Reducing Poverty in California…Permanently

If California were to seriously commit to equalizing opportunity and reducing poverty, how might that commitment best be realized? This is of course a hypothetical question, as there is no evidence that California is poised to make such a serious commitment, nor have many other states gone much beyond the usual lip-service proclamations. There are many reasons for California’s complacency, but an important one is that most people think that poverty is intractable and that viable solutions to it simply don’t exist. When Californians know what needs to be done, they tend to go forward and get it done. When, for example, the state’s roads are in disrepair, there are rarely paralyzing debates about exactly how to go about fixing them; instead we proceed with the needed repairs as soon as the funds to do so are appropriated. The same type of sure and certain prescription might appear to be unavailable when it comes to reducing poverty. It is hard not to be overwhelmed by the cacophony of voices yielding a thick stream of narrow-gauge interventions, new evaluations, and piecemeal proposals.1 Although the research literature on poverty is indeed large and may seem confusing, recent advances have in fact been so fundamental that it is now possible to develop a science-based response to poverty. In the past, the causes of poverty were not well understood, and major interventions, such as the War on Poverty, had to be built more on hunch than science. It is an altogether different matter now. The causes of poverty are well established, and the effects of many possible policy responses to poverty are likewise well established. The simple purpose of this essay is to assemble these advances into a coherent plan that would, if implemented, reduce poverty in California substantially

Why is there so much Poverty in California? The Causes of California’s Sky-High Poverty and the Evidence Behind the Equal Opportunity Plan for Reducing It

The purpose of this report is to describe the current state of poverty in California, to discuss concrete steps that could be taken to reduce poverty in California, and to present the best available evidence on the likely effects of those steps. We take on an important but infrequently-posed question: If California were to seriously commit to reducing poverty, how might that commitment best be realized? This is of course a hypothetical question, as there is no evidence that California is poised to make such a serious commitment, nor have many other states gone much beyond the usual lip service proclamations. It is nonetheless especially striking that California, the highest-poverty state in the country, has not rushed in to rectify the matter.1 There are many reasons for this seeming complacency, but an especially important one is that most people think that poverty is intractable and that viable solutions to it simply don’t exist. When Californians know what needs to be done, they tend to go forward and get it done. When, for example, the state’s roads are in disrepair, there are rarely paralyzing debates about exactly how to go about fixing them; and instead we proceed with the needed repairs as soon as the funds to do so are appropriated. The same type of sure and certain prescription might appear to be unavailable when it comes to fixing poverty. It is hard not to be overwhelmed by the cacaphony of voices yielding a thick stream of narrow-gauge interventions, new evaluations, and piecemeal proposals.

Does School Composition Matter More for Lower-SES Students? A Cross-National Examination of School Socioeconomic Composition, Individual Socioeconomic Status, and Standardized Test Scores

This paper investigates whether school socioeconomic composition has a stronger association with standardized test scores among lower-socioeconomic status (lower-SES) students than it does among higher-SES students. School socioeconomic composition, measured here as average SES, has repeatedly been demonstrated to have a strong influence on a variety of student outcomes, but there has been little systematic examination of whether this association is stronger for more disadvantaged students. Such a finding would be consistent with evidence from related research areas suggesting that the learning outcomes of disadvantaged students are particularly sensitive to schools and school characteristics. We use data from a large, cross -national study—the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)—to examine patterns across a wide variety of economic, demographic, and cultural contexts. Contrary to expectation, we find no general pattern of school socioeconomic composition being more strongly associated with test scores among lower-SES students; if anything, the relationship appears to be slightly weaker among lower-SES students

Supplemental Material, Mitnik_Cumberworth_Replication_package - Measuring Social Class with Changing Occupational Classifications: Reliability, Competing Measurement Strategies, and the 1970–1980 U.S. Classification Divide

<p>Supplemental Material, Mitnik_Cumberworth_Replication_package for Measuring Social Class with Changing Occupational Classifications: Reliability, Competing Measurement Strategies, and the 1970–1980 U.S. Classification Divide by Pablo A. Mitnik, and Erin Cumberworth in Sociological Methods & Research</p