The Early Education Gap

Affirmative action is a decisive topic, a topic that one of us is even doing for their civic issues blog. Affirmative action, as per the National Conference of State Legislatures, is a collection of policies in which an "organization actively engages in efforts to improve opportunities for historical excluded groups in American society." But why do we even need these policies in the first place? One part of the answer lies in the existence of 'achievement gaps'. These gaps are the continuous discrepancy in education performance between groups of people, groups that may be defined by socioeconomic status, race, and gender. For example, take this graph, which shows the achievement gap (in mathematics performance) between 13 year old caucasians and 13 year old african americans.

Achievement Gap between Caucasians and African-Americans in Mathematics at age 13.
Image Courtesy of US Dept. of Education

The gaps can be seen with all minorities, as well as between high and low income groups in all areas of learning (mathematics, reading, science, etc.). In order to best address the crisis and fill the gap, we have to address the root cause of the problem. To fix a leaky roof you patch the hole, you don't put a bucket under it and pat yourself on the back. That is, on some level, what affirmative action is doing. However, there is still much debate on what exactly the root cause of the problem is. And before we can address what it is, first one must find when it happens. Paul Morgan, associate professor of education, has analyzed data from the first large-scale, nationally representative study of children going through kindergarten and middle school, in order to try to find when the gap begins, as well as identify what may contribute to it.

Morgan's study found that the achievement gap in science begins before children even enter kindergarten, which was earlier than was previously supposed. Further, he found that these gaps can lead to increasing gaps by the end of the first grade. These gaps ended up being good predictors of science performance and the science achievement gaps from third to eighth grade. Which means that the discrepancies in knowledge that children came into kindergarten with are affecting them through the rest of their education.

Morgan then identified some of the factors that influenced the appearance of this information disparity, including information opportunities to learn about science and the natural world. Luckily, most of these factors are modifiable, and with enough effort we can reduce this achievement gap can be reduced. And reducing this gap should be something policy makers should be incredibly concerned about in order to keep America competitive scientifically.

If you'd like to read more about their study, you can read the full publication here.