The Role of Teachers in Closing the Achievement Gap

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The Role of Teachers in Closing the Achievement
Gap

• by
• Sharon P. Robinson
• President and CEO
• American Association of Colleges for
• Teacher Education
• April 12, 2007
• Lucy Harth Smith-Atwood S. Wilson
• Award Breakfast
• Kentucky Education Association Convention
• Louisville, Kentucky

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What is The Gap?

• Disparity in academic performance between groups
  of students
• Evidenced by
• Grades
• Standardized test scores
• Course selection
• Dropout rates
• College completion rates

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First, some good news

• After more than a decade of
• fairly flat achievement
• and stagnant or growing gaps,
• we appear to be
• turning the corner

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Source Condition of Education 2006, National
Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department
of Ed.
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White/Minority Reading Score Gaps at Age
9 National Assessment of Educational
Progress Long-Term Reading Assessments, 1971-2004
NAEP Reading Scale Score
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White/Minority Math Score Gaps at Age 9 National
Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term
Mathematics Assessments, 1973-2004
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Kentucky Low-Income Students Rate High in Science!

• 4th graders from low-income KY families
  out-scored all other states on 05 NAEP science
• 26 scored Proficient or better
• The next closest state (Maine) was 23
• National average 12
• 8th graders from low-income KY families ranked
  10th in the nation
• 21 scored Proficient or better
• National average 12
• Source Perspectives, Newsletter of the
  Prichard Committee, Spring 07

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Bottom LineWhen We Really Focus on Something,
We Make Progress
Kati Haycock, Education Trust, 2007
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ButWere Not There Yet

• All Students Reaching the Top Strategies for
  Closing Academic Achievement Gaps Learning
  Point Associates, 2004
• School Quality and the Black-White Achievement
  Gap Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006
• Achievement Gaps An Examination of Differences
  in Student Achievement and Growth Northwest
  Evaluation Association, 2006

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NAEP 2005 READING SCORES KENTUCKY U.S., 4TH
AND 8TH GRADE BY RACE/ETHNICITY
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NAEP 2005 MATH SCORES KENTUCKY U.S., 4TH AND
8TH GRADE BY RACE/ETHNICITY
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Correlates of Achievement
Source Paul E. Barton, Parsing the Achievement
Gap. Educational Testing Service, Policy
Information Center, 2003.
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These gaps begin before children arrive at the
schoolhouse door

• But, rather than organizing our educational
  system
• to ameliorate this problem,
• we exacerbate the problem
• by giving less to those students
• who arrive with less

Kati Haycock, the Education Trust
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Correlates of Achievement
Source Paul E. Barton, Parsing the Achievement
Gap. Educational Testing Service, Policy
Information Center, 2003.
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The achievement gap that exists in American
education is not a gap in ability, but a gap in
resources and a gap in expectations
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We know that students from all backgrounds can
succeed at the highest levels of education
when they are given the support they need to
succeedthe support that is regularly given to
students from the top income brackets.
Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia University
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Challenges
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The "teacher-quality gap" is a major cause of the
achievement gap between poor and minority
students and other students. 
William Taylor and Dianne Piche, Days of
Reckoning  Are States and the Federal Government
Up to the Challenge of Ensuring a Qualified
Teacher for Every Student?, Citizens Commission
on Civil Rights , 2006.
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High Poverty, High Minority SchoolsHave Lower
Teacher Quality
Source Kati Haycock, Good Teaching Matters How
Well-Qualified Teachers Can Close the Gap. The
Education Trust, 1998. Unpublished data from
Richard Ingersoll, 1998.
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• Financing and teacher assignment systems lead to
  schools with mostly poor and minority students
  getting
• less money,
• offering fewer advanced courses and
• having weaker teachers.
  Ross Wiener, The Education Trust

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Closing the achievement gap is at the heart of
No Child Left Behind and must continue to be
our focus in renewing the actSenator Edward
M. Kennedy (D-MA), Chair,Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
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• I dont think testing is the place you begin.
  You begin with these kinds of things in our
  report and two, three, four, five years down the
  road you can expect to see results reflected in
  the tests.
• Edmund W. Gordon, Chair, National Study Group for
  the Affirmative Development of Academic Ability,
  2004

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Affirmative development of academic ability

• High-quality teaching and instruction in the
  classroom
• Trusting relationships in school
• Environmental supports for pro-academic behavior
  in the school and community
• Developmental scaffolding in which students
  growth is supported

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Other Intervention Strategies

• Focused instruction
• Frequent diagnostic assessment
• Supplementary learning opportunities
• Tutoring morning, noon, after school
• Building student trust in schools teachers
• Challenging academic work
• Teaching that builds on what students already
  know

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The Essential Learning Outcomes

• Knowledge of Human Cultures and
• the Physical and Natural World
• Intellectual and Practical Skills
• Personal and Social Responsibility
• Integrative Learning

Source Association of American Colleges and
Universities, College Learning for the New Global
Century. A report from the National Leadership
Council for Liberal Education Americas Promise
(Washington, DC author, 2007).
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A More Inclusive Way of Teaching

• Building Trust
• Engaging Personal Culture
• Confronting Social Dominance and Social Justice
• Transforming Instructional Practices
• Engaging the Entire School Community

Source Gary. R. Howard, As Diversity Grows, So
Must We, Educational Leadership, March 2007.
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Where Its Happening

• Just for the Kids National Center for
  Educational Accountability. www.just4kids.org
• Education Trust and its Dispelling the Myth
  annual awards. www.edtrust.org
• Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
  www.annenberginstitute.org
• Its Being Done Academic Success in Unexpected
  Schools, by Karin Chenoweth. Harvard Education
  Press, 2007 (in press)

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