FACT: The poor will NOT always do badly in school; deprivation is NOT destiny

“Even as teachers in classrooms around the world struggle to make up for the disadvantage into which some of their students were born, some believe that deprivation is destiny. But PISA results show that this is a false premise – and that there is nothing inevitable about how well or badly different social groups are likely to do in school, or in life. There are two sides to this story. On the one hand, in all countries that participate in PISA, learning outcomes are associated with the social background of students and schools – a major challenge for teachers and schools.1 But on the other hand, the strength of the relationship between social background and the quality of learning outcomes varies substantially across education systems – proof that poor results are not inevitable for disadvantaged students. In the 2012 PISA test, the 10% most disadvantaged 15-year-olds in Shanghai showed better mathematics results than the 10% most privileged students in the United States and many other countries..... All countries have some excellent students, but few have enabled most students to excel. Achieving greater equity in education is not only a social-justice imperative, it is also a way to use resources more efficiently, and to ensure that all people can contribute to their societies. In the end, how we educate the most vulnerable children reflects who we are as a society.“

ANDREAS SCHLEICHER ‘WORLD CLASS How to build a 21st-century school system’