Nothing new for many of us in this summary of sociological research:
“Family income is now nearly as strong as parental education in predicting children’s achievement.” (Reardon 2011: 5)
Note the “now” for a study that essentially tells us that not much has changed since the Coleman report. This rhetorical move may be what attracted the New York Times who highlighted the study at least twice since it was published.
I missed Reardon’s study when it was published, as well as the first editorial essay published in the Times about it. The April 27th “Opinionator” piece by Reardon is thus not quite “news” but it does confirm the trend about what is to count as “fit to print” knowledge. Reardon himself, as an academic sociologist on the faculty of the School of Education at Stanford, of course knows that what he is observing is not a new phenomenon and his paper is a good source for a brief history of the sociological research on family and school performance. I will use the paper the next time I teach my course on family and education.