Achievement Gaps

America is a democracy. One has the freedom to do and to be as much as one dares to dream, yet disparities abound causing rifts between classes, races, socioeconomic status, and student achievement. Our country’s leaders recognize and emphasize the importance of education through legislative actions as a means to secure achievement in economic and career related goals for all Americans. Despite provisions for free and appropriate education, gaps in school district achievement mirror gaps in wages, housing, familial stability , and the list of shortcomings goes on.

Parents have the right to rear their children as they see fit. Little oversight is provided to parents in preparing children to succeed in school. The only immediate attention from government officials comes in the wake of mistreatment and/or neglect. When parents do not value education, or lack the skills to support their children educationally, there is little done outside of the school. Inside schools, educators work to address gaps in student achievement by working in teams to review students’ needs and to use available resources and/or personnel to provide emotional, social, or academic supports in an effort to level the playing field. Ideally, these measures, when implemented consistently in sync with available research equip students with the skills and supports needed to compete with their peers. The reality, however, is that while some students experience success as a result of these interventions, some do not. As a veteran educator of twenty-four years serving Title I schools, in schools with a high percentage of students receiving free and/or reduced lunch, gaps in student achievement ebbs and flows depending on the use of funding for added instructional support and resources, which are used to address students’ needs. These disparities in student achievement predate formal education. After all, schools are merely mirrors of the communities served. Disparities in student achievement is not a new issue and neither are the attempted remedies.

In Tyvack & Cuban’s Tinkering Toward Utopia, the authors describe a school reform movement that has been in effect since Horace Mann supervised the first schools in 1812 to bring about “literate moral citizens capable of fulfilling the millennial hope of making the United States God’s country.” (Tyvack & Cuban, p.141) As the years pass, the population of the U.S. changes and the educational reform movement continues in an attempt to correct America’s most pressing problem. Jesse Stuart began his career in education in a one-room school house in Kentucky where he worked his way up to the superintendency. During his account of his early years in education, Stuart details his students' educational experiences and their families’ attitude toward school.

Stuart, age seventeen, taught thirty-five students in eight grade levels in a one-room school house in rural setting (Stuart, p 5). Stuarts’ class roster included Don Conway and Guy Hawkins, ages twenty and nineteen respectively, who were in the first grade in Stuarts' school. (Stuart, pp. 15-16) Stuart’s account details how he worked with the community, just as schools do today, in order to promote the importance of education, to build relationships, and to provide instruction in what can best be described as a mixed ability class for those far behind what was or is expected for their ages. Regardless, the disparity present in Stuart’s time resembles the frustrations I experience daily in my class. Although I am assigned to teach one age group of students they range in readiness skills.

Modern-day authors like Dr. Ruby Payne describe the learners as “under-resourced,” a term used to describe students who lack sufficient access to resources needed to compete in schools today. (Payne, ix) Today’s schools work to implement actions and/or programs to address the needs of under-resourced learners in the following areas: financial, language, emotional well-being, mental health, spiritual connectedness, physical health, support systems, positive relationships/role models, and knowledge of how social norms work. (Payne, p. 2-3) Payne writes, “When you know the resources of an individual, then you can determine the intervention(s) that will work best. Interventions that are successful work with the individual’s strengths to enhance his/her underdeveloped resources.” (Payne, p. 2) Much of what Payne advocates is represented in various personnel like social workers, school nurses, psychologists, counselors, and mentors. Processes like Response to Intervention (RTI) train teachers to respond to students’ academic and/or behavioral needs by providing appropriate supports.

Others echo the extensive history of disparity in student achievement results but insist we consider the absence of culturally-relevant curriculum among minority populations as the cause of the gaps in student achievement. (Lindsey, Martinez, Lindsey, 2007, pp. 6-7) Joseph Murphy (2009) recommends a two-fold approach to reducing the achievement gap. One tenet focuses on programs for under-resourced youth. A second approach fosters the development of strategies to help all learners to experience success, which tends to have the greatest impact on most struggling learners. (Murphy, 2009, p. 11) Despite the longevity of academic disparity and knowledge of how to eradicate the concerns, students continue to vary in terms of student achievement performance.

