................................................26

Technology .........................................................................................27

A Place to Study .................................................................................28

Dealing With Distractions .................................................................28

The ParentSchool Relationship ................................................................32

Getting Children to School ...............................................................32

Parent Involvement in School ..........................................................34

Putting It Together: Estimating the Impact o

Family and Home Factors on Student Achievement ................................37

Concluding Comments ...............................................................................39

Appendix Table ............................................................................................42

This report was written by:

Paul E. Barton

Richard J. Coley

Educational Testing Service

The views expressed in this report

are those o the authors and do not

necessarily reect the views o theofcers and trustees o Educational

Testing Service.

Additional copies o this report can

be ordered or $15 (prepaid) rom:

Policy Inormation Center

Mail Stop 19-R


Rosedale Road

Princeton, NJ 08541-0001

(609) 734-5212

[email protected]

Copies can be downloaded rom:

www.ets.org/research/pic

Copyright 2007 by

Educational Testing Service.

All rights reserved. Educational

Testing Service, ETS, and the ETS

logo are registered trademarks o


(ETS). LISTENING. LEARNING.LEADING. is a trademark o ETS.

September 2007

Policy Evaluation and

Research Center

Policy Inormation Center



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All parents have witnessed their children doing things,

good and bad, which remind them o themselves.

These incidents serve as powerul reminders o the

critical role parents play as teachers. Indeed, theapple does not all ar rom the tree, as the oundation

established and nurtured at home goes a long way

in ensuring student achievement in school as well as

success in later lie. The important educational role

o parents, however, is oten overlooked in our local,

state and national discussions about raising student

achievement and closing achievement gaps.

One o the our cornerstones oThe Opportunity

Compact, the National Urban LeaguesBlueprint for

Economic Equality, is the Opportunity for Children

to Thrive. Through this guiding principle, we assertthat every child in America deserves to live a lie ree

o poverty that includes a sae home environment,

adequate nutrition and aordable quality health care.

We urther assert that all children in America deserve

a quality education that will prepare them to compete

in an increasingly global marketplace.

For the Opportunity to Thrive to be realized, and

or us as a nation to reach the ambitious educational

goals that we have set or ourselves, we must keep

clear in our minds that our amily is our frst and

smallest school.

The authors o this report, Paul Barton and Richard

Coley, tell us how we beneft rom paying attention

to the role o our amilies. They examine many acets

o childrens home environment and experiences thatoster cognitive development and school achievement,

rom birth throughout the period o ormal schooling.

They stress that we should think o strengthening

the roles o both schools and amilies, that schools

need parents and communities as allies, and that

recognizing the importance o the role amilies play

should in no way lessen the need to improve schools.

The report also reveals the complexity o any

eort to strengthen the role that amilies play in

educating children, the many levels on which such

eorts need to take place, and the sensitivity that isnecessary whenever we contemplate the ormation

and unctioning o amilies our most important

institution, and at the same time our most private one.

The National Urban League commends Educational

Testing Service or this timely and critically important

report and joins it in urging parents, educators,

administrators and policymakers to consider its fndings.

Marc H. Morial

President and CEO

National Urban League

Preface

This report was reviewed by Carol Dwyer, Distin-

guished Presidential Appointee at ETS; Drew Gitomer,

Distinguished Presidential Appointee at ETS; LauraLippman, Senior Program Area Director and Senior

Research Associate at Child Trends; Isabel V. Sawhill,

Senior Fellow and Cabot Family Chair at the Brookings

Institution; and Andrew J. Rotherham, Co-Founder and

Co-Director, Education Sector. The report was edited

by Amanda McBride. Christina Guzikowski provideddesktop publishing. Marita Gray, with the help o her

5-year-old son, Ryan, designed the cover. Errors o act

or interpretation are those o the authors.

Acknowledgments


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Highlights

The amily and the home are both critical education

institutions where children begin learning long beore

they start school, and where they spend much o their

time ater they start school. So it stands to reason thatimproving a childs home environment to make it more

conducive to learning is critical i we are to improve

the educational achievement o the nations students

and close the achievement gaps. To do this, we need

to develop cooperative partnerships in which amilies

are allies in the eorts o teachers and schools. The

kinds o amily and home conditions that research

has ound to make a dierence in childrens cognitive

development and school achievement include those

highlighted below.1

The Parent-Pupil Ratio. The percentage o two-parent amilies has been in long-term decline. Single-

parent amilies are rapidly becoming a signifcant

segment o the countrys amily population.

Forty-our percent o births to women under age

30 are out-o-wedlock. The percentage is much

higher or Black women and much lower or Asian-

American women. While the percentage decreases

as womens educational attainment rises, the rate

or Black and Hispanic college-educated women

remains high.

Sixty-eight percent o U.S. children live with twoparents, a decline rom 77 percent in 1980. Only

35 percent o Black children live with two parents.

In selected international comparisons, the United

States ranks the highest in the percentage o single-

parent households, and Japan ranks the lowest.

Family Finances. Income is an important actor in

a amilys ability to und the tangible and intangible

elements that contribute to making the home an

educationally supportive environment. At all income

levels, however, parents have important roles to play

in acilitating their childrens learning, many o which

are not dependent upon the availability o money.

Among racial/ethnic groups, Asian-American

amilies, on average, have the highest median amily

income; Black amilies have the lowest.

On average, White and Asian-American amilies

with children have higher incomes than White and

Asian-American amilies without children. The

opposite is true or Black and Hispanic amilies,

however; and these amilies have much lower

average amily incomes than their White andAsian-American counterparts. There are also large

dierences in amily income across the states,

ranging rom median amily incomes in excess

o $70,000 in several northeastern states to less

than $40,000 in New Mexico, Mississippi, and

Washington, D.C.

Nationally, 19 percent o children live in poverty.

The percentages increase to nearly a third or more

o Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and

Hispanic children. Among the states, the percentage

ranges rom a low o 9 percent in New Hampshireto a high o 31 percent in Mississippi.

Nationally, 11 percent o all households are ood

insecure. The rate or emale-headed households is

triple the rate or married-couple amilies, and the

rate or Black households is triple the rate or White

households. One-third or more o poor households

are ood insecure.

Rates o parent unemployment are high, and are

alarmingly so or some groups. Nationally, one-

third o children live in amilies in which no parent

has ull-time, year-round employment. This is thecase or hal o Black and American Indian/Alaskan

Native children. More than 40 percent o children in

Alaska, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Mississippi live

in such amilies.

Literacy Development. Literacy development begins

long beore children enter ormal education, and is

critical to their success in school.

There are substantial dierences in childrens

measured abilities as they start kindergarten. For

example, average mathematics scores or Black and

Hispanic children are 21 percent and 19 percentlower, respectively, than the mathematics scores o

White children.

By age 4, the average child in a proessional amily

hears about 20 million more words than the average

child in a working-class amily, and about 35 million

more words than children in welare amilies.

1 Readers will ind sources or the data and deinitions o the variables discussed in this section in the main body o the report.


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Sixty-two percent o high socioeconomic status

(SES) kindergartners are read to every day by their

parents, compared to 36 percent o kindergartners

in the lowest SES group. White and Asian-Americanchildren, those who live with two parents, and

children with mothers with higher education levels

were also more likely to have a parent read to them

daily than their counterparts who were Black or

Hispanic, lived with one parent, or had mothers

with lower educational levels.

Child Care Disparities. The availability o high-

quality child care is critical when parents work outside

the home.

About hal o the nations 2-year-olds are in some

kind o regular, nonparental day care, split amongcenter-based care; home-based, nonrelative care;

and home-based relative care. Black children are

the most likely to be in day care.

