POLICY INFORMATION REPORT AMERICA’S SMALLEST SCHOOL · financial capital or human Introduction There is an intuitive level America’s smallest school. the school that has the the

POLICY INFORMATION CENTEREducational Testing Service

Princeton, New Jersey 08541-0001

POLICY INFORMATION REPORT

THE FAMILY

AMERICA’SSMALLEST SCHOOL:

®

Policy Information Reports arepublished by the ETS PolicyInformation Center, EducationalTesting Service, Princeton, NJ08541-0001; (609) 734-5694.

Copyright © 1992 by EducationalTesting Service. All rightsreserved. Educational TestingService is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Educational Testing Service,ETS, and are registeredtrademarks of EducationalTesting Service.

CONTENTS

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Parent-Pupil Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Home Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Reading at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Watching Television . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Absence From School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Parent Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Family Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Appendix Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Publications List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

This report was written byPaul E. Barton and RichardJ. Coley of the ETS PolicyInformation Center.

1

Preface

A national commitment tocreate conditions thatfoster educationalachievement would reflecta real seriousness ofpurpose. No less than thatwill be required to reachthe ambitious goals set bythe President and thegovernors for the year2000. These conditionsinclude, most importantly,what takes place inschool rooms, but alsowhat takes place in thecommunity, in the neigh-borhood, and in the fam-ily. This report addressesthe family as our smallestschool, using the availableresearch and indicators toportray its condition as aneducational institution.

Paul E. BartonDirectorPolicy Information Center

Acknowledgments

This report was reviewedby Eugene Johnson,Nancy Mead, and HowardWainer of EducationalTesting Service. Externalreviewers were James S.Coleman of the Universityof Chicago and JohnRalph of the NationalCenter for EducationStatistics. Dave Freund,Jim Rosso, and JoeStewart provided dataanalysis. Carla Cooperprovided desktop publish-ing, Shilpi Niyogi did theediting, and Ric Brucewas the designer.

2

n The Parent-PupilRatioIf parents are a criticalfactor in children’sdevelopment, thenwhether children haveone parent or two athome should make adifference (of course,the “ratio” depends onthe number of childrenas well). In fact, stu-dents with two parentsin the home scoreconsiderably higher onachievement tests thanthose with one parent;the difference narrowsconsiderably butremains after takingaccount of the fact thatsingle-parent families,on average, have lowerincome and lesseducation.

One in five childrennow lives in a single-parent family (17percent of White, 54percent of Black, and28 percent of Hispanicchildren), more thandouble the proportionin 1965. The proportionvaries widely amongthe states, and this isrelated to variation inachievement.

n The Home LibraryThe number of readingmaterials in the homehas declined over thelast two decades. In theassessments of theNational Assessment ofEducational Progress(NAEP), achievement inschool is consistentlyrelated to the number

of reading materials inthe home. States wherehomes have morereading materialsgenerally have higheraverage proficiency.The U.S. ranks rela-tively high among 14other countries in thepercentage of studentshaving 25 or morebooks in the home.

n Reading at Home

Students are readingbooks, newspapers,and magazines a bitless in 1990 than in1984, and they do lessreading for fun as theygrow older. They spend12 times as much timewatching television asthey do outside read-ing, and the quantity ofreading is associatedwith achievement. Theamount students readper day varies consider-ably among the states.Thirteen-year-olds inthe U.S. do less readingfor fun than their peersin 11 other countriesstudied in 1991.

n Watching Television

The Advisory Panel onthe Scholastic AptitudeTest Score Declinesounded an alarmabout television watch-ing in 1977: “By age 16most children havespent 10,000 to 15,000hours watching televi-sion, more time thanthey have spent inschool.” By 1990, theywere watching consid-

erably more. There is aclose associationbetween the amount oftelevision watched andacademic proficiency.Among the states, therange for eighthgraders in watching sixor more hours each dayis from 33 percent inDistrict of Columbia to6 percent in NorthDakota; among 15countries in 1991, theUnited States wassecond from the top inthe percentage of 13-year-olds students whowatch long hours oftelevision.

n Homework

The amount of home-work students do haschanged little since1984, the amountstudents do variesconsiderably among thestates, and the UnitedStates ranks relativelylow among 15 coun-tries in the amount ofhomework done.

Increasing theamount of homeworkstudents do was anobjective of the educa-tion reform movementof the 1980s, led by arecommendation of theNational Commissionon Excellence inEducation in 1983. For17-year-olds, profi-ciency rises with theamount of homeworkperformed. However,the relationship is lessclear at earlier ages;students doing less well

Highlights

It is common knowledgethat education, like char-ity, begins at home, andthat the family is theprimary institution forsocialization. But whenwe talk about educationreform and ambitious newgoals for educationalachievement, we fre-quently overlook thecritical role that the familymust play in order toachieve these goals.

To control for thestrong effects of familyand identify other causesof differences in educa-tional achievement, socialscience has long used“socioeconomic status,” astatistical representationof family backgroundfactors. The ColemanReport of 1965 found thatmost differences in theeducational achievementof students could beattributed to these familybackground factors, mea-sured by parents’ educa-tion, family income, andparents’ occupation. Noneof these factors, however,are direct measures of thequantity and quality ofinteractions betweenparents, the home envi-ronment, and children.Recently, though, researchhas attempted to pen-etrate these gross indica-tors to identify the criticalinteractions. Further,much more informationfrom national studies isbecoming available, pro-viding a clearer view ofthe home as an educationenvironment.

3

in school may takelonger to finish home-work or may beassigned more by theirteachers.

n Absence from School

Getting students toschool is a sharedresponsibility of stu-dents and parents. Afifth of eighth gradestudents are absentthree or more days amonth, as are over athird of Black studentsand a fourth of His-panic students. Anotherone in eight are tardythree or more days in amonth, and almost onein 10 cut class at leastsometimes. Days absentfrom school is thelowest in North Dakota,where student achieve-ment is the highest.

n Parent InvolvementMost parents talk totheir eighth gradechildren about theirschool experiences, butmuch less so abouttheir future plans. Themajority have rulesabout TV watching andabout homework, andthree in four have rulesabout maintaining agrade average. Howliberal these rules are,and how they areenforced, is unknown.Three in 10 belong toParent Teacher Associa-tions. One in threecontact the schoolabout their child’sacademic program.

Researchers find paren-tal involvement ofthese kinds to berelated to schoolachievement.

n Family Resources

Trends in resourcesavailable to families toraise children are notfavorable to educa-tional improvement.Family income hasstagnated for the lasttwo decades, andwould have declined ifmore and more moth-ers had not gone towork. More children —one in five — are inpoverty than twodecades ago; one ineight are on welfare.

n Leadership, Goals,and Achievement

● National educationalgoals for the year2000 will be difficultto attain withouteducational reformin the home as wellas the school.

● State-by-state andcountry-by-countryrankings can focusattention on thehome environment,as well as onachievement andwhat goes on inschools.

● To leap forward inachievement, achange must occurin the pervasiveattitude of Americansociety — and thischange must begin

with the family.● Policies that deal

with familyresources, welfaredependency, andpoverty among chil-dren are also educa-tional policies to theextent that theymake the home abetter school.

4

goals, “outcome mea-sures” for schools,national educational stan-dards, and nationalexaminations of students.

Commenting on thefamily and communityaspect of the America2000 strategy, HaroldHowe II, a former U.S.Commissioner of Educa-tion, stated: “We mustconsider the effects onchildren of their livesoutside of school —which, this documentrecognizes, occupy 91percent of their time; andwe must do it throughnational and local initia-tives.” Recognition of thefamily and communityrole clearly exists — thequestion is what to do,and with what priority.

This recognition hasbeen evolving in theeducation profession andin the research commu-nity, a recognition towhich an increasing num-ber of individuals havecontributed and commit-ted their energies. Socialand education researchmade “family back-ground” a key ingredientin explaining relation-ships, and in attributingresults to a particularintervention or policy. Itbecame standard decadesago to measure the“socioeconomic status” offamilies, based on parentincome, occupation, andeducation (the shorthandbecame “SES”). This iswhat “family background”usually means in researchreports, and educationalachievement is strongly

related to it; the higherthe SES, the higher theachievement.

However, SES is usednot to see how these“background factors”might be improved, but tocontrol for them in orderto identify what otherfactors make a differencein achievement, usuallyaspects of what happensin schools. This is quitelegitimate and useful inresearch and evaluation.We do have a wide distri-bution of family income,occupational status, andparental education, andresearch has clearly estab-lished that these areclosely related to the widedistribution we also havein the educationalachievement of students.These effects have to befactored out if we are toidentify other effects.

