The Growing Income Achievement Gap

Four out of every ten American children live in low-income families, according to 2015 research from Columbia University's School of Public Health. Childhood poverty is becoming increasingly prevalent, and with it comes a plethora of disadvantages and negative effects on all aspects of children’s’ lives. In particular, there has been a notable increase in the ‘income achievement gap’, which is defined as the difference in “the average achievement between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile” (Reardon). This gap in student achievement is measured by the difference in test scores between low-income and high-income students, and this gap has grown significantly in the past three decades, now 40% larger for children born in the 1990-2000s than for children who were born in the 1970s. In addition, it is now nearly twice as large as the achievement gap between black and white students, whereas in contrast, fifty years ago the black-white achievement gap was two times as large as the income achievement gap (Reardon). Students from low-income backgrounds perform considerably lower on standardized exams, as well as other measures of academic success, than students who come from high-income families, and this is creating a widening income achievement gap. This gap can be attributed to many different issues, such as the costs of standardized exams, unequal access to academic support, different home learning environments, and the growth in income inequality that leads to increasingly unequal family resources.

Income inequality has risen considerably in the last 30–40 years, making the gap in income between high-income and low-income families much greater. According to research done by Professor Sean Reardon, a family in the 90th percentile of the family income distribution earned five times as much as a family in the 10th percentile in 1970, whereas today, the high-income family earns 11 times more than the low-income family. “This rapid growth in income inequality means that high-income families now have far more resources, relative to low-income families, to invest in their children's development and schooling” (Reardon 4). In fact, according to a 2016 survey by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, families with the highest socioeconomic status spend five times as much on enrichment activities, at $8,600 per year, compared to families with the lowest socioeconomic status, who spend about $1,700 on their children per year. In this survey, enrichment activities include both recreation and education, with ‘recreation’ referring to items such as reading materials; admission to movies, concerts, parks and other events; audio and visual equipment; and pets, toys, and hobbies; all of which have been proven to stimulate children’s brains and contribute to their overall development and wellbeing (Carnevale).

American families have also changed drastically during the last four decades, as children in high income families are increasingly likely to be raised by two parents, both with college degrees, whereas low income children are more likely recently to be raised by a single mother with a low level of education. “This means that family income has become increasingly correlated to other family characteristics and resources that are important for children's development” (Reardon 4). In addition, the economy has become increasingly divided into low-skill, low-wage jobs, such as service jobs and routine production jobs; and high-skill, high-wage jobs, such as engineering and financial analysis jobs. This leaves almost no jobs that provide a middle-class wage without a college degree, and as a result, education success has become increasingly essential to economic success. With this increased importance of education for career security, it has made parents increasingly anxious and has led to greater competition among families for their children’s academic success. The growth in income inequality in recent years means that family resources have become increasingly unequal at the same time that families are increasingly focused on their children's education, and this combination of trends “has led to a rapidly growing disparity in the extent to which families invest their time and money in their children's education” (Reardon 5).

Today, almost all colleges and universities require that applicants take a standardized test, such as the SAT or the ACT, as a part of applying, and as a result, roughly two million students in the United States take the SAT each year. However, this has proved to be a great source of disparity between high income and low income students, as high income students get considerably higher scores on these standardized exams. According to the Washington Post, in 2014 “students from families earning more than $200,000 a year average a combined score of 1,714, while students from families earning under $20,000 a year average a combined score of 1,326” (Goldfarb). In addition, a 2015 analysis from Inside Higher Ed found that in each of the three parts of the SAT (reading, writing and language and math), the lowest average scores were among students from families who make less than $20,000 in family income, while the highest averages were among students from families who make more than $200,000 (Jaschik). One of the major contributors to this growing inequality of scores between children of different incomes is because of the costs of standardized exams. The cost to take the SAT during the 2018-2019 school year was about $47.50 for just the basic test, and $64.50 to take the test with the full essay section. “To take an SAT subject test, students must pay a $26 registration fee, $22 for each additional test and $26 for each language test” (Hess). These costs can be prohibitively expensive for many students. Wealthy students can afford to take these standardized tests several times, which has been widely known to increase a student’s score, but lower-income students cannot always afford this opportunity. In addition, when sending SAT scores to colleges, students can choose which scores to send from each time they took the test, so as to create the highest combined score from all of the test attempts. However, if lower-income students can only afford to take the test once, they cannot benefit from this advantage either.