Overall, 24 percent o U.S. children were in center-

based care that was rated as high quality, 66 percent

were in medium-quality center-based care, and 9

percent were in low-quality center-based care. O

those in home-based care, 7 percent were in high-

quality settings, 57 percent were in medium-quality

settings, and 36 percent were in low-quality care.

More than hal o Black, Hispanic, and poor 2-year-olds were in low-quality home-based care.

The Home as an Educational Resource. The

resources available at home books, magazines,

newspapers, a home computer with access to the

Internet, a quiet place or study can have a lasting

inuence on a childs ability to achieve academically.

As o 2003, 76 percent o U.S. children had

access to a home computer, and 42 percent used

the Internet. Black and Hispanic children lagged

behind, however.

Eighty-six percent o U.S. eighth-graders reported

having a desk or table where they could study, just

above the international average but well below the

averages o many countries.

Thirty-fve percent o eighth-graders watch our or

more hours o television on an average weekday.

Comparisons by race/ethnicity reveal considerable

dierences in viewing habits: 24 percent o White

eighth-graders spend at least our hours in ront o

a television on a given day, while 59 percent o their

Black peers do so.

A comparison o eighth-graders in 45 countries

ound that U.S. students spend less time reading

books or enjoyment and doing jobs at home than

students in the average country participating in the

study. On the other hand, U.S. eighth-graders spent

more time, on average, watching television and

videos, talking with riends, and participating in

sports activities. They also spend almost one more

hour daily using the Internet.

One in fve students misses three or more days o

school a month. Asian-American students have the

ewest absences. The United States ranked 25th o

45 countries in students school attendance.

The Parent-School Relationship. A signifcant body

o research indicates that when parents, teachers, and

schools work together to support learning, students

do better in school and stay in school longer. Parental

involvement in student education includes everything

rom making sure children do their homework,

to attending school unctions and parent-teacher

conerences, to serving as an advocate or the school,

to working in the classroom. How involved are parents

in their childrens education? Are schools helping to

acilitate parental involvement, and doing what theycan to eectively partner with parents?

Since 1996, parents have become increasingly

involved in their childs school. However, parent

participation decreases as students progress

through school, and parents o students earning A

averages are more likely to be involved in school

unctions than the parents o students earning Cs

and Ds.

Putting It Together: Estimating the Impact of

Family and Home on Student Achievement.

How closely can stars in this constellation o actorsassociated with a childs home environment predict

student achievement?

The analysis provided here uses our amily/home

actors that previous research has shown to be

linked to student achievement. To some degree,

each is likely to be related to the others: single-

parent amilies, parents reading to young children

every day, hours spent watching television, and the

requency o school absences.


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Together, these our actors account or about

two-thirds o the large dierences among states

in National Assessment o Educational Progress

(NAEP) eighth-grade reading scores.

* * * * *

The nation has set high goals or raising student

achievement. Schools play a critical role in this eort,

and it is appropriate that a serious national eort

is being made to improve them. However, amily

characteristics and home environment play critical roles

as well. Reaching our ambitious national goals will

require serious eorts to address issues on both ronts.


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Recognizing the amily as the basic socializing and

nurturing institution or children is intuitive. Common

sense tells us that the love and attention that babies

and children receive, their sense o security, the

encouragement they are given to learn, the intellectualrichness o their home environment, and the attention

that is devoted to their health and welare are all

critical elements in the development o children who

are able and motivated to learn. Ironically, however,

something so plain and obvious is oten overlooked

or taken or granted.

Even though public ofcials, PTA speakers,

educators oten tell us how important a

role the amily plays, this message does not

translate to a national resolve to improve the

amily as an educational institution.

Thus began our 1992 report,Americas Smallest

School: The Family.2 Although the critical importance

childrens amilies play in their lives in the years

preceding school, during the hours beore and ater

the school day, and throughout the days, weeks,

and months o summer and holiday breaks remains

apparent, it also stays largely outside current local,

state, and national education policy discussions. The

purpose o this report is to examine inormation and

evidence regarding the critical role the amily plays in

the education o the nations children.Over the past 15 years, state and national eorts

to raise student achievement and reduce achievement

gaps have intensifed. The public and public ofcials

take the issue o improving education seriously, as is

strongly evidenced by the prominence o the No Child

Let Behind (NCLB) Act in the national policy agenda.

NCLB includes requirements or schools to promote

and acilitate stronger school-parent partnerships.

SinceAmericas Smallest School: The Family was

published, not much seems to have changed with

respect to the importance public policy gives to theamilys role in childrens learning, even as eorts have

intensifed to raise student achievement and reduce

achievement gaps. Nor has there been much progress

toward improving many o the conditions that were

described in that report. There are, to be sure, eorts

to promote the value o early childhood education,

new commission reports, and more national leaders

pushing or universal pre-kindergarten programs.

These eorts all stem rom an explicit recognition

o the need to supplement amily eorts i we are tosucceed in improving student learning and reducing

achievement gaps.

A new report card by UNICEF on the state o

childhood in the worlds economically advanced

nations paints a bleak picture or the uture o

education in the United States. In the report, UNICEF

compared the United States with 20 other rich

countries on their perormance in six dimensions

o child well-being. The United States ranks in the

bottom third o these 21 countries or fve o these six

dimensions. It ranked 12th in educational well-being,17th in material well-being, 20th in amily and peer

relationships, 20th in behaviors and risks, and 21st in

health and saety.3

Despite these disturbing fndings, one can fnd

many good examples o eorts to promote stronger

amily involvement in childrens education, and this

report describes some o these. Although our review o

current literature identifes many other constructive

eorts to improve amily and home conditions

associated with child development, no major eorts

were ound to raise the prominence o beore-schooland ater-school issues, identifed in this report, in

the very visible state and national eorts to increase

achievement and reduce achievement gaps.

This report is about the amily, not about the

schools, except in those critical areas where the

amily and school must work together. That said, the

authors have no intention o minimizing the need

or improving our nations schools and it would be

a misuse o the reports fndings to argue that all o

the responsibility or educational improvement rests

outside o the schools. Indeed, a number o ETS Policy

Inormation Center reports have argued that both are

important in raising achievement and reducing gaps.

A comprehensive review o the available acts and

evidence on this subject is Parsing the Achievement

Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress.4

Introduction

2 Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley,Americas Smallest School: The Family, Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation Center,Educational Testing Service, 1992.

3 See UNICEF, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007.4 Paul E. Barton, Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress, Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation Center, Educa-

tional Testing Service, October 2003.


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It is understandable that education reorm eorts

would ocus on improving schools. In the broader

arena o public policy, however, we will have to go ar

beyond this ocus i we hope to signifcantly improve

student learning and reduce the achievement gap.This report highlights some o the important amily

characteristics and home conditions that research

has ound makes a signifcant dierence in childrens

cognitive development and school achievement.

Because the home is, indeed, Americas smallest

school though clearly not its least signifcant one

it behooves us to take whatever steps are necessary

to assure the homes o all o our nations students can

provide the critical support children need to achieve. I

we are to improve Americas academic standing within

the global community, and close our all-too-persistent

achievement gaps, we must help ensure nurturing

home environments and supportive, encouraging

amily lives or all students.

This is by no means a small endeavor. It will require

policy reorm, government and social interventions,

and above all, cooperative partnerships among

schools, amilies, and communities.

* * * * *

The report is organized as ollows:

The Parent-Pupil Ratio. Research indicates an

upward trend in single-parent amilies and large

dierences in amily-composition trends across

racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. The report

examines these changing patterns and explains how

they may be leading to a new inequality.

Family Finances. Many amilies are stretched thin in

meeting the basic needs that will help children become

successul students. The report looks at economic

trends related to child poverty, parent employment,

and ood insecurity.