Yet the questionremains — what are thecauses behind these largeeffects of “family back-ground” on studentachievement. What thefather or mother does atwork all day is hardly thecause. And measuring theparents’ level of educationsays nothing about howthey are using it to helptheir children. We need toget behind these mea-sures of convenience todetermine what occurs inthe home that promotesstudent learning. Thennational and local leaders,educators, and mostimportantly parents them-selves can work forimprovement. This reportlooks upon the home as

we would a school, andasks: How can educationbe improved?

In the scholarly com-munity, James S.Coleman, a sociologist atthe University of Chicago,has given this mattermore systematic attentionthan anyone else (it wasColeman, et al., in the1966 report, Equality ofEducational Opportunity,who established thestrong role that familybackground played instudent achievement,relative to variations inthe measures used of thequality of schools).

As we strive to reachambitious goals in educa-tion for the year 2000, thefamily seems to be play-ing a smaller role in edu-cational improvement.Time was when the fatherand the mother bothworked in and around thehome and productivepursuits of farming orrunning a grocery storewere learned in thenormal course of growingup in the home. But nowthe father works outsidethe home, and increas-ingly so does a mother.Coleman gives it historicalperspective:

“Over a long period of time — almosttwo centuries — society has come tobe transformed from a set of commu-nities where families were the centralbuilding blocks to a social system inwhich the central organizations arebusiness firms, and families are atthe periphery.”

According to Coleman,we need to build “socialcapital” the way we buildfinancial capital or human

Introduction

There is an intuitive levelat which most of us rec-ognize that the basicsocializing and nurturinginstitution is the family —America’s smallest school.When we take the time tothink about it, it is com-mon sense that the loveand attention babies andchildren receive, thesecurity they feel, theencouragement they getto learn, the intellectualrichness of their homeenvironment, and theattention given to theirhealth are all critical inthe development of chil-dren who are able andmotivated to learn. Thereis the old saying, “it is asplain as the nose on yourface.” It is also frequentlythe case, however, thatwhen something is soplain and obvious, weoften overlook it.

Even though publicofficials, PTA speakers,educators, and ministersoften tell us how impor-tant a role the familyplays, this message doesnot translate to a nationalresolve to improve thefamily as an educationinstitution. In PresidentBush’s education addresslast April he said we must“cultivate communitieswhere children canlearn... Not just in theschool but in the neigh-borhood. Not just in theclassroom, but in thehome.” The America 2000plan says a lot aboutfamily and community.But the visible action andleadership is on theschool front — national

5

capital. He defines it asfollows:

“Social capital in the family that isavailable to aid children’s learning isnot merely the presence of adults inthe household, but the attention andinvolvement of adults in children’slearning. . . The amount of socialcapital provided by adults in thehousehold may vary widely withoutvariation in their physical presence.”

At the University ofChicago, Coleman has leda team of researchers toidentify the kinds of par-ent involvement with theirchildren, and with theirchildren’s schools, thatmake a difference. Thishas been carried out withan extensive analysis of asurvey of a nationalsample of parents ofeighth grade students inthe National EducationalLongitudinal Study of1988, in which the aca-demic skills of studentswere assessed. Some ofthe results from this effortare included in thisreport. These researchefforts are the beginningof important inquiry intofactors in “home educa-tion” that are related tostudent learning, andfrom which we can learnmore about how parentscan make a greater differ-ence, and how they mightbe helped to do so.

Nothing said here aboutthe importance of school-ing in the home is meantto detract from nationalefforts to improve school-ing in the classroom. It isthe school that has theformal responsibility foreducation. But the schoolsare working with a very

large handicap when theyhave to make up for whatcould happen in thefamily. We can viewstrong education in thehome as a platform fromwhich the schools canbring students to highlevels of achievement; thehigher this platform israised, the higher schoolscan raise achievement.

This volume assemblesthe measures that areavailable of what happensoutside school and withinthe purview of the homethat is related to educa-tional achievement. Whileit assembles most of whatwe believe is availablefrom large scale surveysand measurement pro-grams, it cannot be thesum total of what weshould be watching ormeasuring in the homewe are calling school. Ifwe become serious aboutimproving America’ssmallest schools, we willwant to be betterinformed about what kindof schooling makes adifference. We wish tohelp provide a focus onthe family as school thatwill encourage greaterresolve to do more.

There are those thingsthat are within the pur-view of the family tochange, and there are alsofamily conditions that arealso dependent on publicpolicy and programs forchange, conditions thatcreate the educationalenvironment of the home.This report also addressestrends in family resources,poverty, dependency, and

the presence of two par-ents in the home.

There are eight sectionsto this report. In eachsection, a set of indica-tors, graphs, or tables areprovided on the righthand page, and a narra-tive is provided on theleft hand page, togetherwith the sources used. Atthe top of each right handpage is a brief summaryof what the indicators,graphs, or tables say. Asummary is provided atthe end of the report.The eight sections are asfollows:

● The Parent-Pupil Ratio

● The Home Library

● Reading at Home

● Watching Television

● Homework

● Absence from School

● Parent Involvement

● Family Resources

6

National

THE PARENT-PUPIL RATIO

In schools, we ask how many teachers are avail-able to teach, and what the ratio is of teachers tostudents. If children also learn from their parents,then it should matter whether they have two orone to learn from.

It is reasonably well known that, on average,students from two-parent families perform betterin school than those with one parent. This can beseen in Figure 1 where students at all three gradelevels who have two parents have the highestNAEP math proficiency, on average.

It is also known that one-parent families havelower incomes, on average, than those with twoparents, partially because there is just one earnerand partially because they are typically headed bywomen who tend to have lower earnings and lesseducation. These factors combined mean thatsingle-parent families are more likely to be of lowsocioeconomic status, which is linked to lowerschool performance. An analysis by Seh-Ahn Lee,using the 1988 National Educational LongitudinalSurvey, found that lower performance on stan-dardized tests for children in mother-only familiesis largely due to the greater disadvantage of thesefamilies. And after controlling for other factors,the difference still existed, although muchreduced.1 However, parental involvement in theeducation affairs of the child makes a differencein these mother-only families, as it does inmother-father families.

While data are not available to measure it, thepresence of other relatives in the home, such asgrandparents, can also make a difference.

As shown in Table 1, about one in five childrenunder age 18 live in single-parent families. Thishas doubled since 1965, and the trend is inexora-bly upward, as can be seen in Figure 2. Morethan half of Black children live in single-parentfamilies, as do 28 percent of Hispanic children(See Table 2).

These trends in the parent-pupil ratio do not bodewell for educational improvement.

1Seh-Ahn Lee, “FamilyStructure Effects onStudent Outcomes,” inResources and Actions:Parents, Their Childrenand Schools, NORC/University of Chicago,August 1991, Chapter 3,p. 1.

In Figure 1, mathematics proficiencyis reported on a scale of 0-500.

Source for Figure 1: Ina V.S.Mullis and others, The STATEof Mathematics Achievement:NAEP’s 1990 Assessment of theNation and the TrialAssessment of the States.Prepared by EducationalTesting Service under contractwith the U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, June 1991.

Source for Table 1:Jerry West, Kenneth A.Rasinski, and Eric Camburn,Parental Involvement inEducation: PreliminaryFindings from the NELS:88Base Year Parent Survey,paper presented at the annualmeeting of the AmericanEducational ResearchAssociation, April 1990.

Source for Table 2 and Figure2: U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, YouthIndicators, 1991: Trends in theWell-Being of American Youth,April 1991.

Data for Figure 2 are providedin Appendix Table 1.

7

Mother/Father

Mother/Male Guardian

Father/Female Guardian

Other Two Adult Family

Single Mother/Female Guardian

Single Father/Male Guardian

65%

12%

3%

1%

17%

2%

White

Black

Hispanic

17%

54%

28%

’65 ’70 ’75 ’80 ’85 ’88 ’895

10

15

20

25Percentage of Children

Figure 1: Number of Parents Living in the Home and Math Proficiency, 1990

Table 1: Family Composition of EighthGrade Students, 1988

Figure 2: Trends in Children under Age 18 Living in Single-Parent Families

Table 2: Children in Single-ParentFamilies, by Race/Ethnicity, 1989

185 195 205 215 225 235 245 255 265 275 270 280 290 300 310

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

Both Parents

Single Parent

Neither Parent

219

207

197

270

257

240

300

288

283

81%

19%

Students Living with Both Parents Tend to Have Higher Average Math Proficiency.The Percentage of Children Living with a Single Parent Has More

Than Doubled Since 1965.About One in Six White Children, One in Four Hispanic Children

and One in Two Black Children Live with One Parent.

