CEP Recommendations

From the Center on Education Policy study, February 2010 (link):

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Principle 5—Out-of-school influences: Consider broader social factors that affect students’ achievement and readiness for school.

Disadvantaged children as a group start school with an achievement gap. As they progress through the grades, their achievement continues to be shaped by social factors outside formal schooling, such as poverty, health and nutrition, parental education and involvement, access to high-quality child care and preschool, and availability of community resources for learning. Although ample research has corroborated the link between achievement and these other factors, federal policies hold elementary and secondary schools accountable for raising achievement and narrowing gaps with little attention to social factors.

As discussed in recommendation 10, federal efforts to promote educational equity and improve learning for all students must pay more attention to early childhood education, particularly for disadvantaged children, as well as to after-school, summer , and family educational programs. In addition, the federal role in education should be considered in the context of national efforts to address health care, economic and job security , and other social problems. If fashioned correctly and carried out well, a reformed health care system, for example, could improve student achievement by making children healthier and more ready to learn. Programs to reduce poverty and create good jobs could also help narrow achievement gaps because family income is one of the strongest predictors of students’ test scores.
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h/t John Thompson