Literacy Development. Childrens experiences duringthe frst years o their lives their interactions with

the people and world around them are critical

to their uture learning. The report examines the

dierences in early language development and school

readiness among children o dierent population

subgroups. The authors also discuss how reading to

young children inuences their language development

The Extended Family: The Child Care Dimension.

The report looks at the wide variety o child careavailable to parents, and the vast dierences in the

quality o that care.

The Home as an Educational Resource. A home

environment that is conducive to learning is critical

to childrens ability to succeed in school. The authors

examine the importance o resources and conditions that

support learning in the home (e.g., appropriate reading

materials, a home computer with access to the Internet,

and a quiet place to study). The authors also look at

conditions that can distract students rom learning, such

as spending too much time watching television, playing

computer games, and surfng the Internet. Finally, the

authors examine trends related to these actors across

dierent racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

The Parent-School Relationship. The authors

examine why its important or parents to be involved in

their childrens school and to take a proactive approach

to encouraging their childrens learning eorts. The

authors then highlight trends in these behaviors.

Putting It Together: Estimating the Impact of

Family and Home on Student Achievement. The

authors explore how a constellation o amily and

home characteristics can be used to predict student

achievement.

Concluding Comments. The authors discuss what amily

trends imply about the uture state o student learning

in the United States. They then elaborate on the need to

improve conditions in both the home and the school.

* * * * *

This report is packed with statistics and research

fndings, and the authors have drawn upon many

sources rom small research studies, to national

censuses and data bases, to international surveys.Readers will have dierent interests, dierent

perspectives, and dierent needs. The authors hope

that the inormation in this publication will be helpul

to a diverse audience an audience with a common

interest in improving student learning and reducing

achievement gaps.


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Our society relies on parents to nurture and socialize

children. It ollows then that having two parents

participating in the child-rearing eort is better than

having just one, even i only rom the standpoint ologistics and time: time to talk with children, read to

them, help them with homework, get them up and o

to school, check their progress with their teachers, and

so on.

Two-parent amilies are more likely than single-

parent amilies to be participating in the workorce

and to have middle-class incomes. Today, having a

decent amily income is more dependent than ever

on having two parents working. Families headed only

by mothers as the majority o single-parent amilies

are have, on the average, much lower incomesand ewer benefts that go along with employment

(such as medical insurance) than two-parent amilies.

Adequate housing, medical care, and nutrition

contribute to childrens cognitive development and

school achievement.5 While logic, common sense,

and research all lead to the conclusion that children

growing up with one parent may have a disadvantage,

it is oten not an easy subject to discuss.

What Research Reveals

Despite continuing sensitivity about the topic, there

is a growing body o research on amily structure andits relationship to childrens well-being. While the

research generally ocuses on whether a child lives

with one versus two parents, there is some research

on the eects o mother-only amilies; some research

on children with divorced parents; some on children

with young, unmarried parents; and some research

that ocuses on the eects on children o growing up

with absent athers. The frst comprehensive reporting

o this research was undertaken by a committee o the

National Research Council (NRC), which synthesized

and cited more than 70 studies published between 1970

and 1988. The NRC concluded that:

High rates o poverty, low educational

perormance, and health problems are serious

obstacles to the uture and well-being o

millions o children. The problems are much

more acute among black children . The

disadvantage o black children relative towhite children is due almost entirely to the low

income o black amily heads Approximately

one-hal o black children have the additional

burden o having mother-only amilies. Many

begin lie with an under-educated teenage

mother, which increases the likelihood that

they will live in poverty and raises additional

impediments to their lie prospects.6

The most recent and large-scale synthesis o

research on single-parent amilies in the United States

is Father Absence and Child Well-Being by WendySigle-Rushton and Sara McLanahan, who start with

this overview:

Cohabitation has replaced marriage as

the preerred frst union o young adults;

premarital sex and out-o-wedlock childbearing

have become increasingly commonplace and

acceptable; and divorce rates have recently

plateaued at very high levels. One out o three

children in the United States today is born

outside o marriage, and the proportion is

twice as high among Arican Americans.7

Researchers must consider several issues when

assessing the impact growing up in a single-parent

amily can have on childrens academic success. First

they need to determine whether children raised in

single-parent households are dierent rom those who

grow up with two parents in the home in ways that

aect learning and academic success. And, i they do,

researchers need to then clariyhow they dier. They

must then disentangle the actors that contribute to

these dierences, which involve separating actors

related to low income rom those that are entirely

due to a growing up in a single-parent amily. Whileresearch can illuminate issues related to income, its

ar more difcult to fnd scientifc evidence o the

eect growing up in a single-parent household has on

The Parent-Pupil Ratio

5 For a synthesis o research on such amily actors, see Barton, 2003.6 Gerald David Jaynes and Robin M. Williams, Jr. (Eds.),A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society, National Research Council ,

National Academy Press, 1989.7 Wendy Sigle-Rushton and Sara McLanahan, Father Absence and Child Well-Being, in Daniel P. Moynihan, Timothy M. Speeding, and Lee

Rainwater (Eds.), The Future of the Family, Russell Sage Foundation, 2004, p. 116.


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learning. We can, however, identiy with considerable

confdence the overall eects always bearing in

mind that we are talking aboutaverages, not individual

situations.8

Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan summarize the

results o the simple correlations, which can easily be

interpreted as the probability that a random person,

drawn or a given amily structure, will experience the

outcome o interest. They summarize the results o

their research as ollows:

Academic Success. Studies demonstrate quite

conclusively that children who live in single-mother

amilies score lower on measures o academic

achievement than those in two-parent amilies.

The dierences are substantial (in statisticalterms, about a third o a standard deviation ater

controlling or age, gender, and grade level).

Behavioral and Psychological Problems. Father

absence is correlated with a higher incidence o

behavioral and psychological problems that may

include shyness, aggression, or poor conduct.

Substance Abuse and Contact With Police.

Father absence is correlated with a greater tendency

to use illegal substances, have early contact with the

police, and be delinquent.

Effect on Life Transitions. Daughters who grow

up in single-parent amilies are likely to have

sexual relationships at an earlier age than those

raised rom two-parent homes, and are more likely

to bear children outside o marriage. Their early

partnerships also tend to be less stable.

Economic Well-Being in Adulthood. Research

has established a strong link between growing up

in a single-mother amily and having lower income

as adults.

Adult Physical Health and Psychological Well-Being. Adults rom single-mother amilies have

lower sel-esteem than those growing up in two-

parent households. Among women, research reveals

a negative correlation between poor adult physical

health and growing up with a divorced mother.9

While, at frst glance, all o these issues may not

seem to be related to school achievement, each

(e.g., delinquent behavior, drug use, and aggressive

behaviors) can adversely aect school achievement.

And although these behaviors appear to be separate

and distinct issues, they are oten related, with one

condition resulting in another.

Evidence also links these variables to other school

problems. For example, a Bureau o the Census

publication reports that the percentage o school-

age children o never-married parents were morethan twice as likely to repeat a grade than children

o married parents (21.1 percent compared to 8.4

percent, respectively); the percentage or children o

separated, divorced, or widowed parents was 13.4

percent. Very similar dierences were ound or the

percentage o children who were ever suspended rom

school. And or both repeating a grade and being

suspended rom school, the rates were much higher

or children in amilies living below the poverty line

than or children living above it.10

A recent report rom the ETS Policy InormationCenter ound a close relationship between states high

school completion rates and the percentage o children

living in one-parent amilies, ater controlling or

social economic status (SES). The single-parent amily

actor, by itsel, explained over a third o the variation

in high school completion rates (SES, single-parent

amilies, and high student mobility together explained

almost 60 percent o the variation).11 Another recent

ETS analysis ound that the variation among the states

in the prevalence o one-parent amilies had a strong

correlation with the state variation in eighth-grade

reading achievement.12

8 On this matter o disentangling eects, and or a comprehensive look at marriage and children, see the all issue oThe Future of Children(titled Marriage and Well-Being) published by the Brookings Institution (www.utureochildren.org).

