Achievement Gap

[Anonymous]

Although I have not yet seen the breakdown, I'm pretty sure that the achievement gap is very wide with the AA students being the lowest. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions on how we as a community can get this gap closed? My daughter is currently at a charter school, and those schools are the ones that baffle me the most. I'm thinking that parents are making a conscious decision to move their student (I'm talking mostly AA) from their neighborhood school for whatever reason, and place them in what they consider to be a "good" school, or at least better than their inboundary school, so why then do they think that is enough? Is there no support at home, do the parents just "not care", and do the students also not care? I've thought about asking the principal at my daughters school if I could call a meeting for the parents and students that are below proficient on the DCCAS and find out what are some of the problems and maybe work on solutions. Something needs to be done, I just don't know what exactly. BTW, I am an AA parent.

[Anonymous]

I think it requires a paradigm shift in the black community, as many prominent blacks have noted. The legacy of slavery was poverty and then a dependency on government handouts, which bred a sense of entitlement. But, that's not going to get people anywhere in this life.

[Anonymous]

Same problem at our school of mostly low income Latino kids. I think the parents want them to achieve but can't or don't know how to help them (many don't speak English). This year our DC-CAS scores dropped slightly, so the many reforms and new programs put in place by our newish principal don't seem to be working.

I too wonder what parents can do to help. It seems like these kids need intensive academic help after school and summers, not just during the school day. Our school is dual immersion. We're just entering K, and I've wondered if our class could match up Latino and English speaking families to help tutor each others' kids. But maybe that's a patently patronizing idea (since the Spanish speakers are the ones who need help most).

If anyone has been through this and knows of solutions, please share.

[Anonymous]

If you find out what the problems are, can you address them? It is wonderful for the reach out and concern but what can you do with such an over-whelming outcome? Why not gather the AA parents who are doing things positive and reach out collectively to all. Therefore, the good, better and best scenario will encompass all to be continually successful. I applaud the outreach but I am apprehensive in the approach. I am assuming as an individual you will include those who are employed with DCPS to facilitate such a meeting?

As for the gap, is it the goal to close it gradually? Can we look at the overall improvement as miniscule it is of .05% and build upon it? There's not a parent who doesn't want the best for their child in the realm of education. We have become the microwave generation. Put in, push buttons, set the time and produce a proficient child....beep! Then if not good enough, reheat and produce an advance child.


10:08, I can't put my finger on it, but your post hit a nerve. Can you explain more...

[Anonymous]

11:08, Thanks for the input. Yes, I was originally thinking about getting more than just the low performing AA students and parents together and make this a school wide effort to help close the gap. I don't have a specific percentage that I would like to see achieved. Just movement in a positive direction. I will speak with the principal and see what the school is trying to do, if anything at all. In the meantime, I will work with my neighborhood school(they were only at 50% proficient) and recreation center to inquire about setting up some intensive academic assistance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you find out what the problems are, can you address them? It is wonderful for the reach out and concern but what can you do with such an over-whelming outcome? Why not gather the AA parents who are doing things positive and reach out collectively to all. Therefore, the good, better and best scenario will encompass all to be continually successful. I applaud the outreach but I am apprehensive in the approach. I am assuming as an individual you will include those who are employed with DCPS to facilitate such a meeting?

As for the gap, is it the goal to close it gradually? Can we look at the overall improvement as miniscule it is of .05% and build upon it? There's not a parent who doesn't want the best for their child in the realm of education. We have become the microwave generation. Put in, push buttons, set the time and produce a proficient child....beep! Then if not good enough, reheat and produce an advance child.


10:08, I can't put my finger on it, but your post hit a nerve. Can you explain more...

The thing is, if you are willing to accept 0.5% improvement a year, then the school system will only improve by 6% in the 12 years your child is in school. That's not enough when less than half the kids are proficient.

[Anonymous]

Check out this article for a model that could be modified -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/club-2012-black-parents-who-made-sure-their-sons-succeeded-in-school/2012/06/13/gJQAnEdZcV_story.html

[Anonymous]

I think there are some families/parent(s) who do not care about education and do not value it. They themselves did not get educated and are "doing ok" meaning getting by on a low wage job with government support. It's hard for a child who lives that way. That's their "normal" and you are basically having to say that their family and parents are not normal.

I think the gap grows larger because the kids who are average or above average achievers also have parents who are highly vested in making sure their child gets more than just the standard education in the classroom. When you have children then who are getting hours of outside learning whether it be via direct instruction in activities, tutoring, etc or from just interaction with parents, it is almost impossible for the child who is just getting the standard education at school to keep up.

