Kids having higher test scores

Want your kid to have high test scores? Here's 8 factors that correlate with that (in no particular order):

1. The child has highly educated parents.

2. The child's parents have high socioeconomic status.

3. The child's mother was 30 or older at the time of her first child's birth.

4. The child had low birthweight.

5. The child's parents speak English in the home.

6. The child is adopted.

7. The child's parents are involved in the PTA.

8. The child has many books in his home.

 

Lets clarify, this list doesn't mean that in order for the child to have higher test scores they have to have all 8 factors; these are factors that affect a child's score, good or bad.

 

As I read chapter 5, I kept thinking to myself that parents have a greater influence than this books say they do, as I result I was wrong. Many parents believe they have this huge influence on their children’s education, but how much influence do they really have? In Freakonomics they explain that parents think they do so much for their children by reading to them, taking them on trips to museums, cut down on TV, mother doesn’t work for a certain amount of time, and so on. These things actually do not matter when it comes to test scores. Sure, they’ll have a good bonding time, but if they did or didn’t do these things the child would still score about the same. There are some things on the correlated list I didn’t expect to be on there like, parents having high socioeconomic status and mother was 30 or older when she had her first child. After, I read more in depth I understood that if the parents have a high socioeconomic status that means they probably went to school or are smart enough to be successful. Mothers being over 30 most likely means the woman waited until she finish her schooling and started her career before settling down.

I thought doing all the things that are on the “Not correlated with test scores list,” were the things that actually mattered. Maybe I thought this because my parents did a lot of these things, I compared my parents to the top list and they didn’t qualify for 6 of the 8 factors. But when I looked at the second list that doesn’t affect test scores, my parents didn’t qualify for 2 of the 8 factors. So, this chapter had me thinking about my parents, if they would have turned out differently how would that affect my siblings’ and mine current scores.​

 

If you're wondering the factors not correlated with higher scores are:

1. The child's family is intact.

2. The child's parents recently moved into a better neightborhood.

3. The child's mother didn't work between birth and kindergarden.

4. The child attended head Start.

5. The child's parent's regularly take him to museums.

6. The child is regualarly spanked.

7. The child frequently watches television.

8. The child's parents read to him nearly every day.