9 Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan, 2004.10 Jane Lawler Dye and Tallese D. Johnson,A Childs Day: 00 (Selected Indicators of Child Well-Being), Current Population Reports, p. 70-109,

U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, D.C., January 2007.11 Paul E. Barton, One-Third of a Nation: Rising Dropout Rates and Declining Opportunities, Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation

Center, Educational Testing Service, February 2005.12 Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, Windows on Achievement and Inequality, Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation Center,

Educational Testing Service, 2007.


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0

Having documented the correlation between having

two parents and student educational achievement, this

section now examines data on parenthood trends in

the United States.

Out-of-Wedlock Births

O the 2.3 million births to women under age 30 in 2003-

04, about 1 million (or 44 percent) were to unmarried

women. Figure 1 shows the percentage o out-o-wedlock

births or women in each racial/ethnic group.

These data paint a grim picture o the status o

marriage and childbirth in the United States. Seventy-

seven percent o Black, 60 percent o mixed-race, and

46 percent o Hispanic births were out-o-wedlock. Most

o these out-o-wedlock births were to women with low

levels o educational attainment. As shown in Figure

2, overall, the proportion o out-o-wedlock births alls

substantially with each additional level o education

mothers attain. The proportions are higher, however, or

some groups. Among Black mothers, or example, more

than hal o births to those with a bachelors degree or

higher were out-o-wedlock; this was also the case or 43

percent o births to Hispanic mothers.13

Its important, however, to understand that this

dichotomy between in- and out-o-wedlock births

oversimplifes the variation o amily types. According

to the demographer, Harold Hodgkinson:

Four million children o all ages now live with

one or more grandparents, and one million

children o all ages are the sole responsibility o

their grandparents A number o actors have

created this group, such as parents who are in

jail, in drug rehabilitation centers, or those who

simply are not capable o raising their children.

The problems o raising young children when

you are 65 years old are severe yet, or many

grandparents there is no alternative.

The Statistical Abstract of the United States,

00, indicates the ollowing amily types were

raising children under 18 years old: 46 percent

13 American Community Survey data, reported in Kirsch, Braun, Yamamoto, and Sum, 2007.

All

Black

Mixed Race

Hispanic

White

Asian

806040200 100

44

77

60

46

34

16

Percentage

Figure 1Percentage of Out-of-Wedlock Births to Women

Under Age 30, by Racial/Ethnic Group, 2003-2004

Source: Data rom 2004 American Community Surveys, reported in Irwin Kirsch, HenryBraun, Kentaro Yamamoto, and Andrew Sum, Americas Perfect Storm: Three ForcesChanging Our Nations Future, Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation Center,Educational Testing Service, January 2007.

100 20 30 40 50 60 70

44

62

51

37

13

4

All

Less thanhigh school

High schooldiploma or GED

Some college

Bachelors degree

Masters degreeor more

Percentage

Figure 2Percentage of Out-of-Wedlock Births to Women

Under Age 30, by Educational Attainment of the

Mother, 2003-2004

Source: Data rom 2004 American Community Surveys reported in Irwin Kirsch, HenryBraun, Kentaro Yamamoto, and Andrew Sum, Americas Perfect Storm: Three ForcesChanging Our Nations Future, Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation Center,Educational Testing Service, January 2007.


13/48

o married couples; 43 percent o unmarried

couples; 60 percent o single women; 22

percent o gay couples; and 34 percent o

lesbian couples. Several o these categoriesare new or the Census and little is known

about how many children are being raised by

each type. However, many teachers report an

increase in the number o children being raised

by same-sex couples.14

Number of Parents in the Home

What is the trend or children living in two-parent

amilies in the United States? In the nation as a whole

in 2004, 68 percent o children were living with both

parents, down rom 77 percent in 1980. There were

substantial declines among the White, Black, and

Hispanic populations o children with two parents in

the home over that period, as shown in Figure 3. The

lowest percentage o children living with two parents

was among Black children just 42 percent in 1980,

dropping to 35 percent in 2004. Thus, the majority o

Black children live in single-parent homes.

14 Harold L. Hodgkinson,Leaving Too Many Children Behind: A Demographers View on the Neglect of Americas Youngest Children, Institute oEducational Leadership, April 2003.

All White Hispanic Black

30

40

50

60

70

8077

68

83

7475

65

42

35

80 04 80 04 80 04 80 04

Percentage

Figure 3Percentage of Children Under Age 18 Living With

Both Parents, by Race/Ethnicity, 1980 and 2004

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract o the United States, Table 60, June 29, 2005.

Figure 4Percentage of Children in Single-Parent Families,

by State, 2004

Source: Data on one-parent amilies rom Kids Count State-Level Data Online (www.aec.org/kidscount/sld/compare_results.jsp?i=721).

Utah

Iowa

North Dakota

Indiana

Connecticut

Wyoming

Wisconsin

Oregon

Alaska

Washington

Michigan

Texas

Ohio

Oklahoma

Georgia

Arkansas

South Carolina

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

17

23

23

2424

24

24

25

26

26

26

26

27

27

27

27

28

28

28

29

29

29

29

29

30

30

30

30

31

31

31

31

31

32

33

33

33

34

34

34

34

35

35

36

36

38

38

39

40

4244

Idaho

Nebraska

Kansas

Minnesota

New Jersey

Colorado

New Hampshire

Vermont

Montana

South Dakota

Hawaii

Illinois

California

Massachusetts

Virginia

West Virginia

Kentucky

Pennsylvania

U.S.

Arizona

Missouri

Nevada

Maine

Maryland

New York

North Carolina

Tennessee

Delaware

Alabama

Florida

New Mexico

Rhode Island

Mississippi

Lousiana

Percentage


14/48

The variation among the states in the percentage

o single-parent amilies is considerable, as shown in

Figure 4. The low is 17 percent in Utah, while South

Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana have percentageso 40 or higher.

A comparison among large cities is shown in

Figure 5. San Diego and Austin had the lowest

percentages o children in one-parent amilies,

although about one-third o amilies all into this

category. Atlanta and Cleveland had the highest

percentages o single-parent amilies, with about two-

thirds o the cities amilies alling into this category.

International comparisons are also available,

although there are variations in the years or which

data are available. In comparison with nine othercountries where data were available, the United States

had the highest percentage o one-parent amilies (28

percent) and Japan the lowest (8 percent). There were

substantial increases in all countries in this statistic or

the time periods available (see Figure 6). In addition,

Figure 5Percentage of One-Parent Families,

Selected Cities, 2004

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005 American Community Survey.

San Diego

Austin

Los Angeles

Houston

Charlotte

New York

Chicago

Boston

Cleveland

Atlanta

30 40 50 60 70

31

33

36

36

38

43

45

52

63

66

Percentage

UnitedStates

Sweden

Germany(unied)

Denmark

Ireland

UnitedKingdom

Canada

France

Netherlands

Japan

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

20

28

11

24

15

20

13

20

7

20

14

19

13

19

12

17

9

15

5

8

Percentage

80 03 85 02 91 04 80 05 81 04 81 03 81 01 88 00 81 04 80 00

Figure 6Change in the Percentage of Single-Parent Households, Selected Countries, Various Years

Note: Data are or children under 18 (except or Australia and Ireland, where data are or children under 15).Source: Compiled by the Bureau o Labor Statistics rom national population censuses, household surveys, and other sources. Some data are romunpublished tabulations provided by oreign countries (www.childstats.gov/intnllinks.asp?feld=Subject1&value=Population+and+Family+Characteristics).


15/48

or most o the countries included in this comparison,

about one-fth o amilies with children were single-

parent amilies. It is clear that the phenomenon o a

rising rate o children living with one parent is by nomeans confned to the United States.

