The Achievement Gap

1
The Achievement Gap

• Closing the Gap

2
Fact

• All of the districts in the Pittsburgh and
  surrounding areas, which report scores for the
  African American subgroup, are experiencing gaps
  in achievement scores between whites and blacks.

3
Fact

• Gaps between averages for whites and blacks range
  from 18 to 38

4
Fact

• According to the No Child Left Behind Act, All
  subgroups are expected to rise to 100 proficient.

5
NOT A FACT

• African-Americans are intellectually inferior to
  the white race and will never achieve equity in
  scores.

6
Todays Agenda

• What is the Achievement Gap?
• Why Should I Be Concerned?
• What Causes the Gap?
• What Are the Effects of the Gap?
• What Can We Do About the Gap?

7
What Can We Do About the Gap?

• Split into groups
• Each group will discuss one question, finding
  ways to address it within the context of their
  own classrooms.
• Create a visual or other means of presenting
  findings.
• Present to whole group.

8
What is the Achievement Gap?

• (www.ers.org/otsp/otsp3.htm)
• When educators talk about the achievement gap,
  they are usually referring to the fact that poor
  minority students, as a group, score lower on
  student achievement measures than do middle-class
  non-minority studentsetc. However, the term
  achievement gap means different things to
  different people.

9
What is the achievement gap?

• Gaps in achievement between whites and any other
  dissagregated group
• African-american, Hispanic, Native American,
  Special Education
• Focus today is on African-American/low
  socioeconomic backgrounds

10
What is the Achievement Gap?

• According to the School Matters website,
  schoolmatters.com, the following slides are
  statistical NCLB data for local area districts
• What do you notice?

11
A Sample of Inner-City School Districts 2004
NCLB Data AYP Reading Proficiency
12
School District 1 2004 AYP Reading Proficiency
13
School District 2 NCLB Data 2004 AYP Math
Proficiency
14
School District 3 NCLB Data 2004 AYP Math
Proficiency
15
School District 4 2004 AYP Reading Proficiency
16
School District 5 NCLB Data 2004 AYP Math
Proficiency
17
Why Should I Be Concerned?

• Taking measures to ensure equitable quality
  education for all students is the right thing to
  do.
• document developed by the Research Practitioner
  Council and approved by the Governing Board of
  the Minority Student Achievement Network in June
  2003
• Eliminating the gap is not only the right thing
  to do, but it is essential to ensure the future
  of our democracyetc. Because achievement is not
  innately determined, children will achieve when
  they are effectively taught how to learn

18
Why Should I Be Concerned?

• According to Daggot, the minority population of
  today is tomorrows majority population. Without
  adequate education, they will be unable to find
  good paying jobs. If they are not earning high
  enough pay, they cannot contribute adequately
  toward social security.

19
Why Should I Be Concerned?

• Without adequate contributions toward social
  security, the fund will run out.
• When we are ready to retire, there wont be
  enough money to fund our social security
  retirement.

20
Why Should I Be Concerned?

• Self-Improvement as a Teacher/Professional
• Striving for Excellence
• Making a Difference in the Lives of All Children

21

• Its the Law!
• (www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/no-child-left-beh
  ind.html) The No Child Left Behind Act mandates
  the improvement in academic performance of
  disadvantaged students. States must develop a
  system of sanctions and rewards to hold districts
  and schools accountable for improving academic
  achievement Consequences for schools that fail
  to educate disadvantaged students will first
  receive assistance, and then come under
  corrective action if they fail to make progress.
  If schools fail to make adequate yearly progress
  for three consecutive years, disadvantaged
  students may use Title 1 funds to transfer to a
  higher-performing public or private school, or
  receive supplemental educational services from a
  provider of choice.

22
Causes of the TAG

• Parental Influences
• Socio-economic factors
• Cultural factors
• Prejudice / racism
• School environment
• Student attitudes
• Teacher Factors

23
Parental Involvement

• Single Parent Family
• Two or more jobs
• Lack of caring
• Lack of involvement knowledge
• Lack of involvement invitation
• Personal/Special reasons

24
Socio-Economic Factors

• Low-parent income contributes to low educational
  resources at home
• Broken family structure is influence in unstable
  environmentleads to concerns that are lower on
  Maslows Hierarchy of Needs than the level, Need
  to Know which is a major motivational state of
  being for a child to want to learn.

