average child in a welfare family — a child often alone with a mother who is a high-school dropout.‖ (George Will, ―For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life,‖ August 29, 2010.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082703805.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
The columnist again cites the ETS report on overcoming the achievement gap, relating families to this issue: ―It is very hard to imagine progress resuming in reducing the education attainment and achievement gap without turning these family trends around — i.e., increasing marriage rates, and getting fathers back into the business of nurturing children.‖ (George Will, ―For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life,‖ August 29, 2010.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082703805.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
He ends his column by pointing out the observation of ETS researchers Barton and Coley in their work America‟s Smallest School: The Family. Will indicated their assessment ―. . . that about 90 percent of the difference in schools‘ proficiencies can be explained by five factors: the number of days students are absent from school, the number of hours students spend watching television, the number of pages read for homework, the quantity and quality of reading material in the students‘ homes — and, much the most important, the presence of two parents in the home.‖ (George Will, ―For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life,‖ August 29, 2010.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082703805.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
Is George Will correct that a student‘s chances in life are all but determined by the family into which he or she was born? (George Will, ―For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life,‖ August 29, 2010.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082703805.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
Chapter 3: Research on learning in early childhood ―Ferguson also noted that the gap develops rapidly as young minority students approach kindergarten. Though there is ‗not much of a gap‘ around the first birthday, a divergence in test scores is already apparent by age three, he said.‖--Ronald F. Ferguson, director of Harvard‘s Achievement Gap Initiative, quoted in Rediet T. Abebe, ―Panel Discusses Education Gap,‖ The Harvard Crimson, February 24, 2011. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/2/24/gap-
achievement-ferguson-students/#
Some indicate the odds begin stacking in a child‘s first years. Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children‘s Defense Fund, put it this way: 109