Education Results Between Income Groups Increasing

This all makes sense in that the focus of higher income families will be on being more productive in everything they do and this includes educating their children.

The problem with this study is the thinking and motivation of the two groups

The lower income families are the way they are because they don't focus on being more productive, as a rule, and the children are products of that thinking from the minute they become aware of their surroundings. Other factors. including a family history of not acknowledging a need for higher education or the need to reach new levels of productivity for increased income or position in the community.

Much of this lack of motivation can be laid right at the feet of the unions as they tell the workers they don't have to do any more then necessary because they can get their desires met by just doing what they are told by the union bosses.

Another problem with this study is they don't identify just who is included in what income group and how much money separates the groups. Also they don't lets us know how many people are in each group. This would be helpful to determine the severity of the problem and since the study mostly precludes blacks, numbers take on more importance.

This not to say all low income families are not productive orientated, but the result of the mind set, motivation, and education levels of the lower income people is to focus on getting by or just make ends meet produces results found in this study, lower income family children have lower test scores than children from higher income families.

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say
Source: Sabrina Tavernise, "Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say," New York Times, February 9, 2012.

While researchers have focused for years on the race gap in educational achievement, recent studies show that the gap has decreased substantially in recent years. However, the achievement gap between children of high-income families and low-income families has grown significantly over the same period of time, says the New York Times.

Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist, found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students has grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s.
In another study, the imbalance between rich and poor children in college completion -- the single most important predictor of success in the work force -- has grown by about 50 percent since the late 1980s.

During these same decades, the gap between whites and blacks shrunk by a large margin.
A number of factors explain why children of high-income households outperform their low-income classmates. Much of the difference stems from the fact that, because a family has fewer resources in general, it has fewer resources to dedicate to a child's education.

Meredith Phillips, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, used survey data to show that affluent children spend 1,300 more hours than low-income children before age 6 in places other than their homes, their day care centers or schools.
She also found that, by the time high-income children start school, they have spent about 400 hours more than poor children in literacy activities.

Additionally, wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children, including extracurricular activities that aid cognitive development and direct assistance with schooling.

A 2007 study found that wealthy parents spent nine times as much per child as low-income parents did. Education, long recognized as the great equalizer, no longer appears to be aiding that end.