Economic inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem

10-12-2011

Opinion by Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane/Chicago Tribune

Greg J. Duncan is an education professor at the University of California at Irvine. Richard J. Murnane is a professor of education and society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

America's urban public schools are in trouble: Student test scores are low and dropout rates are high. Recent remedies proposed include everything from reducing the power of teachers unions and opening more charter schools to ending test-based accountability. But what if education critics are focused on the wrong problem? Implicit in these very different proposals is the assumption that urban schools are failing because they are run badly, and that the solution lies in improving their management. Over the last five years, we have been involved in a wide-ranging research project that provides compelling evidence to the contrary. Our findings show that the root of the problems facing urban schools can be found in gradual but extremely powerful changes in the nation's economy — not the least of which is the increasingly unequal distribution of family incomes. Policies that address the consequences of these changes, which recent poverty figures show have worsened, are more likely to improve the life chances of the children from low-income families. (more...)

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