That standardized test scores can accurately predict whether
a student will attend college, be gainfully employed, and be successful in life
have become the bulwark of educational policy in this country. How kids “measure up” on tests are linked not
only to teacher performance evaluations, but also to determinations of whether
or not a school is considered successful or a failure under No Child Left Behind.
But standardized tests don’t tell the whole story about a student. In fact, some researchers now argue that
a student’s grades are better predictors of overall success in life than
standardized scores. Those seemingly
intangible factors which keep a student in school and persevering—resilience,
self-control, and grit–may be far more important in the long run than
short-term mastery of course content.
James Heckman, a Nobel
prize-winning economist, started the discussion when he compared how students
who earned a GED fared in life compared with students who earned regular high
school diplomas. Presumably the two
groups would have comparable college graduation rates, salary earnings, and
career and marriage stability. As an
economist, Heckman was intrigued by the idea that a traditional four-year high
school education could be taught in a 32-hour GED course. Not surprisingly, on every measure in which
the two groups were compared, students who graduated high school did far better
than students with GEDs, who performed only marginally better than high school
drop outs. Clearly, passing the GED test
wasn’t an accurate reflection of future success in life. Something was being missed.
Those clusters of skills that keep
students in high school or help them earn better grades have been labeled by
economists as non-cognitive skills, by psychologists as personality traits, and
by neuroscientists as executive function. And scientists believe that
unlike innate traits like intelligence, which are measured by IQ tests and
generally remain a static number, these non-cognitive skills can be taught. The
implications for teaching these skills can be huge. In particular, Paul Tough,
the author of How Children Succeed,
suggests that mastery of these skills can counteract the effects of poverty for
some students.
We are all familiar with the
so-called achievement gap, where children raised in poverty overall do poorly
in school or on standardized tests.
Chaotic home lives and dysfunctional families create high stress for these
kids as can be measured by their increased levels of cortisol or adrenaline
(they are in a perpetual fight or flight response). And functional brain scans demonstrate
that children who have been abused or
who live in great stress have measurably smaller pre-frontal cortexes–the site
in the brain associated with self-control, certain types of reasoning and
memory, attention, and executive function—all skills necessary to be successful
in school. Basically, it’s not the lack
of resources in a child’s home which dictate that he will do poorly in
school—it’s his levels of stress as he grapples with uncertainty and
disorder. One University of Virginia law
school professor has gone so far as to argue that federal education law
should be changed to reflect that poverty is disabling to a child.
So how can these non-cognitive skills can be taught in a
classroom? The National Center for
Education Research studied a variety of school-based character development
programs from the 1980s and 1990s and found that they were largely ineffective
in changing students’ social and emotional competence, behaviors, and academic
performance. Paul Tough acknowledges
that we lack ideal models for teaching these traits and that some of the ones
he feels are most effective are not-school based and instead rely on coaches or
mentors. Additionally, Mr. Tough argues
that some of this work needs to occur at a very young age, even before the
child starts school.
A report from the University of Chicago Consortium on
Chicago School Research titled, “Teaching Adolescents to Become
Learners: The Role of Noncognitive
Factors in Shaping School Performance,” examines the literature in an effort to
determine in a scientific fashion how teachers can help teens to develop non-cognitive
skills, namely; academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets,
learning strategies and social skills.
The report ultimately outlines five key learning strategies: study skills, metacognitive strategies,
self-regulated learning time management, and goal-setting. How these non-cognitive factors interact with
one another, the context (school and classroom) in which they can be developed,
and what the critical “levers” are to improving grades are all considered. Ultimately, teachers need guidance an how to
translate the research into practice within the classroom.
Not every child raised in poverty is doomed to remain in
poverty, but the cards are stacked heavily against the child. But this new research and theories offer new
hope for these children. According to a broadcast this past September on This American Life, from which most
of the information in this blog comes, 87% of students in the Chicago public
schools are low-income. Very few of
these students can realistically aspire to getting a college degree because the
reality is that only 8% Chicago high school freshman will go on to receive a
four-year college degree. But by
teaching these non-cognitive skills, as James Heckman said, we have the
potential to shape human capability, not just provide financial handouts. Teachers can’t cure poverty, but perhaps they
will have additional tools in their efforts to effect change in the lives of
their lower-income students. The work of
Mr. Tough, Mr. Heckman, and others may prove very important in this
effort.