A randomized controlled study in a Chicago high school has found that disadvantaged students, performing below grade level academically, show improvement on test scores after participating in a two-part program that provides them with:
- Match Tutoring: intensive individualized academic remediation
- Youth Guidance: social-cognitive counseling based on cognitive behavioral therapy
Many education reformers and policymakers were starting to throw in the towel on poor high school kids who fell behind in their school work, thinking it would cost too much money to bring them up to speed in class with methods like individualized tutoring. People contributing money to school reform efforts were instead turning their attention to vocationally oriented programs for these students or to early childhood education programs that stood a better chance of keeping poor kids at grade level on standardized tests.
“So many people now are convinced that results like this aren’t possible at all for disadvantaged teens,” the New York Times quoted Jens Ludwig, the co-director of the University of Chicago Urban Education Lab and lead researcher on the project, as saying. “More and more people are of the view that you’ve got to reach poor kids by age 6, or it’s too late and the effects of entrenched poverty are already too profound.”
But this study rebuts that opinion to some extent: ways exist that are not very expensive to invest in individualized tutoring and social counseling and actually improve scores for poor black kids who have fallen behind.
The research is published as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, which means it has not been reviewed by other scientists or accepted for publication in a scientific journal. But in all likelihood, that’s just a matter of time, since the quest for raising the academic achievement of kids who live in poverty is near the top of many reformers’ agendas.
The study sample consisted of 106 male ninth and 10th graders in a public high school on the south side of Chicago, Harper High School. About 95 percent of the participants were black, and 99 percent were eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
While I’m pleased that this study provides hope and a rationale, based on good research, for not giving up on poor students, I’m also disappointed that it relies so much on test scores.
But improvement in test scores is what people with money notice. So, in a pragmatic sort of approach, let’s hope people realize that a lot of times, kids in these situations don’t have people in their lives who are good role models for either academic or social skills. The kids need to develop both—and more—and programs like this, if they can successfully provide what kids need, are sure to have a positive effect on more than test scores.
