Compensatory education

Compensatory education offers supplementary programs or services designed to help children at risk of cognitive impairment and low educational achievement reach their full potential.^[1][2]

Children at risk

Children growing up poor have lower academic outcomes than their well-off peers. They are more likely to experience learning disabilities and developmental delays.^[3] Poor children score between 6 and 13 points lower on various standardized tests of IQ, verbal ability, and achievement.^[4]Poverty also has a negative impact on high-school graduation^[5] and college attendance.^[6] Children raised by a single parent, children who have more than two siblings, children by teenaged parents and children raised in poverty-stricken neighbourhoods are also at risk of low academic achievement.^[7]

How to help these children

Numerous programs have been created in order to help children and youth at risk reach their full potential. Among the American programs of compensary education are Head Start, the Chicago Child-Parent Center Program, High/Scope, Abecedarian Early Intervention Project, SMART (Start Making a Reader Today), the Milwaukee Project and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. In Germany and Great Britain Early Excellence Centres are widely discussed programs of compensatory education. Not all of that programs have been proven to be effective. However scientist were able to identify social programmes that work.^[8]Among these are the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project,^[9][10][11] the Abecedarian Project,^{[12][13][14][15][16]} and SMART.^[17][18]

Jensenism

Jensenism is the belief that an individual's IQ is largely due to heredity, including racial heritage.^[19] Arthur Jensen holds the opinion that compensatory education does not work.^[20] In their controversial book The Bell Curve, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (author) put forth the same opinion. The book has been criticized by many scientists.

References

1. ^ Katy Independent School district: Compensatory Education
2. ^ Garber, Howard L. (1988): Milwaukee Project: Preventing Mental Retardation in Children at Risk
3. ^ FPG Snapshot; No. 42, April 2007 - Poverty and Early Childhood Intervention. [1]
4. ^ The Future of Children, Children and Poverty Vol. 7, No. 2 – Summer/Fall 1997 [2]
5. ^ Duncan, G.J., Yeung, W., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Smith, J.R. How much does childhood poverty affect the life chances of children? American Sociological Review, in press.
6. ^ FPG Snapshot; No. 42, April 2007 - Poverty and Early Childhood Intervention. [3]
7. ^ Hans Weiß: Frühförderung mit Kindern und Familien in Armutslagen. München/Basel: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag. ISBN 3-497-01539-3
8. ^ Social Programs that work
9. ^ Lawrence J. Schweinhart, Helen V. Barnes, and David P. Weikart. Significant Benefits: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 27 (High/Scope Press, 1993)
10. ^ Lawrence J. Schweinhart, PhD. The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40: Summary, Conclusions, and Frequently Asked Questions (High/Scope Press 2004)
11. ^ Perry Preschool Project (High-quality preschool for children from disadvantaged backgrounds)
12. ^ Campbell, Frances A., Craig T. Ramey, Elizabeth Pungello, Joseph Sparling, and Shari Miller-Johnson. “Early Childhood Education: Young Adult Outcomes From the Abecedarian Project,” Applied Developmental Science, 2002, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 42-57
13. ^ Leonard N. Masse and W. Steven Barnett, A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention, New Brunswick, N.J.: National Institute for Early Education Research, 2002 [4]
14. ^ Campbell, Frances A., Elizabeth Pungello, Shari Miller-Johnson, Margaret Burchinal, and Craig T. Ramey. “The Development of Cognitive and Academic Abilities: Growth Curves From an Early Childhood Educational Experiment,” Developmental Psychology, 2001, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 231-242
15. ^ Abecedarian Project (High-quality child care/preschool for children from disadvantaged backgrounds)
16. ^ FPG Snapshot; No. 42, April 2007 - Poverty and Early Childhood Intervention. [5]
17. ^ Baker, Scott, Russell Gersten and Thomas Keating. When less may be more: A 2-year longitudinal evaluation of a volunteer tutoring program requiring minimal training. Reading Research Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 4; Oct-Dec. 2000.
18. ^ Social programs that work: SMART - Start Making a Reader Today (Volunteer tutoring program for at-risk readers in early elementary school)
19. ^ Jen•sen•ism
20. ^ Jensen A R. How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement? Harvard Educ. Rev. 39:1-123, 1969

See also

• Poverty in the United States
• Poverty in the United Kingdom

External links

• Social Programs that Work
• Poverty and Early childhood Intervention
• New Head Start Studies Raise Question on Help: Should Fewer Get More?
• Helping Young Urban Parents Educate Themselves and Their Children. ERIC/CUE Digest, Number 85
• Early excellence centres