This December, after four months and 11 public hearings, the Education Reform Commission — some of New York's smartest education policy experts — will submit preliminary recommendations to Gov. Andrew Cuomo on how to improve student success. Those recommendations must include strategies for closing the "achievement gap."
That phrase is a euphemism for the uncomfortable fact that poor children, regardless of race, tend to struggle in school and, consequently, in life. While it's unrealistic to suggest that we can fix poverty, we do know how to address the educational deficiencies poverty creates. Fixing this achievement gap at its source must be the priority of any education reform measure undertaken by the state.
Brain science and child development research support one unassailable conclusion: The gap arises in the first five years of life, when the brain is growing dramatically and craves stimulation and nurturing. Too many poor children receive too little of either. As a result, the disparity in their ability to learn is fixed before they ever set foot in a classroom. And, worse, that disparity will only increase over time.
One rather simple solution is to mandate and fully fund universal pre-kindergarten. Data show that participation in pre-K is a significant predictor of readiness, and results are demonstrably better for children starting at age 3 than those starting at age 4. The Harlem Children's Zone begins even earlier, working with parents before children are born and preparing kids to be ready for school before they even arrive.
Similarly, in upstate New York, we have developed another proven program for eliminating the gap. The Chemung County School Readiness Project began in 2006 as a collaboration between the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and Chemung County, with critical support from County Executive Tom Santulli, all three county school districts, the health community and several social service and human service agencies.
Our strategy relies on coordinating existing services and resources that were historically delivered in isolation — resulting in an impact that is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Every mother of a newborn is visited in the hospital and later at home by an SRP nurse who assists in helping them locate, access and navigate important community resources and enhancing their parenting skills. We make sure every family is working with a pediatrician to protect the child's health and development. Literacy development is emphasized at every stage.
The results have been electrifying. According to research by the Center for Human Services Research at the University at Albany, since the program's inception, the percentage of students who were school ready at kindergarten rose from 47.5 percent in 2007 to 68.6 percent in 2011 — an increase of nearly 50 percent in just five years. Dr. Kenneth Robin, who led the study, said the results he measured were "a remarkable finding, one of the more remarkable that I've seen."
Regardless of the strategy, achieving those goals will cost money — but no more than what we already spend on less effective interventions. New York taxpayers pour more than $100 million into K-12 remediation every year. Many of the students who do not drop out — and more than 40 percent do — will exit 12th grade with eighth-grade skills. As a consequence, SUNY and CUNY community colleges jointly spend another $100 million on remediation, and with lackluster results. SRP is comparatively cost effective — $400 per child in Chemung County — since it is largely funded by revenue streams that already exist.
Whatever direction public education reform goes, it must be replicable and allow for local variability. Unlike the hotly debated issues of achievement tests and teacher evaluations, these solutions also carry the promise of significant reductions in expenditures on remediation, Medicaid and incarceration, among others. Most importantly, by closing the achievement gap, we give every child a fighting chance at success.
The writer is a former chancellor of the New York state Board of Regents and former chairman of the SUNY board of trustees.