The costs of these exams are not the only contributor to the immense difference in test scores between different income levels, however. In addition to that, students who live in wealthy school districts also typically receive more academic support because they attend better-funded schools. These funding disparities mean that higher income students are more likely to attend high schools that will give them advantages in the college application and standardized test-taking processes. In particular, “wealthy students are more likely to attend high schools with a significant number of AP classes, more likely to have access to tutors and more likely to have taken standardized test preparation classes — all advantages that have been tied to higher standardized test scores” (Hess).

Students from high-income families are also more likely to get additional time during standardized tests than their lower-income peers, which has been proven to increase test scores as well. “The Wall Street Journal analyzed data from 9,000 public schools and found that students in wealthy areas are most likely to get ‘504 designations’” (Hess). These designations allow for special academic accommodations, such as extra time or a private space when taking exams, including the SAT. While some low-income students may also need these accommodations, they do not always have the resources to be able to identify and treat their learning disabilities to receive these accommodations, while wealthy students are more likely to have the right resources. In fact, the accommodation for extra time became so effective among the wealthy for increasing scores, that students were even advised to fake learning disabilities in order to receive the medical documentation that the College Board requires before granting students extended time.

The academic support that wealthy students receive throughout their whole life is also an incredible contributor to the sustained high academic level of wealthy students. Children from wealthy families who have top-half math scores tend to stay in the top half, and even when they stumble, they have a safety net that keeps them from falling to the bottom and they receive tremendous assistance getting back on track (Carnevale). This can be seen through research by Georgetown University, which shows that children from high income families who have top-half math scores tend to stay in the top half, and 61% of the bottom half students even move up to the top half by 5th grade. However, students who live in impoverished environments are more likely to never recover if they fall off track, which can also be seen through the research done by Georgetown University. Children from poor families who start out with high test scores have relatively slim chances of keeping those high scores, with 70% of them dropping to the bottom half by 5th grade. In addition, only 26% of all students from the lowest income quartile even have top-half math scores in kindergarten, whereas 74% of students with families from the highest income bracket have top-half math scores in kindergarten, clearly showing how much of a difference being born into a wealthy family makes.

While it is often overlooked, the early childhood experiences of higher income students vary drastically from the early childhood experiences of lower-income students, and they have the potential to greatly affect the development of these children. “Research has shown that lower-income students tend to suffer from more stress in early childhood, have less access to enriching educational resources, and receive less exposure to spoken language and vocabulary early in life” (Bergland). In particular, there has been a growing concern recently about the widening ‘vocabulary gap’ between children from different income levels. The ‘vocabulary gap’, sometimes referred to as the ‘word gap’, essentially means that by age three, children growing up in poor neighborhoods or from lower-income families may hear up to 30 million fewer words than their more privileged counterparts (Bergland). Hillary Clinton, who was committed to closing the vocabulary gap in 2013, said that “this disparity in hearing words from parents and caregivers translates directly into a disparity in learning words” (Clinton Foundation). Children from low-income families often enter school with considerably smaller vocabularies than their classmates, putting them behind before they even start school, and this disadvantage leads to further inequalities in achievement and success over time, in both academic performance as well as in earnings and family stability.