The New Inequality

The nation is very amiliar with inequality based on

race/ethnicity and income. Reducing and eliminating

achievement gaps is national policy in education,

and NCLB puts teeth into this policy by requiring the

disaggregation o test scores by race/ethnicity and

poverty.It is time to recognize that there is another

form of inequality in the circumstance of growing up

and getting educated: It is whether a child grows up

with two parents in the home, or one. (Once again, it is

important to understand that the authors are speaking

in terms o averages.)

This orm o inequality cuts across racial and

ethnic subgroups and amily income status. However,

it is disproportionately concentrated in minority

and low-income populations. For example, as Figure

3 shows, more than hal o Black children are not

living with two parents. Eorts to compensate or the

disadvantages children experience when growing up

in homes lacking the personal and economic resources

to support their learning will disproportionatelybeneft students in minority and poor amilies. I

low income were combined with not living with two

parents recognizing the double defcit minority

students would predominate in any targeted eort to

compensate or deprivations and lie conditions o

the kind that have been shown to hinder educational

achievement. The next sections o the report identiy

some o the amily and home conditions that can

aect educational achievement.


16/48

Most agree that schools must be adequately unded

i they are to educate students successully, although

there continues to be signifcant disagreement

over how much unding is sufcient. Families alsorequire resources to unction eectively as educating

institutions, although its difcult to pin down exactly

what constitutes adequate resources.

The report does not argue that lower income

alone is the source o educational inadequacies in the

amily, just as its authors would not argue that a lower

school budget in itsel can be blamed or low student

achievement. In act, the premise o our 2003 report,

Parsing the Achievement Gap, was that it was necessary

to decompose income, examining the conditions and

behaviors that are shown by research to be correlatedwith school achievement which may or may not be

determined by how much money the amily has.

The most thorough examination o the eects

o amily income on the success o children was

perormed by Susan E. Mayer. She cautions about

ascribing causation to simple statistical correlations,

and in her analysis sorts out what can be attributed

to income alone. While she does fnd a relationship

between amily income and success, she says it

is smaller than generally thought to be. Also, she

suggests that the attributes that make parents

attractive to employers may be similar to those that

make them good parents.15

In Parsing the Achievement Gap, we identifed

actors and conditions, which did not include income,

that were related to achievement. Then we looked

at how the actors diered in high- and low-income

amilies. The gaps in these actors mirrored the gaps in

achievement between children in high- and low-income

amilies. Examples o these actors were birthweight,

changing schools, and reading to young children.

This report also highlights ways amilies can

support and encourage learning that do not depend

directly on fnancial resources. These include setting

time limits on watching TV, reading to children, and

making sure that they get to school. Unortunately,

some important learning supports do require money

and not just nickels and dimes. It takes fnancial

resources to buy books or children to read, shoes or

them to wear to school, and a quiet place or them

to read and study. And, more so than parents withsalaries, parents who earn hourly wages may fnd

it difcult (and cost-prohibitive) to take time o to

attend a parent-teacher conerence or to do volunteer

work at school.

Still other important supports or educational

development involve substantial resources:

nutritious ood, adequate clothing, glasses to correct

a childs vision problems, and treatment or childrens

health problems. Research has shown that these all

aect student learning and school attendance. Saety

net programs may make a considerable dierence,o course, in helping amilies meet such needs.

However, there are large holes in the net, and many

amilies may not have the knowledge and ability to

access these programs.

Another problem many amilies in economic straits

ace is the need to move rom one place to another to

fnd jobs and aordable housing. This oten means

that their children will have to change schools as well

and thats a problem, since research has shown

that changing schools requently can have a negative

impact on student achievement.

The United States has the greatest inequality in the

distribution o income o any developed nation an

inequality that has been rising decade by decade. In

2004, according to data rom the U.S. Census Bureau,

the top and most auent quintile (or fth) had 50

percent o the aggregate household income, while the

bottom and poorest quintile had 3.4 percent o the

income. Put another way, the top-income households

had more than 14 times more income than the

bottom-income households.16 AsNew York Times

columnist Paul Krugman writes: Weve gone back to

levels o inequality not seen since the 1920s.17

This section provides several measures o amily

fnancial resources and examines the distribution o

those resources among population subgroups and

among the states. The authors examine median amily

Family Finances

15 Susan E. Mayer, What Money Cant Buy: Family Income and Childrens Life Chances, Harvard University Press, 1997.16 Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Cheryl Hill Lee, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:

00, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2005.17 Gilded No More, The New York Times, April 27, 2007.


17/48

income, the proportion o children who live in poverty,

and the proportion who live in amilies where parent

employment is unstable.

While it is hard to disentangle the eects o income

rom other characteristics associated with social class,

it is clear that children rom poor amilies oten miss

out on many enriching extra-curricular activities that

their more auent peers participate in. For example,

only 20 percent o school-age children in amilies with

poverty incomes take lessons o some sort, compared to

31 percent o children in amilies at or above the poverty

line. And only 23 percent o children in poor amilies

belong to clubs, compared to 36 percent o children

whose amilies are at or above the poverty line.18

Median Family Income

Large dierences exist across states and population

subgroups on any measure o income. Here we ocus

on the median income o amilies with children under

age 18 in the household, and show the variations

across states and among racial/ethnic groups. Table 1

shows the 2005 median income or amilies with and

without children, by racial/ethnic groups.

Table 1Median Family Income for Families

With and Without Children, 2005

Total

Income

With

Children

No

Children

All $56,194 $55,176 $57,258

White, not Hispanic 63,156 66,235 60,979

Black 35,464 31,705 42,079

Asian American 68,957 70,292 67,087

Hispanic 37,867 36,403 41,276

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2006 Annual Social and EconomicSupplement (http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032006/aminc/new03_000.htm).

As Table 1 shows, there are large income dierences

among racial/ethnic groups. On average, Asian-

American amilies have the highest incomes and Black

amilies have the lowest. The table also shows that

amilies with no children have slightly higher incomes,

on average, then those with children. There are two

noticeable exceptions, however. White and Asian-

American amilies with children have higher incomes

than White and Asian-American amilies with no

18 Dye and Johnson, 2007.

Connecticut

Massachusetts

Virginia

Delaware

Colorado

Vermont

Pennsylvania

Iowa

North Dakota

Kansas

Georgia

Oregon

North Carolina

Tennessee

Montana

Oklahoma

New Mexico

76,26

76,120

74,669

72,279

70,403

65,162

64,414

63,083

62,488

61,708

60,393

60,230

58,416

58,348

57,009

56,799

56,680

56,462

56,362

56,291

55,018

54,992

53,722

53,543

53,323

52,744

51,988

51,745

51,705

51,356

51,269

51,077

50,966

49,934

49,126

47,406

46,486

46,320

46,124

45,897

45,274

45,081

44,815

43,316

43,094

42,311

41,12040,598

39,275

37,433

36,274

20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Thousands of Dollars

New Jersey

Maryland

New Hampshire

Minnesota

Alaska

Hawaii

Illinois

Rhode Island

Wisconsin

Michigan

New York

Washington

California

Nebraska

Wyoming

Ohio

Indiana

Utah

Maine

Nevada

South Dakota

Missouri

Florida

Arizona

Idaho

South Carolina

Kentucky

Texas

Louisiana

Alabama

ArkansasWest Virginia

Mississippi

D.C.

Figure 7Median Annual Family Income for Families With

Children, by State, 2005

Source: Income data are rom U.S. Census Bureau and the 2005 American CommunitySurvey.


18/48

children. The opposite is true or Black and Hispanic

amilies: Those with children have lower average

incomes than their counterparts with no children.

