Aspirations and inspirations

Anastasia De Waal, 23 January 2009

Last week education secretary Ed Balls called on schools to take more responsibility for low achievement amongst pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Part of the reason for a relationship between low performance and socio-economic disadvantage, he argued, is low expectations on the part of teachers.
Although this approach garnered media interest as a new strategy for severing the link between background and performance, ‘poverty is no excuse for underachievement’ has been a long-time mantra of both this government and the previous one.

The very idea of having lower aspirations for pupils who come from less affluent backgrounds jars with every educator’s sense of being a good teacher, as well as their sense of justice.
There is a significant difference between having low expectations and having realistic expectations which is often overlooked by policymakers. Effective and conscientious teachers push all children to do their best; a best which may pale in comparison to that of others. One of the biggest and most frustrating challenges for teachers in schools with high proportions of children from disadvantaged backgrounds is that all too often, however hard the staff may try to raise achievement, their efforts are not deemed good enough. Why, because pupils’ achievement does not necessarily reach benchmarks set at the national average.
In my limited experience of teaching in inner-city schools it was not the complications and disadvantages that pupils came to school with which led to constant teacher turnover, but the pressures to reach performance targets. Pupils were not failing to reach prescribed standards because of teachers’ low expectations, but because the disadvantage they were at was taking a very real toll on their achievement. Yet highly dedicated teachers, who often had overcome unnecessary difficulties imposed by overly prescriptive curricula, for example, felt that their efforts were meeting only criticism from the authorities.
Low household income per se, whilst having a hugely significant impact on achievement, is by no means the whole problem when it comes to socio-economic deprivation. One of the main issues affecting children from disadvantaged backgrounds is the effect that the unemployment often responsible for poverty has on households: lack of routine, lack of morale and motivation, often accompany lack of money, as well as lack of education and qualifications often underlying unemployment.
In some cases however, notably the case of poor but ambitious, and therefore more socially mobile, immigrants, aspirations may be very much in existence alongside poverty. Research in the UK for example has found that Bangladeshi-origin pupils are much more likely to achieve higher results at GCSE and A-level, than their equally financially disadvantaged British-origin counterparts. The Bangladeshi-origin pupils’ advantage lies in the fact that their parents are ambitious and aspirational for them.
The lesson here unsurprisingly is that yes, teachers need to have high expectations, but that high expectations at home are a prerequisite for pupils’ success.
Examples are also very important, explaining why parents’ aspirations and role models make a significant difference to children. The example needs to be one which young people can relate to, though not necessarily be related to. According to a new piece of research out today, President Obama’s example has had a significant impact on African-American pupils’ test achievement. Although the findings have not yet been either peer-reviewed or the study supported by other research, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University in an ‘Obama effect’ has boosted underachieving black pupils’ exam performance:
‘Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.’ (New York Times, 22.01.09)