Transcript
ISABEL SAWHILL: Good morning. I'm Isabel Sawhill, and I'm a vice president and director of economic studies here at Brookings. But more importantly for this event, I am one of five senior editors of a new journal that we call The Future of Children. Actually, it is not a brand-new journal; it's an old journal that's under new management. It used to be published by the Packard Foundation, and might be familiar to some of you. But starting with the issue that we're releasing today, it is now under the auspices of Brookings and Princeton University.
This first issue is on racial and ethnic gaps in school readiness. The lead editor for the issue was Ceci Rouse, who is a professor of economics at Princeton University and an expert on education. Unfortunately, she could not come today because she has young children--which is a theme in this issue, obviously. But I will do the best I can to reflect what I think this first issue is all about.
Let's start with several important facts. First of all, the gaps in school readiness between minority and non-minority children are substantial, somewhere between a half and 1 standard deviation when children are age 5 or 6. For those of you who are not statisticians and are wondering what does 1 standard deviation or half a standard deviation mean--is that large, is that significant--the answer is yes, it is. One way to think about it is that 84 percent of white children perform better than the average black child at school entry.
Second important fact: These gaps in test scores at school entry predict or explain a large portion, perhaps as much as one-half, of later test score gaps in the high school years. Which in turn, of course, predict a large part of the differences in socioeconomic status by race and ethnicity when people become adults.
So if we could explain these early test score gaps and could do something about them, we might have a very significant impact on racial and ethnic disparities in American life. In fact, doing something about these early gaps in school readiness is probably one of the most effective, if not the most effective, things one could do to end or narrow current disparities.
This journal issue that we're releasing today includes eight essays on the possible sources of this gap, all written by leading experts in the field. These experts looked at the role of socioeconomic status, of genetics, of parenting styles and practices, of health factors, and of access to childcare in early childhood education. And while we have to admit that the research on this issue is far from definitive, the major conclusion seems to be that home environments in the early years are critical and that a change in parenting styles or greater access to high-quality out-of-home care are the best bets for narrowing the gaps between minority and non-minority children.
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