Equal Educational Opportunity for All

I read this on a blog this morning.
"A study frequently referred to by scholars showed that by the age of 3, children from poverty have heard an average of 20 million less words than children from professional homes. Of that 10 million words children from poverty have heard, the study found the majority of those words were discouraging statements, while children from professional homes mainly heard encouraging statements. The study concluded that language- both the amount and the type of language children hear as toddlers- was one of the greatest predictors of success in elementary school (Hart and Riley, 1995)."

Just because we provide ACCESS to equal educational opportunity (and I don't even really believe that's true) doesn't mean we provide equal opportunity.

I will repeat myself (more loudly because I am frustrated)... One of the biggest predictors of student performance is ZIP CODE.

Why does it make sense to improve our schools by giving more funding to the schools (or teachers) with students that are performing best? "Performance-based funding." "Merit pay." Don't these two ideas sound good? But think about it. Even IF all students in the state were currently funded at exactly the same level, the quote above gives you an idea why this wouldn't solve the problem. And guess what? All students in the state are not funded at the same levels. Guess which schools get more funding already. Guess what a good predictor of that would be. I'll give you a hint, it starts with Z.

Equal educational opportunity?
Deep sigh....