“The different facets of childhood poverty, including elevated life stress and less nurturing by a caregiver due to financial constraints, combine to impact brain structure and function” (Bergland). Children build their vocabulary by listening and interacting with their parents, but if low-income parents have to work two full-time jobs at minimum wage just to make ends meet, there definitely will not be much time left in the week for nurturing and caregiving, and as a result, many lower-income parents end up talking and reading to their young children much less often than in affluent families. Unfortunately, these inequities from children’s early lives can create a ripple effect throughout their lives. According to researchers, most of the high school achievement gap between poor, middle-income and wealthy students is already visible by kindergarten, and the children with weak academic skills in kindergarten are, on average, the same children with weak academic skills in seventh grade. In general, when comparing children who live in poverty to their more-advantaged peers, “children who come from lower income families tend to have less parental nurturing, elevated levels of daily stress, increased family instability, and greater exposure to violence,” (Bergland), in addition to less cognitive stimulation due to the hardships their families face. When all of these factors combine, they can lead to changes in brain structure, cognitive skills, and lower academic achievement.

While the income achievement gap is a serious problem in our society today, it does not have to be permanent. There are many potential solutions and ways to overcome this issue, and many solutions have already been put into place in recent years. According to many researchers, one of the best ways to close this income achievement gap is through an idea that Martin Luther King Jr. pushed in his later years through his Poor People’s Campaign, which essentially just said to put money directly into the hands of lower-income families. “According to a study by Kornrich and Furstenberg, even though lower income families spend much less money on their children, they put a higher percentage of their paychecks toward investments in their children,”(Garland), at about 20 percent, compared to higher income families, who only put about 5 percent of their paychecks towards their children. A professor at Columbia University, Jane Waldfogel, also conducted research on how low-income families spend additional income, and she “found they put extra cash either towards their kids, by buying books, toys and clothing, or their jobs--buying clothes for work or purchasing a car, for example” (Garland). According to Waldfogel, there is ample evidence showing that families will not misuse this money on drugs or alcohol, and to substantiate this further, there is also evidence showing that when lower-income families receive additional income, such as through the Earned Income Tax Credit, their children’s test scores increase. However, wealth redistribution is still not popular politically, as despite all the contradictory evidence, many people still do not trust that the money will not be misused.

There are other efforts to close this income achievement gap that also show promise, and they have taken precedence over the wealth redistribution solution. Home-visiting programs, for example, can “provide parents living in poverty the support and information that high-income parents tend to get from their education experiences and social networks” (Garland). The essence of home visiting work is relationship building with the mother, which by extension, leads to the entire family, through teaching the mother how to nurture for her child as well as for herself. In addition to home visiting programs, intensive, high-quality preschool experiences have also proven to be beneficial. By enabling children to have these stimulating preschool experiences, it gives them time to build social skills and bigger vocabularies through play, and it has the potential to improve test scores in the short term and reduce their chances of being poor as adults in the long term (Garland). Lastly, school reformers have also found evidence showing that high-quality teachers and schools help close achievement gaps as well. Through opening more charter schools and putting teachers under higher scrutiny through more intense evaluations, efforts have been made to improve the teaching force and the quality of schools, however, they have had mixed results, and have not always lead to higher test results.

All individuals, regardless of where they come from or their family backgrounds, should have the opportunity to reach their full potential. However, many poor children do not have this opportunity, and not because they lack the talent to succeed. Throughout their childhood, children who come from higher income families enjoy sheltered and enriched environments with advantages that help ensure their success. “Meanwhile, equally talented children from poor backgrounds are held back by material disadvantages” (Carnevale). In addition, when students from wealthy families struggle, they have abundant resources and assistance to help them get back on track, whereas if students from impoverished environments stumble, they face more detrimental consequences and are more likely to never recover. According to the American Dream, individual talent is promised to be rewarded, irrespective of where someone comes from or who their parents are. However, realistically it is clear that the likelihood of success is more often determined by a child’s life circumstances and affluence, rather than by their natural talent or merit. “The system conspires against young people from poor families … [and] among these youth, even those who “make it” and earn a college degree are less likely than their more affluent peers to get a good entry-level job as a young adult” (Carnevale). However, there is still room for intervention, and the fact that children’s test scores change over time shows that a child from a low-income family can still beat the odds and become a high-achieving adult. Through different programs, as well as improved schooling, there is potential to influence underprivileged students’ development of skills and abilities, and with the adequate resources, ultimately, their socioeconomic mobility.