NAEP Math Proficiency NAEP Math Proficiency NAEP Math Proficiency

8

THE PARENT-PUPIL RATIO

In Wyoming, North Dakota, and Nebraska, 85percent of eighth grade students live in two-parent families. In the District of Columbia, lessthan half do so. Among the states, Louisiana andGeorgia are at the bottom with 73 percentof children living in two-parent families (SeeFigure 3).

As can be seen in Figure 3, there is a fairly closerelationship between the percentage of eighthgraders in two-parent families and average math-ematics proficiency. In statistical terms, the corre-lation is .74. It is .76 when standardized for parenteducation and is .79 when weighted also toreflect the number of students in the state.

State-by-State




Figure 3, like several others in thisreport, is presented for two reasons.The first is to display state variation ineducation conditions in the home thatis displayed on the left side of thechart. The second purpose is to see therelationship of these conditions toNAEP math proficiency (the variabledisplayed on the right side of thechart). These variables are related toone another to the extent that stateshigh on one variable are high on theother. The line drawn on the graph onthe right side of the chart is intendedto help see this relationship. Theplacement of the line is derived fromordinary least squares regression ofthe ranking of the states on thevariable on the left hand side of thechart (1,2,3,...40) on the averageNAEP math proficiency.

9

50 60 70 80 90

220 230 240 250 260 270 280

WyomingNorth Dakota

NebraskaIdahoIowa

MontanaMinnesota

New HampshireWest Virginia

OregonWisconsin

GuamIndiana

PennsylvaniaConnecticutNew Jersey

OhioKentucky

Rhode IslandCalifornia

OklahomaVirginiaHawaii

ColoradoIllinois

MichiganNew Mexico

TexasArkansasNew YorkDelaware

FloridaArizona

AlabamaMaryland

North CarolinaGeorgia

LouisianaVirgin Islands

District of Columbia

Percentage of Children withBoth Parents at Home

Average NAEP Math Proficiency

Figure 3: Percentage of Eighth Graders with Both Parents Living at Home and NAEPMath Proficiency, 1990

The Percentage of Eighth Graders with Both Parents Living at Home Rangesfrom 85 Percent in Wyoming, North Dakota, and Nebraska to 47 Percent in the

District of Columbia.States Having a Larger Percentage of Students with Both Parents Living at Home

Tend to Have Higher Average NAEP Math Proficiencies.

10

National

THE HOME LIBRARY

The presence of books, encyclopedias, maga-zines, and newspapers in the home is both anindication of what a young person has availableto read and of the importance assigned to readingby the parents. Beyond the value attached tohaving these materials, the availability of theresources to purchase them is also a factor.

For two decades the National Assessment ofEducational Progress (NAEP) has asked studentswhether they have access to newspapers, maga-zines, books, and encyclopedias at home. Havinga “home library” and proficiency in school sub-jects has been consistently related. This can beseen in Figure 4; at all three ages, the more typesof reading materials in the home, the higher theproficiency in reading.

Unfortunately, the trends in the availability ofthese reading materials in the home have notbeen in education’s favor. Between 1971 and 1990there was a substantial decline in the averagenumber of types of reading materials, as can beseen in Figure 5. Additionally, among 9-year-oldstudents, the percentage reporting all four typesof reading materials declined from 39 percent to29 percent, among 13-year-olds from 58 percentto 47 percent, and among 17-year-olds from 67percent to 55 percent.

On an international basis, the American home isrelatively well supplied with books. Among 15countries, the United States ranked sixth in thepercentage of 13-year-old students with 25 ormore books in the home (See Table 3).

In Figure 4, reading proficiency isreported on a scale of 0-500.

International

The international data that areprovided here and throughout thisreport are for comprehensivepopulations—those countries thatincluded in the assessment virtuallyall age-eligible children within adefined group, even if the group waslimited to a specific geographic areaor certain language groups. Theselimitations include the following.Participants included only Hebrew-speaking schools in Israel, only theprovince of Emilia-Romagna in Italy,only Russian-speaking schools in 14out of 15 republics in the SovietUnion, only Spanish-speaking schoolsin all regions except Cataluna inSpain, and 15 out of 26 cantons inSwitzerland.

Source for Figure 4 and Figure5: Ina V.S. Mullis and others,Trends in Academic Progress.Prepared by EducationalTesting Service under contractwith the U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, November1991.

Source for Table 3: Archie E.Lapointe, Nancy A. Mead, andJanice M. Askew, LearningMathematics. InternationalAssessment of EducationalProgress, Educational TestingService, February 1992.


11

Table 3: Percentage of 13-Year-Olds with 25 or More Books in the Home, 1991

0-2 3 4

200

220

240

260

280

300

Number of Types of Reading Materials in the Home

NAEP Reading Score

Age 17

Age 13

Age 9

The More Types of Reading Materials in the Home, the Higher StudentsScore in Reading.

The Number of Reading Materials in the Home Has Declined in the Last Two DecadesAmong 15 Countries, the U.S. Family Has More Books in the Home Than

Families of 13-Year-Olds in Nine Countries.

.

Figure 4: The Home Library and Reading Proficiency, 1990

9085-8980-8475-7970-7465-6960-6455-5950-5445-49

Hungary, Israel, Soviet UnionCanadaSlovenia, Spain, Switzerland,Emilia-Romagna (Italy), France, Ireland, KoreaScotlandTaiwan

Jordan

Age 9 Age 13 Age 172.6

2.8

3

3.2

3.4

3.61971

1990

Figure 5: Trends in the Number of Types of Reading Materials in the HomeAverage Number of Types ofReading Materials in Home

United States

12

State-by-State

THE HOME LIBRARY

In North Dakota, in 1990, among families ofeighth grade students, 90 percent had three ormore types of reading materials in the home.North Dakota students also had the highest aver-age proficiency in mathematics on the 1990 NAEP.Guam was at the bottom with 64 percent and wasalso among the lowest in average achievement(See Figure 6).

There is a high correlation between the amount ofreading materials in the home and average NAEPmath proficiency, as can be seen in Figure 6. Instatistical terms it is .75, and drops slightly to .71when math scores are standardized by level ofparents’ education. When population size of eachstate is also accounted for, the correlation dropsslightly to .68.




13

60 65 70 75 80 85 90 220 230 240 250 260 270 280

Average NAEP Math ProficiencyPercentage of Students with Three or MoreTypes of Reading Materials in Home

Figure 6: Percentage of Eighth Graders with Three or More Types of ReadingMaterials in the Home and NAEP Math Proficiency

The Percentage of Eighth Graders with Three or More Types of Reading Materialsin the Home Ranges from 90 Percent in North Dakota to 64 Percent in Guam.

States Whose Students Have More Reading Materials Tend to HaveHigher Average NAEP Math Proficiencies.

North DakotaIowa

New HampshireNebraskaMontana

MinnesotaPennsylvania

WyomingWisconsin

Connecticut

ColoradoIndiana

MichiganNew Jersey

IdahoMarylandDelaware

VirginiaIllinois

OregonWest Virginia

GeorgiaRhode Island

New YorkOklahoma

AlabamaKentucky

North CarolinaArkansas

District of ColumbiaLouisiana

Virgin IslandsArizonaFlorida

New MexicoTexasHawaii

Ohio

CaliforniaGuam

14

National

READING AT HOME

The National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP) has established in its assessments thatstudents who read a lot also score higher in read-ing. Beyond what students read at school, NAEPhas, since 1984, measured what students read athome — the frequency of reading books, news-papers, and magazines, and the frequency ofreading for fun.

In the 1990 assessment of reading, 13-year-oldstudents who read at home daily scored higherthan those who did so weekly, who, in turn,scored higher than those reading less frequently.The same was true at age 17 (See Figure 7). How-ever, just 9 percent of 9-year-olds, 18 percent of13-year-olds, and 24 percent of 17-year-olds readbooks, newspapers, or magazines on a dailybasis. At age 17, one in four read only on amonthly or yearly basis (See Figure 8).

The frequency of reading slipped a bit from 1984to 1990, as can be seen in Figure 8.

