Achievement Gap

[Anonymous]

Let's be clear: The size of the achievement gap is not important. The important metric is the low rate of mastery among struggling students. Any talk of shifting the demographics to close the achievement gap entirely misses the point (and belies an attitude that mindlessly buys into the rhetoric of NCLB).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm black and live in NW. I guess we're upper middle class. I don't know of a single black friend or family member who sends their child to DCPS; we all went private. There isn't just an achievement gap; there's also an expectations gap.

That's the issue we're grappling with at the moment. Our IB school is always touted as "one of the best" but it has a low percentage of AAs and I'm concerned about the possibility of low expectations from teachers who might write my child off because of race. Not trying to cause thread drift, but, are you satisfied that your child is seen as an individual rather than a "color" at your private school?

As far as the achievement gap, are there studies comparing achievement by race in a single ses? It's easy to see why, as a whole, AAs or Hispanics might score lower. If you have one middle/upper class AA student with an A average being included in a group of 3 lower ses AA students with C averages, the result is going to be scewed towards the lower achievers. There's a larger population of lower ses AA/Hispanic students in DC than there are middle/upper class.

To the pp who visited an AA household and didn't see a bookshelf - did it ever occur to you that they get books from the library and don't need a bookshelf for the 3 or 4 books each child borrows? I've made the "no bookshelf" observation in some white middle class households as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no proposal to fix because none of us have the ablity to address the SES problem. Or at least there is insufficient data and political will interms of really how to reverse this dynamic.

Time and gentrification.

Iow, get rid of the poor (black) people. That helps US but not THEM. They will still be poor, but they won't be a bother to us any more

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's be clear: The size of the achievement gap is not important. The important metric is the low rate of mastery among struggling students. Any talk of shifting the demographics to close the achievement gap entirely misses the point (and belies an attitude that mindlessly buys into the rhetoric of NCLB).

I am saying that keeping the same number of poor kids and increasing the number of not poor kids ( thereby lowering the percentage of poor kids ) is a net win for everyone. And it has been proven to raise academic acheivement for the poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm black and live in NW. I guess we're upper middle class. I don't know of a single black friend or family member who sends their child to DCPS; we all went private. There isn't just an achievement gap; there's also an expectations gap.

That's the issue we're grappling with at the moment. Our IB school is always touted as "one of the best" but it has a low percentage of AAs and I'm concerned about the possibility of low expectations from teachers who might write my child off because of race. Not trying to cause thread drift, but, are you satisfied that your child is seen as an individual rather than a "color" at your private school?

As far as the achievement gap, are there studies comparing achievement by race in a single ses? It's easy to see why, as a whole, AAs or Hispanics might score lower. If you have one middle/upper class AA student with an A average being included in a group of 3 lower ses AA students with C averages, the result is going to be scewed towards the lower achievers. There's a larger population of lower ses AA/Hispanic students in DC than there are middle/upper class.

To the pp who visited an AA household and didn't see a bookshelf - did it ever occur to you that they get books from the library and don't need a bookshelf for the 3 or 4 books each child borrows? I've made the "no bookshelf" observation in some white middle class households as well.

Another AA parent here. The achievement gap still exists between black and white with higher SES. The gap is not just about SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm black and live in NW. I guess we're upper middle class. I don't know of a single black friend or family member who sends their child to DCPS; we all went private. There isn't just an achievement gap; there's also an expectations gap.

That's the issue we're grappling with at the moment. Our IB school is always touted as "one of the best" but it has a low percentage of AAs and I'm concerned about the possibility of low expectations from teachers who might write my child off because of race. Not trying to cause thread drift, but, are you satisfied that your child is seen as an individual rather than a "color" at your private school?

As far as the achievement gap, are there studies comparing achievement by race in a single ses? It's easy to see why, as a whole, AAs or Hispanics might score lower. If you have one middle/upper class AA student with an A average being included in a group of 3 lower ses AA students with C averages, the result is going to be scewed towards the lower achievers. There's a larger population of lower ses AA/Hispanic students in DC than there are middle/upper class.

To the pp who visited an AA household and didn't see a bookshelf - did it ever occur to you that they get books from the library and don't need a bookshelf for the 3 or 4 books each child borrows? I've made the "no bookshelf" observation in some white middle class households as well.

I hope you're not talking about YY: It is MAJORITY AA!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm black and live in NW. I guess we're upper middle class. I don't know of a single black friend or family member who sends their child to DCPS; we all went private. There isn't just an achievement gap; there's also an expectations gap.

