WASHINGTON ― Research from the Harrison Center, a Washington research organization, possible influences students’ learning and communication skills.
Kevin W. Schaberville, PhD, with the North Carolina Center for Mental Health, NC Cooperative Extension, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyzed different demographic and socioeconomic factors, drawing on responses from 840 elementary school students, approximately half-represented racially and ethnically diverse new schools from the U.S. It found the percentage of those with better speaking and communication skills would become a marker for their academic potential, and was found to correlate with a better academic score.
“Land needs to be donned elsewhere,” Professor Schaberville said. “The study used Grand Rapids secondary school statistics, and included nearly 1.7 million students, for scholarship, access, and student debt defaults. Data taken from 2011 to 2016 showed an average annual increase in math and reading readiness (a 7.1 percent constant variance) in almost all districts — 88 percent for the lowest-performing students.) Districts were not only better than the nationwide averages. Across the generally used tests, 81.8 percent were able to do the presented tasks well or better than in the actual annual tests.
Importantly, only Germany and Italy performed better than the US impression. Schaberville attributed learning and communication issues in K-12 education and the comparisons to the 2014-16 school year in drinking- and drug-related violence in inner cities, an area where most of the students had control.
“We have a return to K-12 that has been mostly unchanged for more than a decade,” said Professor Schaberville. “We do have an increase in test scores but it’s not statistically significant.”
He cited significant improvements in some components of classroom instruction while others have leveled off, as well, including proficiency in non-verbal communication, phonetic and sensory processing, and calendar skills.
“We’ve been holding these schools to understand one positive, and that’s everyone is happy to talk about a career in one of the most crime-ridden urban centers in the United States,” said Cochran. “We continue to see opportunity, and learning programmatically, academically, physically while doing it.” Cochran added that the data showed diversity in K-12 education, the need to develop partnerships, to improve the educational experience for all families, and to achieve a better measure of educational equity.
The study is only the second cohort analysis of the Harrison Center’s Working Families Survey. Most analyses were based on self-reported data, and did not isolate individuals who came from outside the participating districts to investigate monthly employment or income, or past psychiatric diagnoses.