The extent of “reading for fun” declines as stu-dents get older. At age 9, 54 percent did so on adaily basis; by age 13, 35 percent did so, declin-ing to 31 percent at age 17 (See Figure 9). Asschools attempt to open up the world of reading,students turn to it less as a leisure pursuit. Thispresents a significant obstacle to their continuingdevelopment.

Encouraging outside reading is in the purview ofthe family school-house as well as in the schooland is a pursuit that can make a substantial contri-bution to reading proficiency. As is seen on page16, students who read a lot tend to score higherin other academic subjects as well.

The National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS)of 1988 also measured the amount of outsidereading of eighth-graders, and makes a strikingcomparison to TV watching:

Average Hours Per WeekOutside Reading TV Watching

Total 1.8 21.4Sex

Male 1.5 22.3Female 2.1 21.2

Race/EthnicityAsian & Pacific Islander 1.9 21.4Hispanic 1.6 22.6Black 1.6 27.6White 1.9 20.8Native American 1.7 23.3

The Profile of the American Eighth Grader, National Center for EducationStatistics, June, 1990.

These students spend, on average, 12 times asmany hours watching TV as they do reading(Black students spend 17 times; White students,11 times).

Source for Figure 7, 8, and 9:Ina V.S. Mullis and others,Trends in Academic Progress.Prepared by EducationalTesting Service under contractwith the U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, November1991.


15

220 260

Never/Yearly/

Weekly

Daily

Monthly

1984

1990

1984

1990

1984

1990

10 30 50 70 10 30 50 70 10 30 50 70

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Yearly

Never

0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50

Percent of Students Percent of Students Percent of Students

Percentage of Students Percentage of Students Percentage of Students

Age 13 Age 17

Age 9 Age 13 Age 17

Age 9 Age 13 Age 17

Figure 9: Frequency of Reading for Fun, 1990

Figure 8: Trends in the Frequency of Reading Books, Newspapers, and Magazines

Figure 7: Frequency of Reading in the Home and NAEP Reading Proficiency, 1990

240

258

263

270

290

297

59%

66%

31%

25%

11%

9%

30%

32%

49%

51%

21%

18%

20%

24%

53%

52%

27%

24%

54%

25%

6%

4%

12%

35%

32%

13%

9%

11%

31%

31%

16%

12%

10%

220 260 300 300

Yearly/Monthly

Weekly

Daily

NAEP Reading ProficiencyNAEP Reading Proficiency

Students Who Do More Reading in the Home Are Better Readers.However, They Do Less Reading for Fun As They Get Older,and They Read Fewer Books, Newspapers, and Magazines

in 1990 Than in 1984.

Percentage of Students Percentage of Students Percentage of Students

16

State-by-State


READING AT HOME

The number of pages students read each day forschool and homework varies considerably amongthe states. This question was asked of eighthgrade students in the 1990 state-by-state assess-ment of mathematics by NAEP. In Idaho, 48 per-cent of the students questionned read 10 or morepages a day, ranging down to 28 percent inArkansas, 24 percent in the District of Columbia,and 23 percent in the Virgin Islands (See Figure10).

Figure 10 also shows the average proficiency inmathematics for each state. In general, proficiencytends to be higher in states where students domore reading, although there are some states thatdo not follow this pattern. In statistical terms, thecorrelation is .72 and is virtually unchanged afterstandardizing proficiency scores for parent educa-tion. After adjusting for population size too, how-ever, the correlation drops to .23.


Data for Figure 10 areprovided in Appendix Table 2.

17

20 25 30 35 40 45 50 220 230 240 250 260 270 280

IdahoMontana

ConnecticutIowa

WyomingIllinois

CaliforniaNebraska

OregonNew Jersey

North DakotaArizona

New HampshireNew Mexico

Rhode IslandColorado

WisconsinNorth Carolina

IndianaOklahoma

West VirginiaMinnesotaLouisianaKentucky

HawaiiGeorgia

OhioNew YorkMaryland

TexasAlabama

PennsylvaniaVirginia

GuamDelaware

Florida

MichiganArkansas

District of ColumbiaVirgin Islands

Percentage of Students ReadingMore Than 10 Pages Per Day


The Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Read More Than 10 Pages per DayRanges from 48 Percent in Idaho to 23 Percent in the Virgin Islands.States Whose Students Report More Reading Tend to Have Higher

Average NAEP Math Proficiencies.

Figure 10: Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Read More than 10 Pages per Dayand NAEP Math Proficiency, 1990

18

International

READING AT HOME

In 1990-91, Educational Testing Service conductedan international assessment of proficiency inscience and mathematics of 13-year-old students.Among 15 “comprehensive populations” assessed,the percentage of students who said they read forfun almost every day ranged from 51 percent inSwitzerland to 11 percent in Korea (See Figure11). The United States was twelfth from the top,at 28 percent.

In 12 of the 15 countries, the amount of leisurereading was positively related to proficiency. Itwas not in Switzerland, Israel, and Jordan.

Source for Figure 11: Archie E.Lapointe, Nancy A. Mead, andJanice M. Askew, LearningMathematics. InternationalAssessment of EducationalProgress, Educational TestingService, February 1992.

19

Switzerland

Soviet Union

Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Hungary

Slovenia

Ireland

France

Israel

Canada

Scotland

Spain

United States

Jordan

Taiwan

Korea

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

51%

47%

47%

44%

42%

41%

40%

40%

38%

38%

36%

28%

24%

19%

11%

Figure 11: Percentage of Students Who Read for Fun Almost Every Day, 1991

Percentage of Students

Among 15 Countries, the United States Was Twelfth in the Percentage of13-Year-Olds Who Read for Fun Almost Every Day.

The Highest Was Switzerland (51 Percent); the Lowest Was Korea (11 Percent).

20

National

WATCHING TELEVISION

In 1938, E.B. White said, “I believe television isgoing to be the test of the modern world and thatin this new opportunity to see beyond the rangeof our vision, we shall discover either a new andunbearable disturbance of the general peace or asaving radiance in the sky.” As far as students areconcerned, there is yet no sign of a savingradiance. Television does, however, radiate in theAmerican home. The Advisory Panel on theScholastic Aptitude Test Score Decline reportedin 1977:

By age 16 most children have spent10,000 to 15,000 hours watching televi-sion, more time than they have spent inschool. When they reach 1st grade, theirwatching time is between 20 and 35 hoursa week; this usually peaks at about age 12.The average time per child per dayincreased by about an hour between 1960and 1970.

Since then, time before the tube has continued toincrease, as can be seen in Figure 12. The per-centage of 13-year-old students watching three ormore hours each day jumped from 55 to 70 from1982 to 1990, and for 17-year-olds, from 31 per-cent to 50 percent from 1978 to 1990. In 1990,almost one in four 9-year-olds were watching sixhours or more each day.

NAEP consistently finds that students who watchlong hours of television have lower proficienciesin school, although such assessments do notestablish a causal relationship. For example,Figure 13 shows the results of the NAEP assess-ment of mathematics proficiency among 17-year-old students in 1990. The highest averageproficiencies were for those students who watchthe fewest hours of television.

About six in 10 parents of eighth grade studentssay they have rules about how much televisionthey allow their children to watch, and this doesnot vary much by socioeconomic status (SeeFigure 14). However, 17-year-old students watchwidely varying amounts of television, with halfwatching two hours or less each day, two out offive watching from three to five hours, and one in10 watching six hours or more.


Source for Figures 12 and 13:Ina V.S. Mullis and others,Trends in Academic Progress.Prepared by EducationalTesting Service under contractwith the U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, November1991.

Source for Figure 14: JerryWest, Kenneth A. Rasinski,and Eric Camburn, ParentalInvolvement in Education:Preliminary Findings from theNELS:88 Base Year ParentSurvey, paper presented at theannual meeting of theAmerican EducationalResearch Association, April1990.

21

Lower

Middle

High

Total

Socioeconomic Status64%

61%

62%

62%

1982

1990

1982

1990

1978

1990

55%

62%

55%

70%

31%

50%

0-2 Hours (51%)

3-5 Hours (41%)

6 or More Hours (9%)

312

300

287

Amount of TV WatchedPer Day

Figure 13: Amount of TV Watched per Day by 17-Year-Olds and NAEP Math

Age 9

Age 13

Age 17

Figure 12: Trends in the Percentage of Students Watching Three or More Hoursof TV per Day


Figure 14: Percentage of Families of Eighth Graders Who Have Rules about TVWatching on School Days, 1988

While the Majority of Families Have Rules for Watching Television,the Amount Students Watch Varies Greatly.

