|
|
|
The views expressed on this page are
solely
those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the views of County
News Online
|
|
Khan Lab School
Education Dive
Study shows declines in new kindergartners' math skills
Linda Jacobson
June 10, 2020
Dive Brief:
Between 2010 and 2017, there was a decline in new kindergartners’
academic skills, particularly in math — a finding that could be linked
to the impact of the 2007-2008 recession, according to the authors of a
new study published in the journal Educational Researcher. “It is
likely that the timing of the Great Recession had some impact on
children’s early home environments for some cohorts more than others,”
they wrote.
But changing demographics, such as an increase in children with
non-English-speaking parents, and the implementation of the Common Core
standards could also be to blame, they suggested.
The study, however, also includes a positive trend: Black-white and
Hispanic-white achievement gaps declined during that time period — even
when taking school poverty into consideration. This is a continuation
of the same pattern seen between 1998 and 2010.
Dive Insight:
The analysis, led by researchers at NWEA, a nonprofit assessment
organization, and Margaret Burchinal at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, covers a large sample — over 2 million
kindergartners. The study is only descriptive and doesn’t answer why
any of these trends occurred. The sample is also not random or
nationally representative because it’s made up of schools that use NWEA
assessments.
Another limitation is the size and diversity of the sample increased
significantly over time, so it’s hard to compare children in the
earlier cohort to those in the later years.
But the findings still raise questions about the effects of the
previous recession on young children’s preparation for school at a time
when states are headed into another economic crisis and some have
already pulled back on plans to increase spending on early-childhood
education.
The National Institute for Early Education Research's annual State
Preschool Yearbook provides a historical view of how publicly funded
early learning programs took a hit during the Great Recession.
“Preschool spending declined, quality standards slipped and teacher pay
was cut,” W. Steven Barnett, NIEER founder and senior co-director, said
in April with the release of the most recent yearbook, adding the same
thing could happen again.
The new NWEA study’s authors note that between 2010 and 2014,
children’s skills in math and reading were stable, but they began to
drop off between 2014 and 2017, especially in math. That could be
because children entering school in those later years were born during
the recession and its aftermath. They also draw a connection to trends
seen in 4th-graders' performance on the National Assessment of
Educational Progress — small gains in math between 2011 and 2013 and
declines between 2015 and 2017. NAEP data also shows sharper drop offs
for lower-performing students.
Other researchers have also attributed those achievement declines to the economy.
“With parents jobless, stressed out and struggling to make ends meet,
it’s not hard to imagine that the little ones would get less care and
attention in all the ways that we know matter to their cognitive and
social development,” Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B.
Fordham Institute, wrote last fall. He references work by Kirabo
Jackson, a professor at Northwestern University who wrote that cuts in
per-student spending and declines in NAEP scores followed similar
patterns.
|
|
|
|