By the 1860s, as schools transitioned from the one-room schoolhouse, it became more acceptable for schools to implement standardized curriculum for specific grades of peers of the same age. Schools also introduced promotional examinations to assess student readiness for the demands of the subsequent grade level. By the 1870s, tests revealed outcomes reminiscent of today where students from immigrant families to students in rural areas struggled to meet annual assessment requirements. (Tyvack & Cuban, p. 90) Hence, the achievement gaps between majority and minority student populations was born.

Most sources on student achievement reference student performance on NAEP (National Assessment Educational Progress). Under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Education, the NAEP is our nation’s score card and assesses student achievement in reading, mathematics, and science. When considering NAEP results on the national level, Georgia’s fourth graders outperform the U.S. average and are nearly one-half of other states. When considering the student performance for students with low socioeconomic backgrounds, Georgia is nineteenth for all states. (The Educational Trust, p. 3)

This year I am teaching seventh grade Life Science at a Title I school in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Current enrollment has decreased to six hundred eighty-five students. The loss of students further reduces funding for the school which is generally spent on salaries for intervention specialists in reading and mathematics. Students who struggle with literacy and based on the lowest tier’s performance on the Georgia Milestones Assessment System receive intensive reading support in the 6th-grade. According to the school's annual Title I report, in 2016, ninety- two students, roughly one-third of the grade level, performed at Level 1 in achievement on GMAS for English/Language Arts (ELA). In 2017, sixty-two students from that cohort performed at Level 1 on the GMAS for ELA - a 33% decrease in the number of Level 1 students. The intervention specialists and the school's instructional support personnel work with teachers to meet students’ needs and the results show the approach is successful.

As an educational leader, I have participated in various processes designed to improve student achievement and behavioral success in schools. For five years, between 2005- 2010, I served as the School-Level Student Support Team (SST) for a different Title I school in the suburbs of Georgia. Years later, while working in another role, I learned the school was the poorest school in our district of 35,000 students, based on the number of students receiving free and reduced lunch. Despite the low socioeconomic status of the students served the school was a school of distinction based on gains in student achievement. Students' level of achievement was the result of hard work.

Teachers worked with students before school, after school, during lunch, and on Saturday mornings. Teams and administrators worked together to provide classroom instruction free from distractions due to behavior. As a Title I school, classrooms were supplied with ample resources proven effective at meeting the needs of middle grades learners. Additionally, teachers benefited from targeted professional development. Parents worked with school counselors and the Academic Coach to learn ways to better support their children at home. Evening programs were implemented to educate parents, partners in education and the community. The success of the school was truly a team effort.

To close the achievement gap, high-quality, focused instruction is a must. Therefore, teachers and instructional support staff should receive professional development opportunities to enhance content knowledge and pedagogical skills. Additionally, schools should work with community leaders to form partnerships in order to address the social needs within the community. This may include food and clothing drives, volunteering for delittering, or clean-up efforts, beautification of parks and commons areas, attending community events, and home visits to students' homes.

In closing, as educators, we must advocate for what is best for our students and the communities we serve. Given that achievement gaps extend from societal disparities, school leaders must maintain an active presence in local government to show how local and state decisions impact students. I have lived this experience and know in order to close the achievement gap in student performance one must focus on building relationships with all stakeholders. Closing gaps in student achievement requires the well-orchestrated use of all available resources- monetary and human; however, it is an achievable and worthwhile investment in the future of our nation and our posterities.

References

Lindsey, D. B., Martinez, R. S., & Lindsey, R. B. 2007). Culturally

proficient coaching: supporting educators to create equitable schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Murphy, J. (2009). Closing Achievement Gaps: Lessons from the Last 15 Years. Phi Delta Kappan,91(3), 8-12. doi:10.1177/003172170909100303

Payne, R. K. (2008). Under-resourced learners: 8 strategies to boost student achievement. Highlands, TX: Aha! Process, Inc.

The Education Trust. (n.d.). Ed Watch State Reports: Georgia (pp. 1-8, Rep.). The Education Trust.

Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (2001). Tinkering toward utopia: a century of public school reform. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Stuart, J. (2006). The thread that runs so true. Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation.