Class and Schools by Richard Rothstein
Book Review

For decades, education scholars have set out to explain the persistent and often puzzling achievement gap between black and white students, while policymakers have, to arguable degrees, worked to close it. And while black students cut the gap in half in the 1970s and 1980s, progress has stalled since then. In his new book Class and Schools, Richard Rothstein, visiting professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and former education columnist for The New York Times, offers a fresh and comprehensive look at why the gap endures—and the kinds of sweeping reforms that policymakers should undertake to ensure equal opportunity for all children, regardless of their race and economic status.

According to Rothstein, the failure to reduce the black-white achievement gap stems from policymakers’ almost universal perspective that bad school practices are solely to blame. This approach, argues Rothstein, disregards the true cause of the achievement gap—“social class characteristics” that influence children long before they enter school and have palpable effects on student achievement. They include such qualitative measures as access to health care, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing quality and stability, parental occupation and aspirations, and exposure to environmental toxins. The influence of these characteristics, he writes, “is probably so powerful that schools cannot overcome it, no matter how well trained their teachers are.”

Rothstein provides rich description and a rigorous analysis to support his case. He repeatedly shows that children differ in how ready they are to learn when they enter school, and this cannot be explained by income alone. Rothstein illustrates, for example, that black students on average score lower on achievements tests than white students of the same family income in the current year. The reasons are complex but he stresses that length of time spent in poverty matters. Black families are more likely to have experienced longer bouts of poverty than white families, especially in their children’s early years, which has detrimental effects on nutrition, health, and nurturing. Other factors include the size of families—white families tend to be smaller— which means parents have more money to spend per child than black families. Blaming schools, Rothstein emphasizes, only diverts attention from social conditions that must be addressed long before school begins.

Rothstein cautions policymakers against looking to so-called successful schools or school leaders as models to follow in serving low-income black students—an approach gaining influence in education policy circles. These are outliers, Rothstein argues, and while he admits there is nothing “illogical” about a belief that well-operated schools can have a positive effect on students’ lives, to narrow the gap nationwide, policymakers should shift their focus from exclusively reforming educational accountability systems, teacher quality, and class-size reduction to addressing unemployment and job creation, and improving quality and access to health care and housing. He estimates these transformations, on top of extensive school reform, will cost about $156 billion.

Class and Schools is especially astute at demonstrating the rarely documented link between social class and student achievement. Still, for all its erudition, Rothstein’s analysis loses some of its saliency with his daunting policy prescriptions—and more discouraging price tag—especially after he admits that the required reforms will never be politically feasible regardless of which political party is in power. In the end, he seems to give up on his own radical reform recommendations and advises policymakers to chisel away at the gap—an unsatisfying adjustment for those who were sold on his forceful idea that no less than a paradigm shift is necessary.

Rothstein’s book will not disappoint readers interested in a refreshing and penetrating analysis of a long-analyzed phenomenon. But policymakers on the hunt for a pragmatic fix to the problem of the black-white achievement may find Rothstein’s recommendations unviable, if not frustrating. The frustration does not stem from Rothstein’s lack of scholarship or skill however, but with the fact that his assessment is, unfortunately, accurate. Rothstein so rightfully explains that we “can’t realistically expect schools alone to abolish inequality” and at the same time implies that pushing our leaders to implement the kind of sweeping reforms our children need is not on our politicians’ nor the public’s agendas.

In the end, Rothstein offers some valuable and realizable ideas for how to begin the gap-narrowing process. He advises leaders to set up innovative experiments that compare the relative effects of, for example, investing in class-size reduction while establishing dental and vision clinics, and spending money on recruiting better teachers while also focusing on improving housing quality.

Although not quite an immediate, nationwide policy transformation, such deliberate attempts to improve children’s lives both inside and outside the classroom are certainly worth a shot— and may go a long way in providing black students the chance to use education as a ladder for climbing above their social and economic situations. In an era of seemingly endless debate over the need to reduce the persistent gap in academic achievement between black and white students, every bit of analysis—and policymaking—helps.

Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap / By Richard Rothstein. Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College, Columbia University: 203 pp.

Prepared by Stacy Feldman, November 15, 2004