Most of the schools in the United States are Middle-class public schools. They educate most of the kids in our country. However, teachers are paid low salaries, have too many kids in their classrooms and are given very little money to work with. A report: “Incomplete: How Middle-Class Schools Aren’t Making the Grade,” states that middle-class schools are not educating our kids very well at all. The report compared national and international test scores and found that 28% of middle-class graduates earn a college degree by age 26, compared to 17% for lower-income students and 47% for upper-income students.
The data for the report, commissioned by Third Way, is from the US Census Bureau, the US Department of Education, and national and international testing programs. The report doesn’t include parochial or private-school students. They looked at the rate of job opportunities and found that almost 2/3 of future jobs will require at least some college or university education. This puts half of middle-class educated kids at risk for not finding a job.
“Middle-class schools produce students who are the backbone of the U.S. economy, and they are not performing as well as parents, policy makers and taxpayers think they are,” said Tess Stovall, deputy director of Third Way’s economic program and co-author of the report. “We need a second phase of education reform to ensure these schools get the attention they deserve.”
Many programs to make education better are aimed at low-income schools and these programs hardley address middle-class schools. A middle-class school is defined as one where between 26% and 75% of students are poor enough to receive free or reduced-price federal lunch.
Students in low-income schools are making progress in their test scores at a much better rate than middle and upper-class schools.
- Middle-class schools educate 25.7 million, or 53%, of all public-school students, and more than half of all white and African-American students, 50% of Hispanic students and 45% of Asians, according to the report.
- One of the most surprising findings of the study was that middle-class school teachers are making less money than upper or lower-class teachers. The average salary of teachers in middle-class schools is $48,432, compared with $54,035 for upper-income schools and $50,035 for lower-income schools.
- Less than a third of students who attend middle-class schools score proficient on national 4th- and 8th-grade reading and 8th-grade math exams. About 36% are proficient in 4th-grade math.
- In upper-income schools, more than half the students are proficient on the 4th- and 8th-grade reading and 4th-grade math, while 46% are proficient in 8th-grade reading. In low-income schools, less than 20% of students are proficient on all of those exams.
Some people have claimed they are homeschooling because the system is broken and they are getting out before it dumbs down their kids. Others are looking to private and religious schools for a better education. The big question is this: How do we fix a broken and declining educational system? What do you think? How do you feel about the education your kids are receiving?