Those Who Watch a Lot Tend to Have Lower NAEP Math Proficiency,and Television Watching Is Increasing.

Proficiency, 1990

22

State-by-State


WATCHING TELEVISION

Excessive watching of television varies consider-ably among the states. The 1990 NAEP state-by-state assessment of mathematics proficiencyamong eighth grade students asked how muchtelevision students watched. In Montana andNorth Dakota, just 6 percent of students watchedtelevision six hours or more each day. In theDistrict of Columbia, one out of three did so (SeeFigure 15).

Figure 15 also shows the average mathematicsproficiency for eighth grade students in eachstate. In general, although not always, the higherthe percentage of students watching long hours oftelevision, the lower the math proficiency. Instatistical terms, the correlation is .87. When wecontrol for parent education, the correlationremains virtually unchanged. Further weightingthe data by population size reduces the correla-tion to .75.


Data for Figure 15 areprovided in Appendix Table 2.

23

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

220 230 240 250 260 270 280

District of Columbia

Virgin IslandsHawaii

North CarolinaArkansas

GuamFlorida

LouisianaMarylandDelawareAlabamaGeorgia

New York

VirginiaWest Virginia

TexasKentucky

IllinoisMichigan

OklahomaNew JerseyConnecticut

Rhode IslandArizona

CaliforniaIndiana

New MexicoOhio

PennsylvaniaNebraska

OregonColorado

WisconsinIowa

New HampshireWyoming

IdahoMinnesota

MontanaNorth Dakota

Percentage of Students Watching Six orMore Hours of TV per Day


Figure 15: Percentage of Eighth Graders Watching Six Hours or More of TVper Day and NAEP Math Proficiency, 1990

The Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Watch Six Hours of More of TV per DayRanges from 33 Percent in the District of Columbia to Six Percent in

Montana and North Dakota.States with Lower Percentages of Students Who Watch a Lot of TV

Tend to Have Higher Average NAEP Math Proficiencies.

24

International

WATCHING TELEVISION

In 1990-91, Educational Testing Service conductedan international assessment of proficiency inscience and mathematics of 13-year-old students.Among 15 “comprehensive populations” assessed,Scotland had the highest percentage of students—25 percent—who watched five hours or more oftelevision every day. The United States and Israelwere next, at 20 percent. The percentage rangeddown to a low of 4 percent for Slovenia (SeeFigure 16).

Among the 15 countries, the United States wassecond from the bottom in mathematics profi-ciency. Television watching was found to benegatively related to mathematics proficiency innine of the 15 countries, including the UnitedStates.


25

0 5 10 15 20 25

Scotland

United States

Israel

Soviet Union

Canada

Hungary

Korea

Taiwan

Spain

Ireland

Jordan

Switzerland


France

Slovenia


24%

20%

20%

17%

14%

13%

11%

10%

10%

9%

7%

7%

5%

5%

4%

Figure 16: Percentage of 13-Year-Old Students Who Watch Five Hours or Moreof TV Every Day, International Assessment of Educational Progress, 1991.

Among 15 Countries, the United States Was Second in the Percentage of13-Year-Old Students Who Watched Five Hours or More of TV Every Day.

The Highest Was Scotland (24 Percent); the Lowest Was Slovenia (4 Percent).

26

National

HOMEWORK

One of the recommendations of “A Nation AtRisk” was that homework requirements beincreased as a way of increasing student achieve-ment. While some do question whether increasingthe demands on students’ time outside the class-room will have any real effects on learning, otherspoint to nearly a century of research, much ofwhich concludes that homework helps studentslearn. Figure 17 provides some 1990 NAEP datafor 17-year-olds that show this relationship. Thesedata show that larger amounts of time spent onhomework are associated with higher readingproficiency. The average reading proficiency forstudents reporting more than two hours ofhomework each day was 307; students reportingless than one hour each day had an average scoreof 291.2

Given the importance of this variable, it is usefulto look at differences in time spent on homeworkacross groups of students. As seen in Figure 18,eighth grade boys do about as much homeworkas eighth grade girls — between five and sixhours a week. At the same grade level, on aver-age, Asian and Pacific Islander students report themost homework; Hispanic and American Indian/Native Alaskan students report the least.

According to data from NAEP, nearly one-third of9-year-olds and about one-fifth of 13- and 17-year-olds were not assigned any homework in1990, showing very little change since 1984. Mostof the students that are assigned homework do it.Among 9- and 13-year-olds, only about one in 20don’t do their assigned homework; for 17-year-olds, the percentage increases to 13 (this was theonly statistically significant increase over 1984).In 1990, 46 percent of 9-year-olds reported doingless than an hour of homework a day, 12 percentreported doing between one and two hours, and6 percent reported more than two hours of home-work a day. The 13- and 17-year-olds reporteddoing more. About one-quarter did between oneand two hours, and about 10 percent reporteddoing more than two hours a day.


2Other large data sets thatcorroborate the positiverelationship betweenhomework and achieve-ment at the national levelinclude High School andBeyond and the NationalEducation LongitudinalStudy of 1988. However,one of the difficulties withassessing the impact ofhomework based onaverages is the possibilitythat less proficient stu-dents are given morehomework as a way ofremediation or that lessproficient students maytake longer to complete anassignment than moreproficient students.

Source for Figure 17: Ina V.S.Mullis and others, Trends inAcademic Progress. Preparedby Educational Testing Serviceunder contract with the U.S.Department of Education,National Center for EducationStatistics, November 1991.

Source for Figure 18: U.S.Department of Education,National Center for EducationStatistics, A Profile of theAmerican Eighth Grader:Student Descriptive Summary.National EducationalLongitudinal Study of 1988,June 1990.

27

None Assigned

Didn’t Do Assigned

Less than 1 Hour

1-2 Hours

More than 2 Hours

260 280 300 320

Average NAEP Reading Proficiency

Homework

Total

Males

Females

Asian and

White

Black

Hispanic

American Indian and

4 5 6 7

Native Alaskan

Pacific Islander

Hours per Week

5.6

5.4

5.7

6.7

5.7

5.2

4.7

4.7

274

288

291

300

307

Figure 18: Average Hours of Homework per Week, Eighth Graders, 1988

Figure 17: Relationship between Homework and NAEP Reading Proficiency,17-Year-Olds, 1990

The Amount of Homework Done by Students Has Been Shownto Be Positively Related to Achievement.

On Average, Students Do between Five and Six Hours of Homework Each Week.Asian Students Do the Most; Hispanic and American Indian Students Do the Least.

28

State-by-State

HOMEWORK

In NAEP’s 1990 state-by-state mathematics assess-ment, eighth grade students were asked to indi-cate the amount of time they spent daily onhomework for all subjects. The largest percentageof students in each state reported spending onehour per day on homework. Figure 19 shows thevariation across states in the percent of studentswho do an hour or more of homework per day.The national average is 66 percent. In NewHampshire and Connecticut, more than threequarters of the eighth graders do at least an hourof homework; in Florida and Guam only 59percent of the students report doing that muchhomework.

Although homework and proficiency are relatedin the national data previously reported, thedifferences in hours of homework performedamong the states was only moderately related todifferences in proficiency (the correlation is .24,and remains basically unchanged when parenteducation is taken into account. When furtheradjusted for population, the correlation drops to.06. Within states there is little relationshipbetween student proficiency and the hours ofhomework performed.

The picture of the relationship between home-work and proficiency is less than clear. Whilethere is considerable agreement on the value ofhomework (although not all educators agree),differing situations of individual students getcombined in averages. Some students excelbecause they are diligent in doing their home-work, resulting in higher attainment. Some excel-lent students can do their homework quickly,while poorer students may be given more home-work to enable them to catch up or may simplytake more time to do their homework.


29

55 60 65 70 75 80

New HampshireConnecticutNew Jersey

New YorkIllinois

CaliforniaMaryland

District of ColumbiaVirginia

OhioLouisiana

Rhode IslandNorth Carolina

IndianaMontanaMichiganDelawareAlabamaColorado

IowaPennsylvania

OklahomaHawaii

New MexicoWisconsin

ArizonaNebraska

GeorgiaOregon

North DakotaWyomingKentucky

TexasMinnesota

West VirginiaArkansas

IdahoVirgin Islands

FloridaGuam


Figure 19: Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Do One Hour of Homework a Dayor More, 1990

77%

76%

74%

73%72%

71%

70%

69%

68%

67%

66%

65%

64%

62%

61%

59%

The Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Do at Least One Hour of Homework a DayRanges from 77 Percent in New Hampshire and Connecticut

to 59 Percent in Florida and Guam.Nationally, Two-Thirds of Our Students Do at Least One Hour of Homework a Day.

30

International

HOMEWORK

International homework comparisons are alsoavailable from the recent international assessmentconducted by ETS. The most common responseto the question of how much time is spent doinghomework across all school subjects each daywas “one hour or less.” As is shown in Figure 20,in eight of 15 comprehensive populations, one-half or more of the students reported doing twoor more hours of homework each day. For UnitedStates youngsters, that percentage was 29.

In 10 of the 15 countries assessed, the amount oftime spent on homework was positively related tomathematics proficiency.


31

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80


Spain

Ireland

Hungary

Jordan

France

Soviet Union

Israel

Taiwan

Korea

United States

Slovenia

Canada

Switzerland

Scotland

79%

64%

63%

58%

56%

55%

52%

50%

41%

41%

29%

28%

27%

20%

14%


Figure 20: Percentage of Students Doing Two or More Hours of Homework Daily,International Assessment of Educational Progress, 1991

The United States, with 29 Percent of its Students Doing Two or More Hoursof Homework Every Day, Ranks 11th out of 15 Countries.

The Range Is from 79 Percent in Emilia-Romagna, Italy to 14 Percent in Scotland.

32

National

ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL

Aside from the students themselves, it is the par-ents’ responsibility to make sure students attendschool. And as described on page 34, schoolattendance is related to proficiency. However, in1988, one in five eighth grade students wasabsent three or more days in the prior month,rising to 35 percent of American Indian students.The lowest percentages were Asian Americanstudents, 14 percent; high socioeconomic statusstudents, 16 percent; and students in Catholicschools, 14 percent (See Figure 21).

Twelve percent of eighth graders were late threeor more days in the prior month (See Figure 22).And 9 percent cut class “at least sometimes” (SeeFigure 23). Low socioeconomic status studentswere most likely to be late for school and to cutclass sometimes.

Source for Figures 21, 22 and23: U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, “NationalEducation Longitudinal Studyof 1988,” survey. Reported inDigest of Education Statistics,1990, p. 138.

33

All

FemaleMale

American Indian

HispanicBlack

White Asian American

Low SES*Middle SES

High SES

Public SchoolOther Private School

Catholic School

10 15 20 25 30

21%24%

19%

35%26%

22%20%

14%

28%21%

16%

22%15%

14%


Figure 21: Percentage of Eighth Grade Students Absent Three or More Days in thePrior Four Weeks, 1988

All

Low SES*

Middle SES

High SES

AllLow SES

Middle SES

High SES

0 5 10 15

0 5 10 15



12%15%

12%9%

9%12%

9%6%

Figure 22: Percentage of Eighth Graders Late Three or More Days in the LastFour Weeks, 1988

Figure 23: Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Cut Class "At Least Sometimes," 1988

*Socioeconomic Status


One in Five Eighth Graders Are Absent Three or More Days a Month.Female, American Indian, Low SES, and Public School Students Are Absent Most.

Twelve Percent of Eighth Graders Are Late for School at Least Three Days a Monthand 9 Percent Cut Class "At Least Sometimes."

Low SES Students Have Poorer Attendance Than Other Students.

34

State-by-State


ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL

In North Dakota, 86 percent of eighth graders areabsent from school less than three times permonth; North Dakota also has the highest averageachievement in mathematics. In the District ofColumbia, only 63 percent are absent less thanthree days a month, and D.C. is near the bottomin scoring (See Figure 24).

In general (but by no means always), the lessstudents are absent, the higher is the state’s aver-age math score, as can be seen in Figure 24. Instatistical terms, the correlation is .48, and it isvirtually unchanged when math scores are stan-dardized for the level of parent education. Whenthe analysis is also weighted by student popula-tion size, the correlation drops to .34

Within every state assessed, the proficiency ofstudents with three or more absences per monthwas, on average, lower than for those absent lessfrequently.


Data for Figure 24 are pro-vided in Appendix Table 2.

35

60 70 80 90 220 230 240 250 260 270 280

North DakotaTexas

AlabamaNebraska

MinnesotaIowa

WisconsinMontana

IllinoisIdaho

ConnecticutGeorgia

Virgin IslandsNew Hampshire

OhioOklahomaKentuckyArkansas

IndianaWyoming

New JerseyVirginia

PennsylvaniaMichigan

North CarolinaWest Virginia

ColoradoHawaii

ArizonaFlorida

New MexicoMarylandLouisiana

GuamCalifornia

Rhode IslandDelawareNew York

OregonDistrict of Columbia

Percentage of Students AbsentLess Than 3 Days Per Month


Figure 24: Percentage of Eighth Graders Absent Less Than Three Days per Monthand NAEP Math Proficiency, 1991

The Percentage of Eighth Graders Who Are Absent Less Than Three Days per MonthVaries from 86 Percent in North Dakota to 63 Percent in the District of Columbia

On Average, States Whose Students Are Absent LessTend to Have Higher Average NAEP Math Proficiencies.

.

36

3Chandra Muller, “MaternalEmployment, ParentInvolvement, and Aca-demic Achievement, AnAnalysis of FamilyResources Available to theChild,” in Resources andActions: Parents, TheirChildren and Schools,NORC/University ofChicago, August, 1991,p. 22-23.

4Japanese Education Today,U.S. Department ofEducation, January, 1987,p.32.

Source for Figures 25, 26, 27:Jerry West, Kenneth A.Rasinski, and Eric Camburn,Parental Involvement inEducation: PreliminaryFindings from the NELS:88Base Year Parent Survey,paper presented at the annualmeeting of the AmericanEducational ResearchAssociation, April 1990.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT

Eight in 10 parents of eighth grade students saythey talk to their children regularly about theircurrent school experiences. Variations by SES areconsiderable (See Figure 25). However, just halfof the parents talk with their children regularlyabout high school plans, and only under four in10 about post high school.

Six in 10 families have rules about watching TV,nine in 10 about doing homework, and three infour about maintaining a certain grade average(See Figure 26). There is little variation by SES.

Just three in 10 parents belong to parent-teacherorganizations; just over one in 10 parents of lowerSES compared to three in 10 for middle SES, andover one in two for high SES parents (See Figure27). However, only 29 percent of the low SESparents and 44 percent of the high actually attendthe meetings. Over half of the parents have con-tacted the school about their child’s academicperformance and over one in three about theacademic program (See Figure 27).

A comprehensive study led by James Colemanextensively analyzed the parent involvement datacollected from the National Educational Longitudi-nal Study of 1988. Chandra Muller found thefollowing to be significant for predicting testscores:3

● Talking regularly about current schoolexperiences (highly significant)

● Restriction of television watching onweekdays

● Adequate after school supervision

● Parents knowing the parents of theirchildren’s friends

Parent contact with the schools was not associ-ated with higher scores; the authors see this asoccurring more when there is an academic prob-lem. However, talking to the school about itsacademic program was positively related.

The contrast with the U.S. and Japan on parent-school involvement is stark. In Japan: “During thefirst two weeks of school every year, teachers visitthe home of each of their pupils to understandthe family situation and study environment. Par-ents visit and observe the classroom and consultwith teachers on specific days that are scheduledfor such meetings.”4

37

Lower

Middle

High

All Parents

30 60 90 30 60 90 30 60 90

Lower

Middle

High

All Parents

65 75 85 95 65 75 85 95 65 75 85 95

Lower

Middle

High

All Parents

15 25 35 45 55 65 15 25 35 45 55 65 15 25 35 45 55 65

66%

81%

89%

79%

43%

47%

52%

47%

34%

38%

43%

38%

64%

61%

62%

62%

92%

93%

90%

92%

74%

75%

67%

73%

12%

30%

54%

32%

38%

54%

62%

53%

24%

35%

44%

35%

SES*

SES*

SES*

Current School Experiences High School Plans Plans After High School

Hours of TV Watching Doing Homework Maintaining a Grade Average

Belong to a Parent-Teacher Organization

Have Contacted SchoolAbout Academic Performance

Have Contacted SchoolAbout Academic Program

Figure 25: Percentage of Parents of Eighth Graders Who Talk with Them Regularlyabout..., 1988

Figure 26: Percentage of Parents of Eighth Graders Who Report Having FamilyRules about..., 1988

Figure 27: Percentage of Parents of Eighth Graders Who..., 1988




While Eight in Ten Parents of Eighth Graders Talk with Their ChildrenRegularly about Current Experiences in School,

Fewer Than Half Talk about Future Educational Plans.Low SES Parents Are Less Likely to Talk with Their Children

and to Be Involved with the School.Rules about Certain Behaviors Are Common Among Most Families.