I think that many schools and principals get caught up in trying to implement programs and plans with catchy names and titles when what is likely needed is serious repetitive teaching of basic skills until those kids who are lagging get caught up.

[Anonymous]

11:55: OMGoodness the article was very inspiring, just what I was looking for. Now to get support for the plan from parents at my daughters school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there are some families/parent(s) who do not care about education and do not value it. They themselves did not get educated and are "doing ok" meaning getting by on a low wage job with government support. It's hard for a child who lives that way. That's their "normal" and you are basically having to say that their family and parents are not normal.

I think the gap grows larger because the kids who are average or above average achievers also have parents who are highly vested in making sure their child gets more than just the standard education in the classroom. When you have children then who are getting hours of outside learning whether it be via direct instruction in activities, tutoring, etc or from just interaction with parents, it is almost impossible for the child who is just getting the standard education at school to keep up.

I think that many schools and principals get caught up in trying to implement programs and plans with catchy names and titles when what is likely needed is serious repetitive teaching of basic skills until those kids who are lagging get caught up.

I agree, but the higher-achieving children will struggle and flee from a drill and kill environment. That is why our city needs options for gifted children in order to help everyone. It is impossible to effectively teach children at so many different levels in the same classroom without at least some pull-out periods for differentiation. This process will go much more quickly as soon as everyone realizes this very simple fact and stops calling such standard programs racist or classist.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the gap is the cultural literacy that is fundamentally part of any set of tests. It matters if a kid does not have a background in mythology, fables, bible stories and general history. Most advanced reading requires some level of understanding of implied language. Thus a person that comes to this country that has never read fairytales will not understand the term Cinderella in relation to the NCAA March Madness. Samford Weil's turnaround on to big to fail banks is call his road to Damascus. There is a lot of this type of cultural knowledge that many kids that are poor or not grounded in a literate culture will not get and therefore not be able to compete with their peers. Challenge is that an approach that centralizes teaching decreases multi-cultural teaching by definition. You have to decide if you want to protest power and stay at the bottom or join power and learn it. This is not exactly how he put it but this was my take away when I read:

The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children

E. D. Hirsch Jr., Books

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Although I have not yet seen the breakdown, I'm pretty sure that the achievement gap is very wide with the AA students being the lowest. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions on how we as a community can get this gap closed? My daughter is currently at a charter school, and those schools are the ones that baffle me the most. I'm thinking that parents are making a conscious decision to move their student (I'm talking mostly AA) from their neighborhood school for whatever reason, and place them in what they consider to be a "good" school, or at least better than their inboundary school, so why then do they think that is enough? Is there no support at home, do the parents just "not care", and do the students also not care? I've thought about asking the principal at my daughters school if I could call a meeting for the parents and students that are below proficient on the DCCAS and find out what are some of the problems and maybe work on solutions. Something needs to be done, I just don't know what exactly. BTW, I am an AA parent.

It's probably not race/ethnicity but SES that causes the gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Challenge is that an approach that centralizes teaching decreases multi-cultural teaching by definition.

I've taught the CK sequence at several different grades. CK does not centralize teaching, nor does it decrease multi-cultural teaching. It simply offers a supplemental body of content that teachers are free to teach in any way that they choose. The content is by no means ethnocentric. Take a look at the sequence. It's free at http://coreknowledge.org/download-the-sequence

[Anonymous]

I found the following NPR piece interesting. It points to the need to begin with early interventions as a means by which to close the achievement gap between poor and well-off students.

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132740565/closing-the-achievement-gap-with-baby-talk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Although I have not yet seen the breakdown, I'm pretty sure that the achievement gap is very wide with the AA students being the lowest. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions on how we as a community can get this gap closed? My daughter is currently at a charter school, and those schools are the ones that baffle me the most. I'm thinking that parents are making a conscious decision to move their student (I'm talking mostly AA) from their neighborhood school for whatever reason, and place them in what they consider to be a "good" school, or at least better than their inboundary school, so why then do they think that is enough? Is there no support at home, do the parents just "not care", and do the students also not care? I've thought about asking the principal at my daughters school if I could call a meeting for the parents and students that are below proficient on the DCCAS and find out what are some of the problems and maybe work on solutions. Something needs to be done, I just don't know what exactly. BTW, I am an AA parent.

It's probably not race/ethnicity but SES that causes the gap.

There's no "probably"; this is not even debatable. The gap is purely a function of the fact that (effectively) all poor people in DC are black. The converse is not true--the middle-class and wealthy are quite diverse.