Large dierences also show up across the states, as

Figure 7 shows. Connecticut, New Hampshire, New

Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts all have median

annual amily incomes over $70,000, contrasting

sharply with the median incomes in Mississippi and

Washington, D.C., which are about hal that o the

aorementioned states.

Children Living in Poverty

As Figure 8 shows, dierences exist in poverty rates

among amilies o dierent racial/ethnic groups. In

2005, 11 percent o White children under the age o18 were living in poverty, as were 13 percent o Asian/

Pacifc Islander children. Those percentages increase

to 29 percent o Hispanic/Latino children, and to

about one-third o American Indian/Alaskan Native

and Black children.

Poverty is also spread unevenly around the country,

as Figure 9 shows. While 9 percent o children in New

Hampshire were living in poverty in 2005, 31 percent

o Mississippi children were living in poverty.

Black

Hispanic/Latino

U.S.

Asian/Pacic Islander

White

0 10 20 30 40 50

36

32

29

19

13

11

American Indian/

Alaskan Native

Percentage

Figure 8Percentage of Children in Poverty,

by Racial/Ethnic Group, 2005

Source: Poverty data are rom the American Community Survey, reported in Kids CountState-Level Data Online (www.aec.org/kidscount).

Figure 9Percentage of Children in Poverty, by State, 2005

Source: Poverty data are rom the American Community Survey, reported in Kids CountState-Level Data Online (www.aec.org/kidscount).

0 10 20 30 40

9

11

11

11

12

12

12

13

13

13

14

14

14

14

14

15

15

15

1515

15

16

17

17

17

18

18

18

18

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

21

21

22

23

23

2525252626

2831

New Hampshire

Wyoming

New Jersey

Virginia

Iowa

Alaska

Nevada

Illinois

Pennsylvania

Oregon

California

New York

Arizona

North Carolina

Oklahoma

Arkansas

West Virginia

MarylandUtah

Connecticut

Minnesota

Hawaii

North Dakota

Colorado

Delaware

Massachusetts

Wisconsin

Kansas

Nebraska

Vermont

Washington

Indiana

Maine

Florida

Idaho

South Dakota

U.S.

Michigan

Missouri

Ohio

Rhode Island

Georgia

Montana

Tennessee

Kentucky

South Carolina

Alabama

Texas

New Mexico

Louisiana

Mississippi

Percentage


19/48

Food Insecurity

Despite the existence o ederal ood aid programs,

many U.S. amilies are unable to adequately eed

everybody in the amily. According to the U.S.Department o Agriculture, 11 percent o U.S.

households (12.6 million amilies) were classifed as

ood insecure at some time during 2005. This means

that these households, at some time during the year,

were uncertain o having, or unable to acquire, enough

ood to meet the needs o all household members

because they had insufcient money or lacked other

ood resources.

Good nutrition is vital or developing minds

and bodies. Researchers using the Early Childhood

Longitudinal StudyKindergarten Cohort toinvestigate the relationship o ood insecurity to

achievement ound that kindergartners rom less ood-

secure homes scored lower at the beginning o the

kindergarten year than other children, and learned less

over the course o the school year.19

Figure 10 shows the percentage o households who

were ood insecure in 2005 by demographic groups.

The 11 percent average masks the disadvantages

experienced by certain population subgroups.

For example, nearly one-third o emale-headed

households were ood insecure at some time during

2005, triple the rate or married-couple amilies. The

rate or Black households, at 22 percent, was nearly

triple the rate o White households. In addition, nearly

one-fth o Hispanic households were ood insecure.

The government urther breaks down the ood

security statistics on households having low ood

security (households able to obtain enough ood by

using various coping strategies) and very low ood

security (households in which normal eating patterns

were disrupted and ood intake was reduced due to

insufcient money or other resources). In 2005,

7 percent o U.S. households were classifed as lowood security, and 4 percent were classifed as very

low ood security. Again, it is important to remember

that this combined 11 percent represents 12.6 million

households.20

Parent Employment

As one would expect, amilies with low incomes will

typically be those that have had less success in the

job market. O course, income can come rom other

sources, and or those most in need, a substantial

portion will come rom the saety-net programs,

such as ood stamps, unemployment insurance, and

welare. Beyond providing a steady income, parents

who maintain steady employment also model socially

responsible behavior or children to ollow.

Figure 11 shows the percentage o children who

live in amilies where no parent has ull-time, year-

round employment, broken out by racial/ethnic group.

Overall, these percentages are high, and or some

groups the rates are alarming. While 27 percent o

19 Joshua Winicki and Kyle Jemison, Food Insecurity and Hunger in the Kindergarten Classroom: Its Eect on Learning and Growth,Contemporary Economic Policy, Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2003, pp. 145157.

20 U.S. Department o Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Food Security in the United States: Conditions and Trends (www.ers.usda.gov/Brieing/FoodSecurity/trends.htm).

All households

Black

Hispanic

Other

White

0 10 20 30 40

Female head, no spouse

Other household with child**

Male head, no spouse

With children under age 6

With children under age 18

Married couple families

11

31

19

18

17

16

10

22

18

10

8

Percentage

Household composition:

Race/ethnicity:

Figure 10Prevalence of Food Insecurity by Household

Characteristics, 2005*

* Food insecurity is defned as households, at some time during the year, that were uncer-tain o having, or unable to acquire, enough ood to meet the needs o all their membersbecause they had insufcient money or other resources or ood.** Households with children in complex living arrangements, e.g., children o other relativesor unrelated roommate or boarder.

Source: Data calculated by the Economic Research Service using data rom the December2005 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement.


20/48

declining. But while national debates about income

inequality become polarized, local pragmatic measures

may resonate at the community level measures

that could help ameliorate the negative eects oinadequate amily income. These measures could

ocus on specifc identifable needs and conditions that

are clearly involved in school achievement reaching

out beyond instruction in the classroom (in the

tradition o the school lunch and breakast programs

that recognize that hungry children cant learn and

that nutrition is a actor in cognitive development).

School systems and communities could develop

systematic strategies to identiy needs that can

inuence learning, and set about meeting those needs

aided possibly by higher levels o government. Howabout providing ree books to impoverished amilies,

or health exams along with necessary medical, dental,

and vision care or conditions that aect achievement?

Perhaps schools could provide students with their own

study spaces (with desks, computers, reerence books,

paper, and pencils) and oer ater-school evening

meals. A canvass across the nation would disclose a

variety o approaches that are now being used to help

children. The programs and services already instituted

in schools throughout the country oer a rich source

o inormation and experience.22

But let us not orget the services already available

that many amilies dont take advantage o. For

example, Medicaid now covers many childrens health

needs, but many o the parents who qualiy or the

program havent enrolled their children. A frst and

very productive step toward helping amilies support

and acilitate their childrens academic success would

be to educate parents about the programs and services

available to help, and encouraging their use.

White children live in amilies where neither

parent has ull-time year-round employment,

hal o American Indian/Alaskan Native and

Black children and one-third o Hispanic childrenare in this situation.

Employment trends also vary signifcantly romstate to state. Iowa, Nebraska, and Utah have the

lowest percentage (26 percent) o children living in

amilies where no parent has ull-time, year-round

employment. At the opposite end o the scale, on

average, 43 percent o children in Mississippi live in

such a amily. 21

Taken together, the measures presented here paint

a bleak picture o amily resources or many o the

nations amilies and the children in their care.

While education and public policy generally give

strong support to improving student learning and

reducing achievement gaps, the task o greatly raising

the income oor or reducing economic inequality

throughout the nation has not been addressed.

Income inequality is growing in the United States, not

Figure 11Percentage of Children in Families Where No

Parent Has Full-Time, Year-Round Employment,

by Racial/Ethnic Group, 2005

Source: Employment data rom the American Community Survey, reported in Kids CountState-Level Data Online (www.aec.org/kidscount).