That's the issue we're grappling with at the moment. Our IB school is always touted as "one of the best" but it has a low percentage of AAs and I'm concerned about the possibility of low expectations from teachers who might write my child off because of race. Not trying to cause thread drift, but, are you satisfied that your child is seen as an individual rather than a "color" at your private school?

As far as the achievement gap, are there studies comparing achievement by race in a single ses? It's easy to see why, as a whole, AAs or Hispanics might score lower. If you have one middle/upper class AA student with an A average being included in a group of 3 lower ses AA students with C averages, the result is going to be scewed towards the lower achievers. There's a larger population of lower ses AA/Hispanic students in DC than there are middle/upper class.

To the pp who visited an AA household and didn't see a bookshelf - did it ever occur to you that they get books from the library and don't need a bookshelf for the 3 or 4 books each child borrows? I've made the "no bookshelf" observation in some white middle class households as well.

I hope you're not talking about YY: It is MAJORITY AA!!

What on earth are you talking about? IB = IN BOUNDARY school. No one is IB for YY. READ.

[Anonymous]

Please help me understand-what is considered middle class in DC? There seems to be many definitions on what middle class is depending on what region of the country you are from.

[Anonymous]

I did read, little ms. huffy-pants! IB also stands for International Baccalaureate, which is the type of school YY is. let's face it, the school takes such a beating on this forum that i was confused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did read, little ms. huffy-pants! IB also stands for International Baccalaureate, which is the type of school YY is. let's face it, the school takes such a beating on this forum that i was confused.

LOL, Mind if I plagiarize?

I apologize for being huffy. We didn't consider YY as an option. We want LO to learn a language other than Chinese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm black and live in NW. I guess we're upper middle class. I don't know of a single black friend or family member who sends their child to DCPS; we all went private. There isn't just an achievement gap; there's also an expectations gap.

That's the issue we're grappling with at the moment. Our IB school is always touted as "one of the best" but it has a low percentage of AAs and I'm concerned about the possibility of low expectations from teachers who might write my child off because of race. Not trying to cause thread drift, but, are you satisfied that your child is seen as an individual rather than a "color" at your private school?

As far as the achievement gap, are there studies comparing achievement by race in a single ses? It's easy to see why, as a whole, AAs or Hispanics might score lower. If you have one middle/upper class AA student with an A average being included in a group of 3 lower ses AA students with C averages, the result is going to be scewed towards the lower achievers. There's a larger population of lower ses AA/Hispanic students in DC than there are middle/upper class.

To the pp who visited an AA household and didn't see a bookshelf - did it ever occur to you that they get books from the library and don't need a bookshelf for the 3 or 4 books each child borrows? I've made the "no bookshelf" observation in some white middle class households as well.

Another AA parent here. The achievement gap still exists between black and white with higher SES. The gap is not just about SES.

There's a white/asian achievement gap tht persists too, that no one ever bothers about because both groups are doing well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many whites are in the 4th and 8th grade? Just a couple of years ago it wasn't enough to make a blip on the radar. All of sudden they are enough whites in the testing grades contributing to the federal study. It must be a slow news day for the Washpo.

Now let's see an Asian Chancellor couldn't close the achievement gap. Here we are currently with an African-American Chancellor who can't do it. Eureka!!! I must say give the white person a chance to run the majority AA school system. Well, at least we can be assured that the white contingent is fully cognizant of what is needed for the federal study.

Rhee was not an Asian Chancellor. Please note she was an Asian American Chancellor just like you used African-American in describing the current Chancellor.

[Anonymous]

What is the white asian gap?

[Anonymous]

The awkward space between chopsticks and lips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's be clear: The size of the achievement gap is not important. The important metric is the low rate of mastery among struggling students. Any talk of shifting the demographics to close the achievement gap entirely misses the point (and belies an attitude that mindlessly buys into the rhetoric of NCLB).

I am saying that keeping the same number of poor kids and increasing the number of not poor kids ( thereby lowering the percentage of poor kids ) is a net win for everyone. And it has been proven to raise academic acheivement for the poor kids.

I will grant that there may be some correlation. But correlation is not causation (which is the slope on which most education research slips).

It seems to me that simply getting more high-SES white kids into the classrooms comes at the problem from the wrong direction. Would it not be more productive to focus on the students whose learning is not yet good enough? As I said, I don't think we can demography our way out of this issue. The solution lies in education innovation, not statistics.