Test Scores and Parenting

Here are some interesting education correlations from the Freakonomics (2005) book by Steven D. Levitt and Shephen J. Dubner. If you don't know what a correlation is it indicates a relation between two sets of values. A correlation does not state what the relationship is though. For example, if A factor goes up and B factor goes down at the same time, you don't know if A is influencing B or if B is influencing A or if it is just a coincidence between the two factors. Anyway, here are the factors the two authors found influencing a child having high test scores.

1. The child has highly educated parents.
2. The child's parents have high socioeconomic status.
3. The child's mother was thirty or older at the time of her first child's birth.
4. The child had low birth weight.
5. The child's parents speak English in the home.
6. The child is not adopted.
7. The child's parents are involved in the PTA.
8. The child has many books in his home.

Here are the factors that don't influence high test scores:

1. The child's family is intact.
2. The child's parents recently moved into a better neighborhood.
3. The child's mother didn't work between birth and kindergarten.
4. The child attended Head Start.
5. The child's parents regularly take him to museums.
6. The child is regular spanked.
7. The child frequently watches television.
8. The child's parents read to him nearly every day.

Keep in mind all these factors are about test scores, not morality, having friends, going to jail, etc. In the factors that are strongly correlated with test scores 1), 2), 5), 7) make sense to me. If you're parents are highly educated (possibly this is because of good genes), well off financially (can send their kids to good schools--possibly private schools), speak English (tells the kids communicating in the dominate language is important), and are involved in the PTA (the parents are keeping tabs on how the kids are doing in school) the child will probably do well on test scores. It is hard to say which factors are more important than the others. Factors 3), 4), 6), 8) are kind of surprising. Older mothers who wait to have their first born are more likely to want the child than teenage mothers, according to the authors. Probably because the mother was preparing for the child and it was not unexpected. According to the authors, if the child has low birth weight it might be because the mother did not take care of the child in utero either because she was poor or whatever the reason might be. Also, if the child is adopted it is probably from a mother who cannot take care of the child emotionally, physically, or financially. This child might also have low birth weight too. As for why books in the home contribute to high test scores it is because that is a strange one and it is not because the child is being read to (see non-factor H). The authors think that a book is in fact a cause of intelligence than an indicator.

Head Start child does not effect the child's test score because instead of the child spending the day with his own undereducated, overworked mother, the typical Head Start child spends the day with someone else's undereducated, overworked mother--that's the author's theory. In other words there is no change in the learning environment. Non-factor E will probably be bad news for liberals who like to take their kids to museums thinking it will make them intelligent and sophisticated. Not that I have anything against museums, but unless kids like going to museums it will be boring to them. I mean how many kids are interested in seeing the Mona Lisa painting or a sculpture? Watching TV having no relationship to a child's score does not bode well for PBS with kid's educational shows like Sesame Street.