25
More social factors

• Surrounded by friends with same parental/economic
  background

26
More social factors

• If the student is within a different cultural
  learning environment than his own, feelings of
  will I fit in? and the need to be part of a
  group may supersede learning. According to
  Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, the need to belong
  and feel loved supersedes the Need to Know stage.

27
Cultural factors

• (www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat119.shtm
  l) Interview with Dr. Ruby K. Payne, author of A
  Framework for Understanding Poverty
• Teachers often come from vastly different social
  and economic classes than their students, which
  can lead to culture clashes in the classroom.

28
Prejudice/Racism

• Cultural attitudes and racism also play a part in
  the achievement gap.
• etc., some minority students perceive that the
  majority culture sees them as less capable and
  expects little of them. These students may not
  try in school, since they believe they wont
  succeed anyway.

29
More prejudice/racial factors

• Some researchers believe minority students may
  maintain low levels of achievement purposely to
  avoid acting white and gain the approval of
  their peers

30
More cultural factors

• etc., behavior of some low income students
  might seem wrong to teachers from middle-income
  backgrounds, but made sense in the context of
  students lives.
• Misconceptions about low-income students and a
  middle-income frame of reference can hamper the
  education of students in poverty.

31
School Environment

• There are many factors in the school environment
  that contribute to the achievement of minority
  students.
• Ownership
• Belongingness
• Feelings of being singled out, or prejudiced
  against
• Feelings that punishment for a circumstance is
  always worse for African Americans

32
More student-environmental factors

• Feelings that doing well means acting white
• Use of students culture in the context of
  learning
• (are cultural names used in both written or
  verbal examples?)
• (are there representations of and from minority
  students in academic text, school art, and
  library books?)

33
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs (http//www.awa.com/no
rton/figures/fig1703.gif)
34
School Environment

• If a student has to concentrate more on his or
  her fear of being in school situations, or if he
  or she feels a lack of belongingness, it will be
  more difficult to focus on learning.

35
Teacher Factors

• (www.ers.org/otsp/otsp3.htm)
• etc., teachers often have low expectations of
  these students, leading them to have low
  expectations for themselves.
• In some cases, there is a belief that the
  mainstream culture is the standard, and
  therefore, better. When there is no use of the
  minority cultures environment, students will
  feel that it must be unimportant to the teacher.

36
More teacher factors

• (www.nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/articles5.htm
  l)
• ...etc., they often have teachers who give them
  less academic attention and are unprepared to
  address their diverse cultural needs.

37
More teacher factors

• www.nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/articles5.html
  )
• African American student achievement may suffer
  because school staff misread or use inappropriate
  teaching strategies that do not capitalize on
  students culture orientations or learning
  styles.

38
More School Factors

• (www.nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/articles5.htm
  l)
• Students do not shed their cultural skins at the
  school door. Many schools have difficulty trying
  to create a school culture that incorporates
  diverse cultural orientations. For example, many
  Black students are more socially interactive in
  the classroom than White students whose behavior
  more closely fits the White, middle-class school
  norm for appropriate classroom behaviors.

39
More Teacher Factors

• Teachers may view students in special educations
  programs or in the lower-academic tract, where
  students of color are overrepresented, as having
  less intellectual ability.
• (www.nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/articles5.htm
  l)

40
More Teacher Factors

• Teachers often expect more from middle-class
  students.
• Teachers tend to reject students who they
  perceive as overly active and distractible
  sic.

41
Racism

• document developed by the Research Practitioner
  Council and approved by the Governing Board of
  the Minority Student Achievement Network in June
  2003
• Racism within schools continues to be a
  significant barrier to student achievement.

42
What will happen if TAG continues to exist?

• (www.pbs.org/closingtheachievementgap/debate_mindi
  ng.html)
• ...etc., the test score gap is large enough to
  have important social and economic consequences.

43
What will happen if TAG continues to exist?

• (www.ucc.org/justice/action/w061202.htm)
• Achievement gaps are a life-limiting tragedy for
  the children who have been left behind. They are
  also tangible evidence of institutional racism
  and social alienation in Americas public
  schools. If the Achievement Gap continues to
  exist, as well as the factors that support its
  existence, it will continue to perpetuate many
  race-related problems that exist today.

