In Memphis, Children Arrive At School With Meaningful Differences In School Readiness

Across the country, children from more affluent families are more likely to reach school ready to learn. This relationship matters for Memphis, where most school-children come from low-income families and neighborhoods.  It also matters because children who are ready for kindergarten are also more likely to do well through school, graduate, and go on to college. In a sense, we glimpse the future of our community when we see how well prepared our children are when they reach kindergarten.

A recent report by Dr. Marie Sell of Memphis City Schools, and Dr. Doug Imig of the Urban Child Institute and the University of Memphis, examines the relationship between family income and school readiness in Memphis. Their analysis suggests that while family income helps to explain patterns of readiness in Memphis, the relationship between income and readiness is not fixed. Instead, many children in Memphis from poor families reach school ready to learn. This is good news because poverty in early childhood threatens brain development and can undermine school readiness. In Memphis, close to 80 percent of each kindergarten class (roughly 6,800 children) are from low-income families. The analysis shows that children in more affluent neighborhoods generally reach kindergarten with higher readiness scores. But the authors point to a more important finding: among children from the poorest neighborhoods and families, there are significant differences in readiness as well.

In other words, the weakest as well as some of the strongest cohorts of kindergartners in the city are found among our lowest-income children. According to Dr. Sell, these findings are very good news because: “They make it clear that statistics are not destiny, and the socio-economic risk-factors that threaten children can be overcome by engaged parents, aided by high-quality early-childhood educational interventions.” What explains the high number of children in Memphis who reach school in much better shape than their risk profile would predict? Dr. Imig says that part of the answer is parents who embrace their role as their child’s first teacher, nurturing their infants and toddlers through play, story-telling, laughter and singing. Another part of the answer likely will be found in high-quality early education and pre-kindergarten experiences for some of our kids.

Still a third piece of the story has to do with neighborhood, community, and church supports that help to protect children from unsafe environments, poor nutrition, community violence, chaotic home lives, and toxic stress. “In time,” Imig says, “we hope to pinpoint the early childhood experiences and interventions in our community that place at-risk children on a pathway to school readiness, academic achievement, and safe and healthy adulthood. With this information, our community will be better able to celebrate and nurture those early experiences that lead to the future we would choose for all of our children.”