Disadvantaged are not poor learners

Teresa Hinds

Tuesday, July 29, 1997 | 9:54 a.m.

An advocate for poor and minority children told a gathering at the National Governors' Association meeting that expecting lower academic results from disadvantaged children is "malarkey."

"Too many people have bought into the notion that poor kids can't achieve at a higher level. That's malarkey," said Katie Haycock, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Education Trust, a nonprofit organization working to improve academic achievement among poor and minority children.

Speaking to the governors' Human Resources Committee on Monday at The Mirage, Haycock used a Mission, Texas, school as an example of what disadvantaged children can do.

"This school is all Latino, LEP (limited English proficiency), and they've got kids passing (tests) at 95 percent," Haycock said. "That's higher than the richer schools in the state and higher than the national average."

Nevada finished in the lower third on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test earlier this year. Clark County and state education officials said the high transiency rate of the state and the higher number of poor children moving into the state affect Nevada's test results.

Educators argue that poor children often do not have the academic support at home that students from a higher income-level home do, nor do they have the same experience-base to draw from when taking tests.

But Haycock said that reasoning is mistaken.

"I would say they're dead wrong," Haycock said. "It's very clear poor kids can achieve if they're taught at higher levels and given extra support. I would guess if you disaggregate the scores (among longtime Clark County School District students, poorer students and those that are new to the district), I suspect they're (the longtime district students) not doing any better than anyone else is.

"People all across the country have to put an end to all the excuses."

Haycock advocates holding lower-achieving schools accountable for student progress, finding a way to give failing students more educational time, using the school district's best teachers at poorer schools and providing more assistance to teachers who teach in those schools. Too often, she said, the best teachers end up at the higher-achieving schools.

Members of the Nevada Department of Education were to attend a workshop today in Lake Tahoe on how to set higher educational standards.

President Clinton, who addressed the nation's governors Monday, called on them to adopt high national standards and to test every fourth-grader in reading and every eighth-grader in math to make sure the standards are being met.