44
So what? What can we do?

• It is important to remember that the Achievement
  Gap is due to factors that helped support it.
  While some of these factors include socioeconomic
  and cultural factors, the school related factors,
  such as student attitude, school atmosphere,
  teacher expectations, and prejudice/racism are
  factors that are within the control of the school
  district, its programs, and employees.

45

• Ahhh There is a rainbow

46

• And we can help put it there

47
What can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• (www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat119.shtm
  l)
• Dr. Ruby Payne says that some strategies that we
  can employ to help make lessons more relevant and
  understandable for children of all social classes
  are

48
What can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• Build relationships of mutual respect with
  students
• Use direct teaching processes. This means that
  you are very specific in the steps and procedures
  needed to do something.
• Use Mental modes.

49
What else can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• (www.nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/articles5.htm
  l)
• Understand the role of prejudice, bias, and
  stereotyping in their lives.
• Use the unique abilities, skills, talents, and
  strengths of all students to expand and extend
  their learning and achievement, using in
  culturally appropriate ways questioning
  strategies, critical thinking, and the
  application of knowledge.
• Take advantage of social skills that children
  typically bring to the classroom.
• etc., ensure equitable academic attention by
  developing a system for calling on students.

50
What else can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• (www.nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/articles5.htm
  l)
• Take advantage of social skills that children
  typically bring to the classroom.
• etc., ensure equitable academic attention by
  developing a system for calling on students.

51
What else can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• (www.edletter.org/past/issues/2001-mj/gap.shtml)
• One school district, Fort Wayne, implemented
  diversity training for staff, developed school
  improvement plans with the input of
  representative groups across age and racial
  lines, and revised curriculum to include better
  representation of the cultural contributions of
  people of color.

52
What else can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• Use of a student attitude survey will help
  determine if a need exist in the area of school
  atmosphere.

53
What else can we do about the Achievement Gap?

• (www.pbs.org/closingtheachievementgap/debate_mindi
  ng.html)
• The most promising school-related strategies for
  reducing the black-white test score gap seem to
  involve changes like reducing class size, setting
  minimum standards of academic competency for
  teachers and raising teachers expectations for
  low-performing students.

54
Resources

• Resource Education World. Wire Side Chats. How
  Understanding Poverty Can Help Low-Income
  Children Learn. Internet Explorer. April 15
  2005.
• http//www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/
  chat119.shtml
• Resource Educational research Service. What Can
  Schools Do to Reduce the Achievement Gap? ERS On
  the Same Page Series. Internet Explorer. April
  23, 2005.
• http//www.ers./otsp/otsp3.htm
• Resource KY Department of Education. Background
  on Closing the Gap. Internet Explorer. April
  23, 2005.
• http//www.education.ky.gov/KDE/InstructionalRes
  ources/Closingt heGap/Background...

55
More resources

• Resource State Education and Environment
  Roundtable. Closing the Achievement Gap. Using
  the Environment as an Integrating Context for
  Learning. Internet Explorer. April 17, 2005.
• http//www.seer.org/pages/GAP.html
• Resource NW Regional Educational Laboratory.
  Closing the Achievement Gap Requires Multiple
  Solutions. Internet Explorer. April 17, 2005.
• http//nwrel.org/cnorse/infoline/may97/article5.h
  tml
• Resource document. What is the Relationship
  Between Race and Achievement in Our Schools?
  Minority Student Achievement Network Statement of
  Purpose. Adopted June 2003.

56
More resources

• Resource Harvard Educational Letter. Research
  Online. Past Issues. Closing the Gap One School
  at a Time. Internet Explorer. April 17, 2005
• http//edletter.org/past/issues/2001-mj/gap.shtml
  
• Resource United Church Press. A reflection on
  academic achievement gaps in public schools.
  June 12, 2002. Internet Explorer. April 17,
  2005
• http//www.ucc.org/justice/action/w061202.htm
• Resource PBS. The Debate. Minding the Gap.
  Internet Explorer. April 17, 2005
• http//www.pbs.org/closingtheachievementgap/debat
  e_minding.html

57
More resources

• Resource Bridging the Gap. A Champaign-Urbana
  Town Hall Meeting. Internet Explorer. April 23,
  2003.
• http//www.will.uiuc.edu/community/townhall/whati
  sgap.htm
• Resource Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Internet
  Explorer. April 24, 2005.
• http//chiron.valdost.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslo
  w.html