Black

Hispanic/Latino

U.S.

Asian/Pacic Islander

White

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

51

50

39

33

32

27

American Indian/

Alaskan Native

Percentage

21 State employment data are rom the American Community Survey reported inKids Count State-Level Data Online (www.aec.org/kidscount)

22 A central source o inormation is the Coalition o Community Schools at the Institute or Educational Leadership.


21/48

We now have a good assessment o the achievement o

young children when they frst enter the school system,

thanks to the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.

Known as the ECLS-K, the study was conductedby the U.S. Department o Educations National

Center or Education Statistics and began with the

kindergarten class o 199899. Educators have long

had inormation about student achievement beginning

at the ourth grade, through the National Assessment

o Educational Progress (NAEP). What hasnt been

known is: (1) how much o the achievement gap that

is observed among dierent groups o students at the

ourth grade already existed when these students were

entering kindergarten, and (2) what are the actors

that might be responsible or the early learning gaps?

Many elements in the home environment inuence

cognitive development and learning. With ECLS-K

we can now determine how large the achievement

dierences are in reading and mathematics among

students o dierent racial/ethnic groups and with

dierent levels o amily socioeconomic status (SES)

at the point o entry into ormal schooling. Figure

12 shows the reading and mathematics scores o

beginning kindergartners in the all o 1998, by racial/

ethnic groups. The data show substantial dierences

in childrens reading and mathematics test scores asthey begin kindergarten. Average mathematics scores

are 21 percent lower or Black children than or White

children. Hispanic childrens scores are 19 percent

lower than the scores o White children. Similar

dierences also exist in reading.

Early Language Acquisition

While there have been many studies about what

happens in the early years o lie and how early

experiences aect cognition and language acquisition,

none has been as thorough as the work by Betty Hart

and Todd Risley, who studied childrens language

development rom birth through age 3. These

researchers recorded and monitored many aspects

o parent-child interactions and noted the childrens

progress. They ound that in vocabulary, language, and

interaction styles, children mimic their parents.

Hart and Risley observed that in working-class

amilies, about hal o all eedback was afrmative

among amily members when the children were 13 to

18 months old; similarly, about hal the eedback given

by the child at 35 to 36 months was afrmative. That

is, when the parents spoke in an afrmative mannerto a child, the child imitated this tone in talking to

siblings and parents. An afrmative tone was slightly

more prevalent among proessional parents, and their

children shared this.

Conversely, in amilies on welare, verbal

interactions with the children were much more likely

to be negative and, in turn, the same was true o the

interactions o the child with the rest o the amily.

In the amilies on welare, the researchers generally

ound a poverty o experience being transmitted

across generations. One example o the researchersfndings related to language exchanges is illustrated

in Figure 13, which shows the estimated number

o words addressed to the children over 36 months,

with the trends extrapolated through 48 months.

The dierences were huge among the proessional,

working-class, and welare amilies. This research

indicates that, by the end o our years, the average

child in a proessional amily hears about 20 million

Literacy Development in Young Children

Figure 12Reading and Mathematics Achievement at the

Beginning of Kindergarten, by Racial/Ethnic Group

Source: Valerie E. Lee and David T. Burkam, Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Back-ground Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School , Washington, D.C.: EconomicPolicy Institute, 2002.

Asian

White

Other

Hispanic

Black

Asian

WhiteBlack

Other

Hispanic

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

22.2

21

17.4

17.1

16.5

25.7

23.219.9

19.9

19.5

IRT Scaled Test Score

Mathematics

Reading


22/48

0

more words than children in working-class amilies

hear, and about 35 million more than the children in

welare amilies hear.23

Reading to Young Children

Child Trends, a nonproft, nonpartisan research

organization dedicated to improving the lives o

children, sums up seven research papers, reports,

and books, and cites 19 researchers to build an

overwhelming case or the value o reading to children:

Children develop literacy-related skills long beore

they are able to read. By reading aloud to their

young children, parents can help them acquire the

prerequisite skills they will need to learn to read

in school. Being read to has been identifed as a

source o childrens early literacy development,

including knowledge o the alphabet, print, and

characteristics o written language.

By the age o two, children who are read

to regularly display greater language

comprehension, larger vocabularies and

higher cognitive skills than their peers.Shared parent-child book reading during

childrens preschool years leads to higher

reading achievement in elementary school,

as well as greater enthusiasm or reading

and learning. In addition, being read to aids

in the socioemotional development o young

children and gives them the skills to become

independent readers and to transition rom

inancy to toddlerhood.24

Reading to children is about the simplest thing

that can be done to help them achieve, and it isa critical step in raising achievement and closing

achievement gaps. For this reason, i or no other,

teaching non-reading parents to read needs to be a

high priority or communities, states, and the nation

as a key element o an education policy or children.

Making sure all amilies have access to books and

other suitable reading materials or their children

must also become a key part o this policy. Library

bookmobiles in poor areas, or example, could become

as ubiquitous as the once-amous Good Humor man.

There is, o course, a considerable amount o

reading going on in the American amily, although it is

clear that the amount and quality varies considerably.

For example, ECLS-K ound a strong relationship

between a kindergartners SES and the extent to which

their parents read to them. As Figure 14 shows, at the

highest SES quartile, 62 percent o parents reported

reading to their children every day, compared to only

36 percent o parents at the lowest SES quartile. These

are very large dierences.25, 26

Trend data displayed in Table 2 also show that, in

2005, 60 percent o parents o 3- to 5-year-old children

who had not yet entered kindergarten read to theirchildren every day. In 1993, only 53 percent did so. How

much parent-to-child reading goes on in amilies varies

a lot, depending on racial/ethnic group, SES, and amily

23 Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, Paul R. Brookes PublishingCo., 1995.

24 http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/indicators/5ReadingtoYoungChildren.cm25 In statistical terms, this is a dierence o about one-hal o a standard deviation.26 SES is measured rom a scale that relects the education, income, and occupations o kindergartners parents or guardians.

Figure 13Estimated Cumulative Differences in Language

Experience by 4 Years of Age

* Projected rom 36 to 48 months.Source: Hart and Risley, 1995.

0 12 24 36 48*

0

10

20

30

40

50

Age of Child in Months

EstimatedCumulative

WordsAddressedtoChild

(inmillions)

Professional

family

Working-class

family

Welfare family


23/48

structure variables. For example, in 2005, children in

poor amilies were less likely to have a parent read to

them regularly than children in more auent amilies.

And while 68 percent o White and 66 percent o Asian-American 3- to 5-year-olds were read to every day, the

percentage drops to 50 percent or Black children and

45 percent or Hispanic children.

Family characteristics also have an important

inuence on learning and school success. As might be

expected, children in a two-parent amily were more

likely to be read to than children in a single-parent

amily (63 percent vs. 53 percent). There was also a

strong relationship between mothers educational level

and the requency o reading to the child. Seventy-

two percent o children whose mothers were college

Figure 14Percentage of Kindergartners Whose Parents

Read to Them Every Day, by Socioeconomic Status

Source: Richard J. Coley,An Uneven Start: Indicators of Inequality in School Readiness,Policy Inormation Report, Policy Inormation Center, Educational Testing Service, March2002.