Maintaining a Grade Average

38

FAMILY RESOURCES

American families differ widely in their incomesand therefore in the resources that they have tosupport the development of children. To theextent that resources in the home account sub-stantially for children’s success in school, theunequal funding of the family school is a sourceof inequality in student achievement.

Average family income, in constant dollars, rosesteadily from 1950 to 1970, but has risen littlesince then (See Figure 28). At the same time, thepercentage of mothers in the labor force contin-ued upward, rising from half in 1970 to almostthree in four in 1990 (See Figure 29). It took moremothers working to keep family income stable, orslightly rising.

Between 1960 and 1970, poverty among childrendeclined sharply. But it rose during the 1970s andhas stabilized at about one child in five in the1980s (See Figure 30). The percentage of childrenparticipating in the AFDC (welfare) programincreased steadily from 1960 until around 1975,and has been relatively steady since, at about onechild in eight (See Figure 31).

The trends of the last two decades in familyresources have not been supportive of educa-tional improvement.

Source for Figures 28, 29, 30,and 31: U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center forEducation Statistics, YouthIndicators, 1991: Trends in theWell-Being of American Youth,April 1991.

Data for Figures 28, 29, 30,and 31 are provided inAppendix Table 4.

39

’50 ’55 ’60 ’65 ’70 ’75 ’80 ’85 ’8915

20

25

30

35

Thousands of Dollars

’50 ’60 ’70 ’75 ’80 ’85 ’9025

35

45

55

65

75

’60 ’65 ’70 ’75 ’80 ’85 ’8910

15

20

25

30

’50 ’55 ’60 ’65 ’70 ’75 ’80 ’85 ’900

5

10

15

Percentage

Percentage

Percentage

*Aid to Families with Dependent Children

Figure 31: Trends in the Percentage of Children Under Age 18 Receiving AFDC

Figure 30: Trends in the Percentage of Children Under Age 18 in Poverty

Figure 29: Trends in Labor Force Participation for Married Women with ChildrenAged 6 to 17

Figure 28: Trends in Median Family Income (in Constant 1989 Dollars)

Payments

Family Income Rose until about 1970, Held Up by Working Mothers.Poverty among Children Declined During the 1960s,

Rose During the 1970s, and Stabilized at One Child in Five During the 1980s.The Percent of Children on Welfare Has Been Relatively Steady Since 1975.

40

The Parent-Pupil Ratio

● Students living withboth parents havehigher proficiency inschool, even aftercontrolling for otherkey differencesbetween two- and one-parent families (SeeFigure 1 and page 6).

● The percentage ofchildren under age 18living with a singleparent has more thandoubled since 1965(See Figure 2 and page6).

● About one in six Whitechildren, one in fourHispanic children, andone in two Blackchildren, live with oneparent (See Table 2 andpage 6).

● The percentage ofeighth grade studentswith both parents athome ranges from 85percent in Wyoming,North Dakota, andNebraska to 47 percentin the District ofColumbia (See Figure 3and page 8).

● States having a largerproportion of studentswith both parents athome tend to havehigher average mathscores (See Figure 3and page 8).

The Home Library

● The more types ofreading materials thereare in the home, thehigher students are in

reading proficiency(See Figure 4 and page10).

● The quantity of readingmaterials in the homehas declined substan-tially in the last twodecades (See Figure 5and page 10).

● Among 15 countries,the U.S. family hasmore reading materialsin the home thanfamilies of 13-year-oldsin nine countries (SeeTable 3 and page 10).

● The percentage ofeighth grade studentswith three or moretypes of reading materi-als in the home rangesfrom 90 percent inNorth Dakota to 64percent in Guam (SeeFigure 6 and page 12).

● On average, stateswhose students reportmore types of readingmaterials in the homehave higher mathemat-ics scores (See Figure 6and page 12).

Reading at Home

● Students who do morereading at home arebetter readers (SeeFigure 7 and page 14).

● Students do less read-ing for fun as they getolder (See Figure 9 andpage 14).

● Students are readingfewer books, newspa-pers and magazines in1990 than in 1984 (SeeFigure 8 and page 14).

● The percentage ofeighth grade studentswho read more than 10pages per day rangesfrom 48 percent inIdaho to 23 percent inthe Virgin Islands (SeeFigure 10 and page 16).

● On average, stateswhose students reportmore reading havehigher mathematicsscores (See Figure 10and page 16).

● Among 15 countries,the U.S. was twelfth inthe percentage of 13-year-old students whoread for fun almostevery day. The highestwas Switzerland (51percent); the lowestwas Korea (11 percent)(See Figure 11 andpage 18).

Watching Television

● While the majority offamilies have rules forviewing television (SeeFigure 14), the amountstudents watch variesgreatly. At age 13,seven in 10 watch 3 ormore hours each day(See Figure 12 andpage 20).

● Students who watch alot of television havelower academic profi-ciency (See Figure 13and page 20).

● Television watching isincreasing; in 1978,among 17-year-olds,three in 10 watchedthree or more hourseach day; this jumped

SUMMARY

41

to one in two by 1990(See Figure 12 andpage 20).

● The percentage ofeighth grade studentswho watch six hours ormore of television perday ranges from 33percent in the Districtof Columbia down to 6percent in Montana andNorth Dakota (SeeFigure 15 and page 22).

● States with a lowerproportion of studentswho watch a lot oftelevision have, onaverage, higher mathscores (See Figure 15and page 22).

● Among 15 countries,the U.S. was second inthe percentage of 13-year-old students whowatched five hours ormore of televisioneveryday. The highestwas Scotland (24percent); the lowest,Slovenia (4 percent)(See Figure 16 andpage 24).

Homework

● The amount of home-work done by studentshas been shown to bepositively related toachievement (Forexample, see Figure 17and page 26).

● Eighth grade studentsdo an average of five tosix hours per week ofhomework. Asianstudents do the most;Hispanic and AmericanIndian students the

least (See Figure 18 andpage 26).

● Overall, the amount ofhomework students dohas not changed muchfrom 1984 to 1990 (Seepage 26).

● The percentage ofeighth grade studentswho do at least onehour of homework aday ranges from 77percent in NewHampshire and Con-necticut to 59 percentin Florida and Guam.For the nation as awhole, two-thirds ofour students do at leastan hour a day (SeeFigure 19 and page 28).

● The U.S., with 29percent of its 13-year-old students doing twoor more hours ofhomework every day,ranks 11th out of 15countries. The range isfrom 79 percent inEmilia-Romagna, Italyto 14 percent inScotland (See Figure 20and page 30).

Absence From School

● One in five eighthgraders are absentthree or more days amonth, with femalesabsent more thanmales, Asian studentsleast, and AmericanIndian students most.Students from lowsocioeconomic statusfamilies are absentmore than others, andCatholic school stu-

dents are absent lessthan public schoolstudents (See Figure 21and page 32).

● The percentage ofeighth grade studentswho are absent lessthan three days permonth varies from 86percent in NorthDakota to 63 percent inthe District of Columbia(See Figure 24 andpage 34).

● On average, stateswhose students areabsent less tend tohave higher mathscores (See Figure 24and page 34).

Parent Involvement

● Eight in 10 parents talkwith their eighth gradechildren about theircurrent school experi-ence and half talkabout high schoolplans (See Figure 25and page 36).

● Six in 10 parents haverules about watchingtelevision, nine in 10about doing home-work, and three in fourabout making a certaingrade average (SeeFigure 26 and page 36).

● A third of parents ofeighth grade studentsbelong to a PTA andhave contacted theschool about theirchild’s academic pro-gram. Parents withhigher socioeconomicstatus are more likely

to do both (See Figure27 and page 36).

Family Resources

● Family income roseuntil 1970 and hasbasically stagnatedsince then (See Figure28 and page 38).

● Family income hasbeen held up by moremothers working (SeeFigure 29 and page 38).

● The percentage ofchildren in povertydeclined until 1970,then rose, and hascontinued at about onein five children (SeeFigure 30 and page 38).

● The percentage ofchildren receivingAFDC payments alsorose, and has leveledoff at about one childin eight (See Figure 31and page 38).

