Compensatory education

Compensatory education offers supplementary programs or services designed to help children at risk of cognitive impairment and low educational achievement succeed.^[1][2]

Contents 1 Children at risk 2 How to help these children 3 Jensenism 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

Children at risk

Poor children do worse in school than their well-off peers. They are more likely to experience learning disabilities and developmental delays.^[3] Poor children score between 6 and 13 points lower on various standardized tests of IQ, verbal ability, and achievement.^[4]Poverty also has a negative impact on high-school graduation^[5] and college attendance.^[6] Children raised by a single parent, children who have more than two siblings, children by teenaged parents and children raised in poverty-stricken neighbourhoods are also at risk of low academic achievement.^[7]

How to help these children

Numerous programs have been created in order to help children at risk reach their full potential. Among the American programs of compensary education are Head Start, the Chicago Child-Parent Center Program, High/Scope, Abecedarian Early Intervention Project, SMART (Start Making a Reader Today), the Milwaukee Project and the 21st Century Community Learning Center. In Germany and Great Britain Early Excellence Centres are widely discussed programs of compensatory education. Not all of that programs have been proven to be effective. However scientist were able to identify social programmes that work.^[8]Among these are the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project,^[9][10][11] the Abecedarian Project,^{[12][13][14][15][16]} and SMART.^[17][18]

Jensenism

Jensenism is the theory that IQ is largely determined by genes, including racial heritage.^[19] Named for psychologist Arthur Jensen, the term came into use amid debates surrounding the publication of his controversial 1969 paper, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?".^[20] The paper begins, "Compensatory education has been tried and apparently has failed," and concludes the educational achievement gaps persist because genetic based differences in IQ predominate socioeconomically based inequalities in education.^[20][21] In their controversial book The Bell Curve, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray put forth the same opinion. The book has been both criticised and supported by scientists.