Highest SES

Lowest SES

25 35 45 55 65 75

62

46

41

39

36

Percentage

Quintiles

1993 1995 1996 1999 2001 2005Total 53% 58% 57% 54% 58% 60%

Gender

Male 51 57 56 52 55 59

Female 54 59 57 55 61 62

Race and Hispanic Origin

White, Non-Hispanic 59 65 64 61 64 68

Black, Non-Hispanic 39 43 44 41 47 50

Hispanic28 37 38 39 33 42 45

Asian American 46 37 62 54 51 66

Poverty Status29

Below 100% poverty 44 47 47 39 48 50100-199% poverty 49 56 52 51 52 60

200% poverty andabove 61 65 66 62 64 65

Family Type

Two parents30 55 61 61 58 61 62

Two parents, married - - - - 61 63

Two parents,unmarried - - - - 57 50

One parent 46 49 46 42 47 53

No parents 46 52 48 51 53 64

Mothers Highest Level ofEducational Attainment31

Less than highschool graduate 37 40 37 39 41 41

High schoolgraduate/GED 48 48 49 45 49 55

Vocational/technicalor some college 57 64 62 53 60 60

College graduate 71 76 77 71 73 72

MothersEmployment Status32

Worked 35 hoursor more per week 52 55 54 49 55 57

Worked less than35 hours per week 56 63 59 56 63 61

Looking or work 44 46 53 47 54 63Not in labor orce 55 60 59 60 58 65

Table 2Percentage of Children Ages 3 to 5 Who Were

Read to Every Day in the Past Week by a Family

Member, Selected Years, 1993-200527

Source: Reproduced rom the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics,Americas Children: Key Indicators of National Well-Being, 2006, Federal Interagency Forumon Child and Family Statistics, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Ofce, TableED1. Based on National Household Education Survey analysis.

27 Estimates are based on children who have yet to enter kindergarten.28 Persons o Hispanic origin may be o any race.29 Poverty estimates or 1993 are not comparable to later years because respondents were not asked exact household income.30 Reers to adults relationship to child and does not indicate marital status.31 Children without mothers in the home are not included in estimates dealing with mothers education or mothers employment status.32 Unemployed mothers are not shown separately but are included in the total.


24/48

graduates were read to daily, compared to 55 percent

o children whose mothers were high school graduates

or who had obtained a GED, and 41 percent o children

whose mothers had not completed high school.

There is also considerable variation among the

states, as can be seen in Figure 15, which shows the

percentage o parents who read to their children,

under age 5, every day. The low was Mississippi at 38

percent, and the high was Vermont at 68 percent; the

national average was 48 percent.

Source: Data on reading to children are rom Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Ini-tiative, National Survey of Childrens Health, Data Resource Center on Child and AdolescentHealth, 2005.

Figure 15Percentage of Children Who Were Read to Every

Day in the Past Week, 2003

Vermont

Connecticut

Pennsylvania

Hawaii

Rhode Island

Iowa

Maryland

Montana

North Carolina

New York

North Dakota

Missouri

South Dakota

Oklahoma

California

Florida

Nevada

Mississippi

30 40 50 60 70

68

64

61

58

58

57

57

56

56

55

54

54

54

53

53

53

52

51

51

51

51

51

51

50

50

49

49

48

48

48

47

47

47

47

47

47

47

47

46

46

46

45

45

44

43

43

43

43

43

42

41

38

Maine

New Hampshire

Massachusetts

Minnesota

Colorado

Oregon

West Virginia

Washington

Wyoming

Delaware

Kentucky

Virginia

Michigan

Ohio

Kansas

Alaska

Nebraska

Idaho

Indiana

U.S.

South CarolinaIllinois

D.C.

New Jersey

Utah

Wisconsin

Oregon

Tennessee

Arkansas

Arizona

New Mexico

Alabama

Texas

Louisiana

Percentage


25/48

Parents are childrens most important teachers during

their frst fve years o lie. But parents are ar rom

being childrens only teachers: A large proportion o

children are in the hands o child care providers or alarge amount o time. These providers constitute the

larger amily in which children are raised. It stands to

reason, then, that improving the availability o high-

quality child care will improve student learning and

reduce inequality.

Research supports this assertion and is clearly

summed up in the Annie E. Casey Foundation 00

Kids Count essay:

A large body o research underscores how

quality child care enables young children

to build the cognitive and social skills thatwill help them learn, build positive social

relationships and experience academic success

once they enter school.33

This ETS Policy Inormation Report has drawn

heavily rom the 00 Kids Count essay, and the essay

is an excellent synthesis o what is known and being

done to improve child care.

The Head Start program provides the most

consistent model o quality child care available in the

United States today. But or a variety o reasons, Head

Start and similar high-quality child care programsarent available to many amilies. Until quality child

care programs are accessible to all amilies, parents

will continue to rely on amily members, riends, and

neighbors to care or their children. O 15.5 million U.S.

children in child care today, some 6.5 million (almost

42 percent) are in home-based settings. And 2.5 million

o these children come rom amilies whose incomes

are below 200 percent o the poverty line. Although

Black amilies are the most likely to use home-based

care arrangements, White amilies use them as well.

Hispanic amilies are more likely to use parental care,

but when they go outside the home or child care, they

turn to amily members, riends, or neighbors or child

care rather than center-based care.34

Parents use amily, riend, and neighbor care or

reasons having to do with cost and inability to fnd

transportation to child care centers. Many parents

work shits that dont correspond to the hours childcare centers are available. Others choose this type

o care as a matter o preerence based on issues o

trust, personal comort, culture, and preerences or a

homelike environment. Says the Casey Foundation:

This orm o child care has been used or

generations and will, undoubtedly, be an

important resource or years to come. For the

oreseeable uture, it will represent the most

common type o child care or low-income

children under age six whose parents are

working, especially those in entry-level jobswith non-traditional schedules.35

A Look at Day Care for the Nations 2-Year-Olds

A longitudinal survey o children has recently released

inormation on the child care arrangements or the

nations 2-year-olds. The Early Childhood Longitudinal

Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), sponsored by the

U.S. Department o Educations National Center or

33 Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2006Kids Count Essay, 2006, (http://www.aec.org/upload/PublicationFiles/2006_databook_essay.pd).34 Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2006.35 Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2006.

Figure 16

Regular Nonparental Care at About 2 Years of Age,by Primary Type of Care, 2003-04

No regular care50.5%

Relative care18.8%

Nonrelative care14.9%

Center-based care15.8%

Source: Gail M. Mulligan and Kristin Denton Flanagan,Age 2: Findings from the 2-Year-OldFollow-Up of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), U.S. Depart-ment o Education, National Center or Education Statistics, August 2006.

The Child Care Dimension


26/48

early learning center, preschool), and about 15 percent

had home-based nonrelative care (nanny, neighbor,

regular sitter).

As Figure 17 shows, there are dierences among

racial/ethnic groups. Black children were the mostlikely to be in nonparental care at age 2. Sixty-three

percent o Black children were in nonparental care,

compared to a little over 40 percent o Asian and

Hispanic children, and about hal o White children

and children classifed as other.

Figure 17Percentage of Children (at About Age 2) in

Regular Nonparental Care, by Type of Care

and Racial/Ethnic Group, 2003-04

Other includes Native Hawaiian, Other Pacifc Islander, American Indian or Alaskan Native,and multiracial children.Source: Gail M. Mulligan and Kristin Denton Flanagan,Age 2: Findings from the 2-Year-OldFollow-Up of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), U.S. Depart-ment o Education, NCES, August 2006.

Black

Other

White

Asian

Hispanic

Black

Asian

Hispanic

Other

White

White

Other

Black

Hispanic

Asian

Black

Other

White

Hispanic

Asian

0 20 40 60 80

63

51

49

44

43

26

24

21

19

15

17

13

12

12

11

24

18

17

9

9

Percentage

In regular nonparental arrangement

In relative care

In nonrelative care

In center-based care

Education Statistics (NCES), provides inormation

on childrens development, health, and in- and out-o-

school experiences in the years leading up to school.36

Type of Day Care. These data, drawn rom ECLS-

B, describe the nonparental care arrangements o the

nations 2-year-olds, and provide an assessment o the

quality o that care.

Figure 16 shows that about hal o all two-year-

family - am smallest sch 10-2007

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