42

As long as the focus ofattention remains solely onhow we can make theschools do a better job, itis quite unlikely that thenation can reach suchambitious goals as beingfirst in the world in sci-ence and mathematicsachievement by the year2000. The efforts ofschools are launched fromthe platform of readinessand support for learning,which are products of thehome. A clear-eyedassessment of the familyas school dictates a sober-ing conclusion that a largeproportion of homes arenot providing very highplatforms for the schoolsto build on.

Should we havenational educational goalsfor families, as we do forschools? Would this focusattention on the familyrules for doing home-work, watching television,reading at home, andgetting to school? And onparents’ involvement withtheir children’s learningand with the schools theyattend?

Should we use the newNAEP state-by-stateassessment system towatch the variationamong the states in whatoccurs in the home, aswell as how states rank intheir academic profi-ciency, and how theyrank in things like thetime spent in school? Canit become news thatstudents in North Dakota

watch the least amount oftelevision and have thehighest math scores? Andthat students in NorthCarolina watch the mostand tie for last place inmath scores (amongparticipating states, withinthe continental U.S.)?

And should the focus ofreporting the results ofinternational assessmentsbe on the indicators ofcommitment that societiesmake to education, aswell as how countriescompare on test scores?The just released study ofthe International Assess-ment of EducationalProgress, published byEducational Testing Ser-vice, presents measures ofhome activities along withscores and measures ofschool conditions.

The resolve of Ameri-can society to achieve thenational education goalsset for the year 2000 willbe tested both by thechanged priorities andbehaviors of Americanfamilies as well as byprogress in restructuringeducation. And for homesill equipped, and lackingresources to provide thesupports for learning,policies that strengthenthe family are also poli-cies to raise the platformfrom which schools pro-vide better education.

CONCLUSION

43

APPENDIX Appendix Table 1:Percent of Children under 18-years-old

in Single-Parent Families

1965 9.8%

1970 11.3

1975 16.1

1980 18.9

1985 21.0

1988 21.6

1989 21.9

44

Appendix Table 2:Mathematics Proficiency and Home Resources, 1990 NAEP Trial State Assessment

Percentage of Percentage ofStudents with Students Percentage of Percentage ofat Least Three Reading More Students Students Absent

Percentage of Types of Than 10 Pages Watching Six Three Days orAverage Students with Reading Each Day for Hours or More More from

NAEP Math Both Parents Materials in School and of Television School DuringState Proficiency Living at Home the Home Homework Each Day the Last MonthAlabama 252 75 78 34 18 18Arizona 259 75 73 41 12 26Arkansas 256 77 77 28 20 23California 256 78 68 42 11 28Colorado 267 78 85 38 9 25Connecticut 270 79 86 43 12 22Delaware 261 75 83 32 18 28District ofColumbia 231 47 76 24 33 37Florida 255 75 73 31 19 27Georgia 258 73 80 36 17 22Guam 231 81 64 32 20 28Hawaii 251 78 69 36 23 26Idaho 272 84 84 48 7 21Illinois 260 78 82 43 14 21Indiana 267 81 84 37 11 23Iowa 278 83 88 43 8 20Kentucky 256 79 78 36 14 23Louisiana 246 73 76 36 19 27Maryland 260 75 83 34 19 27Michigan 264 77 84 31 14 25Minnesota 276 83 88 36 7 20Montana 280 83 88 44 6 21Nebraska 276 85 88 42 9 19NewHampshire 273 83 88 40 7 22New Jersey 269 79 84 41 13 23New Mexico 256 77 72 40 11 27New York 261 76 79 35 17 29North Carolina 250 74 78 37 21 25North Dakota 281 85 90 41 6 14Ohio 264 79 84 36 11 22Oklahoma 263 78 78 37 14 22Oregon 271 81 82 41 9 31Pennsylvania 266 80 86 34 10 24Rhode Island 260 78 80 38 12 28Texas 258 77 70 34 15 18Virgin Islands 218 63 76 23 27 22Virginia 264 78 82 33 16 24West Virginia 256 82 80 36 16 25Wisconsin 274 81 86 38 8 21Wyoming 272 85 86 43 7 23Note: Standard errors can be found in the source document, “The State of Mathematics Achievement: NAEP’s 1990Assessment of the Nation and the Trial Assessment of the States.” Prepared by Educational Testing Service undercontract with the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, June 1991.

45

Appendix Table 3:Trends in the Number of Types of

Reading Materials in the Home

Average Number of Types ofReading Materials in the Home

1971 1990

Age 9 2.98 2.74

Age 13 3.33 3.18

Age 17 3.52 3.34

Note: These averages were computed by the authors with unpublishedNAEP data.

Appendix Table 4:Trends in the Economic Status of Children

Percentage ofPercentage of Children Under

Married Women Age 18 ReceivingMedian in the Labor Force Percentage of Aid to Families with

Family Income with Children Children Under Dependent ChildrenYear (1989 dollars) Age 6 to 17 Age 18 in Poverty (AFDC) Payments

1950 $17,077 28.3% — 3.9%1955 20,441 — — 3.01960 23,543 39.0 26.5% 3.71965 27,386 — 20.7 5.01970 31,534 49.2 14.9 10.51975 31,620 52.3 16.8 12.91980 31,637 61.7 17.9 13.21981 30,540 — — 12.11982 30,111 — — 12.01983 30,719 63.8 — 12.41984 31,547 65.4 — 12.41985 31,962 67.8 20.1 12.61986 33,328 68.4 — 12.71987 33,805 70.6 19.7 12.61988 33,742 72.5 19.0 12.71989 34,213 — 19.0 12.51990 — 73.6 — 13.2

46

participation, college andgraduate school entrancetests, and higher educa-tion degrees.

The Education ReformDecade, 1990, $3.50 (ED326 549)The 1980s was a periodmarked by profoundchanges in educationpolicy. This report sum-marizes the changes inelementary and secondaryschools and assesses theresults. It reviews a num-ber of topics, includingstudent achievementlevels, teacher standards,and student retentionstatistics. It assessesprogress made in elimi-nating achievement gapsbetween minority andmajority groups andbetween males andfemales.

From School to Work,1990, $3.50 (ED 320 947)The U.S. is among theworst in the industrialworld in helping studentswho don’t go on to col-lege make the transitionfrom school to work. Thisreport discusses studentwork during high schooland differences betweenskills acquired in theclassroom and thoseneeded at the workplace.It also reviews the infor-mation processing skillsof high school graduates,new efforts to integrateacademic and vocationaleducation, and the weak-nesses of linkagesbetween school and theworkplace.

What Americans Study,1989, $3.50 (ED 312 271)Increasing course require-ments in key academicsubjects was a centraltheme of educationalreform in the decade ofthe 1980s. This reportprovides information onwhat was being studiedand on how this changedover time for high schoolgraduates and college-bound seniors. It alsodescribes course-takingpatterns for eleventh-,eighth-, and fourth-gradestudents.

These reports can beordered (prepaid) from:

Policy InformationCenter, 04-R

Educational TestingService

Rosedale RoadPrinceton, NJ 08541

Make check or moneyorder payable to ETSPolicy Information Center.

The Center also publishesETS Policy Notes (anewsletter) along withworkbooks and otherresources. Two recentlypublished examples areConsiderations forNational Examinations(by Albert E. Beaton) andNational Standards forEducation: What TheyMight Look Like: AWorkbook.

Write to the address listedabove for a free publica-tions list.

PUBLICATIONS

From the ETS PolicyInformation Center

Established in 1987 by theETS Board of Trustees,the Policy InformationCenter is charged withserving as an influentialand balanced voice inAmerican education,preparing and publishingreports on importanteducation topics.

Policy InformationReportsThe State of Inequality,1991, $4.50Legal and legislativestruggles over schoolfinance inequalities maychange the face of educa-tion in this decade asmuch as any currenteducation reform initia-tive. This report detailsdisparities in educationfunding nationally andwithin the states. It ana-lyzes data that teacherssupplied about the avail-ability of instructionalresources and studentlearning. The new waveof court rulings on schoolfinance is also reviewed.

Performance at the Top:From Elementary ThroughGraduate School, 1991,$6.00 (ED 333 052)This report presents dataon educational achieve-ment that indicates howwell the nation’s topstudents are performing.The report scans studentperformance from thefourth grade throughgraduate school usingindicators such as theNational Assessment ofEducational Progress,Advanced Placement (AP)

Documents

POLICY INFORMATION REPORT AMERICA’S SMALLEST SCHOOL · financial capital or human Introduction There is an intuitive level America’s smallest school. the school that has the the