Apodaca: Study reveals how poverty steals from learning time

Few among us would dispute the notion that students from disadvantaged backgrounds face a steeper climb when it comes to a quality education. Both intuition and evidence tell us that poverty correlates strongly with poorer educational outcomes.

Now a UCLA study gives us an important piece of new information showing not just the what and why of this issue, but the how.

In other words, we might acknowledge in a general sense that poverty negatively affects learning, and that it does so because of a host of deleterious effects including hunger, health issues, violence, unstable housing, and a lack of access to vital resources.

But the study, released late last year, demonstrates, at least in one critical way, precisely how this type of environment compromises education: by robbing students of actual learning time.

The study, conducted by UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies Institute for Democracy, Education and Access during the 2013-2014 school year, included information gathered from about 800 teachers at nearly 200 California high schools representing a cross section of various levels of affluence.

Researchers found that schools in high poverty areas lost on average the equivalent of two weeks of instructional time due to problems and constraints directly related to that poverty.

The report on the study’s findings, titled “It’s About Time: Learning Time and Educational Opportunity in California High Schools,” notes that the amount of allocated instructional time is constant within a fairly narrow range at schools throughout the state. But at schools in low-income areas, far more of that time is eaten up by “economic and social stressors.”

Those stress factors often result in high rates of student absenteeism and tardiness, classroom disruptions, and more time spent on counseling and other non-academic issues. Schools in low-income areas also have higher rates of teacher absences, a lack of qualified substitute teachers, and fewer resources such as libraries and technology. What’s more, teachers at those schools typically are required to spend more of their time engaging in non-instructional duties such as janitorial and clerical tasks, and covering for absent colleagues.

John Rogers, a UCLA professor of education and co-author of the report, noted that the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education 60 years ago required public schools to provide equal education to all students. But it hasn’t always been easy to understand or quantify the intangible factors that contribute to inequality, he said.

Now, thanks to his research, a little more light is being shed into the specific ways that poverty damages educational outcomes. While hardly surprising, we should all be outraged enough by this issue to insist that our public schools treat the matter with a sense of urgency and intent that is often lacking.

The need for targeted solutions should certainly be apparent here in Newport-Mesa, where our public school system presents as stark a contrast as available pretty much anywhere in deep social and economic divides. It’s easy enough for those of us whose children have attended school in more affluent neighborhoods to dismiss the pressures faced by our less well-off neighbors, but it’s in everyone’s interest to ensure that all children receive equal access to quality education.

As Rogers stated when releasing the report, “No one could or would defend a system of public education that required students attending high-poverty schools to finish their school year two weeks before their peers in low-poverty schools. Nor would anyone defend sending students from high-poverty schools home a half hour early each day.

“Yet, in effect, California now supports an educational system that produces these effects, though it does so in a manner that obscures the underlying inequity.”

Answers to the time deficit issue won’t come easily. Some reform advocates have pushed for extending the school day and calendar year for students in need. Others have focused more on ways to ensure that the time already allocated is better spent.

In a brief phone interview, Professor Rogers told me one concrete step that could be taken is to develop a quality pool of substitute teachers that is readily available at each school site. He’s also closely following the outcome of a pilot project being conducted in Boston to extend instructional time.

Some funding for initiatives to address the time deficit issue might be available through Governor Brown’s 2013 Local Control Funding Formula law, which directed more education dollars to the neediest students.

But, Rogers cautioned, “Money in and of itself is not the solution. But money well spent, strategically” can make a difference.

Rogers also noted that the new Common Core State Standards, which are being implemented in California this school year, pose another critical juncture for educational inequality. Studies show that the amount of learning time directly correlates with gains in critical thinking abilities, a chief goal of Common Core. If low-income students have less time to absorb the challenging new material, disparities could be further exacerbated, he said.

Either way, this new information about time loss gives us a means to look at the issue of educational inequality with, as Rogers stated, “fresh eyes.” It’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.