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Achievement gap reality check

Posted on June 24, 2010June 24, 2010 by Staff

EDUCATION MATTERS
Steve Peha

The achievement gap is the most serious educational challenge we face in our schools. To many, it seems intractable. But after decades of attempts throughout the nation to deal with this issue, important lessons have emerged that form the basis of a viable and lasting solution.

Narrowing the gap is a more useful goal than closing the gap. In a free-market capitalist society characterized by great disparities in wealth among citizens, there will always be differences in academic performance that correlate with socio-economic sub-groups. It’s not hard to see how kids from wealthier families with better-educated parents might accumulate advantages over less-privileged kids regardless of the quality of education they receive. Because of this, it is better to speak of narrowing the gap than of closing it. Differences, however, can be reduced to the point where they become insignificant, especially if we change our view of the gap as being defined by test scores and redefine it in terms of meaningful life outcomes like college attendance. This shift addresses the gap pragmatically, not theoretically or symbolically as we have in the past.

Defining the gap by test passage is misleading and dangerous. Measuring the gap using state and federal achievement statistics distorts our view of educational progress. First, test proficiency, especially minimum proficiency over a standards-based curriculum, does not correlate well with what students need to know to pursue higher education and meaningful careers. Second, the difference between students who meet minimum proficiency and those who score higher still represents a significant gap. When we rely on test passage as our metric, we confuse ourselves and our communities about what we have accomplished and the scope of the work that remains.

Seek equality of outcome in terms of meaningful accomplishments that matter in kids’ lives. Scoring a little higher on a test doesn’t change a kid’s life. Getting a college degree does. So does moving on to high-quality job training and a good career. Test scores have only limited correlation with meaningful real-world accomplishments. If we focused, for example, on sending all kids to college, we could solve achievement problems even if kids went to different colleges or chose not to go at all. College-readiness is the simplest, most readily quantifiable and most worthy measurement of progress in educational equity, even if different socio-economic sub-groups tend toward different types of institutions.

The key to narrowing the gap is to raise achievement for all students. It makes little sense to push one group forward while holding another back. Addressing the gap, though it often presents itself as a remedy for historic inequity, is itself inequitable if it requires compromising the performance of some kids so that others can succeed. By raising achievement for all students, those who have further to go will make more progress because there is simply more progress available for them to make relative to the same increase in effort. Over time, the gap will narrow as the increase in expectations supports improvements in teaching practice, school culture and student engagement.

New policies and programs must be coordinated, complementary and comprehensive. Because it has a single name, we think the achievement gap is a single thing. It is not. At the very least, it is made up of several different “gaps” in life and school experience: the instruction gap, the preparedness gap, the expectations gap, the engagement gap, the support gap, etc. Each of these must be addressed. In order to do so successfully, we must create policies with complementary components that address important changes in school structure, school culture and school funding. Pet projects, patchwork programs, political posturing and simplistic, short-term policies are unlikely to produce significant change.

No approach that re-allocates resources from high-performing children to low-performing children is sustainable. Many people advocate a Robin Hood approach to addressing the achievement gap. This has at least three possible negative consequences: (1) the families of high-performing students pressure the system to find options that directly benefit their children to the exclusion of others, or leave it all together; (2) short-term resource re-allocations are eventually ended as the communal sense of reverse inequity takes hold; and (3) shifting resources to create special programs, if taken to an extreme, creates de facto segregation by ability level. Over time, it’s easy to end up with two school districts in one: a district for high-performing students and a district for low-performing students. These situations inevitably lead to fiercely contested zero-sum competitions with no positive outcome. Equity cannot be achieved or sustained through separation. Public education is not a special-interest issue; it’s a common-interest imperative.

Improving the quality of instruction is the most effective approach to addressing differences in student outcomes. Improving instruction has more impact on the achievement gap than any other factor. No other programs or policies are likely to produce more positive permanent change. Even policies that lengthen the school day and the school year, or that provide summer school for students who struggle, will be rendered ineffective by ineffective instruction.

We can address the achievement gap in a sincere and meaningful way, but only if we move forward by applying what we already know about it. The achievement gap is not new. Nor is our understanding of how it can be dealt with. What we need is the willingness to embrace the reality of the challenge and the courage to do what we know is right.

Steve Peha is founder and president of Carrboro-based Teaching That Makes Sense Inc. He blogs for The Citizen at carrborocitizen.com/education

3 thoughts on “Achievement gap reality check”

  1. Ava Barlow says:
    June 25, 2010 at 6:44 am

    Reading and math are basic to just about everyone’s ability to function well in any job. Beyond that, an ability to think, analyze and critique are basic skills for us to participate in our democratic processes as citizens should. While I agree that options and resources should be made available for everyone to achieve the goal of a college education, I don’t necessarily think it is the best goal for everyone. Kids and teenagers don’t always know what they want out of life, or even what they are capable of, so they should be encouraged by parents, educators and mentors to keep their options open every step of the way through their education.
    However, as you said, tests are not the best way to determine what a student can do. We need to keep our minds open to everything a kid could be involved in– churches or clubs, athletic activities, to name a few. Academics is not the only path for people to become high achievers or to break out of poverty.
    I came from a poor family with a single mother. My sister and I both got college degrees from UNC. Now I struggle to stay employed, and my sister has a good career because of additional training she received from a vo-tech program after she received her B.A. My brother, on the other hand, was not interested in college but instead has excelled in a military career. There are many ways to be productive and useful in our changing society, and one of those ways that I can think of that will be in more demand in the coming years is in agricultural production — yes, farming. We need to step up production of healthy food to feed the world’s growing population, and while a college degree might be helpful for that, it is not necessary. Another field that will have to open up is alternative energy production, and while we need scientists and engineers for that, we also need people to build, install and operate the machinery.

  2. L Long says:
    June 27, 2010 at 4:39 am

    Thank you Steve Peha for writing the most profound and relevant article on the Achievement Gap that I have ever read.

  3. Steve Peha says:
    August 23, 2010 at 3:28 am

    Thank you both for your comments.

    There’s a dialog similar to this circulating throughout the country as a whole. As more and more schools and districts push for college preparation, many people are suggesting that there are other paths to life success.

    So am I.

    I just want kids to be well educated regardless of the path they pursue.

    For reasons I don’t quite understand, K-12 education in the US has been conceptualized as an either-or proposition: either a student is going to college or they better be in some voc tech program.

    I have simply never seen things this way.

    When I was in school, many kids who chose not to go to college educated themselves well enough to go college while they took many courses in career-preparation subjects as well.

    Similarly, many kids who were clearly college-bound took vocational courses as well.

    Every person I know values being well educated — including, and especially, all the people I know who didn’t go to college.

    My point in setting a goal that 100% of kids would have the skills and scores necessary to go to college if they chose to do so is merely a way of finding a meaningful and tractable metric for assuring that all of our kids have a good basic education — regardless of the post-secondary life choices they make.

    Thanks for your thoughts,

    Steve

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