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The Edutopia Poll
by Sara Bernard
With the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act, pressure to close the achievement gap between poor, minority, and urban students and wealthy, nonminority, and suburban students has been placed even more heavily on schools. A recent editorial in the New York Times, however, highlighted the idea that perhaps there is only so much schools can do. Factors in students' lives, such as family income and parental involvement, do not originate in classrooms and cannot always be solved by what goes on in the classroom.
On the other hand, few would argue that schools should simply throw up their hands: Teachers and school administrators can do (and already do) a tremendous amount of work to improve student performance. Which of the following strategies do you think will do the most for underserved student communities? We're interested in your opinion.
Comments & Responses
Summary
First, Education, schools, and children are not like business organizations or factories. Nor are they like a hospital or a military unit. So let's first reframe the way we look at education. For the past 30 years we have tried to push education and schools through the business model and it is a bankrupt initiative. Sure, Schools should work with corporations, businesses but educational professionals and parents should be in the driver seat. Do we really want our schools motivated by the forces that led to Enron and the current Wall Street crimes? Better to empower educational professional associations like the National Council of Teachers of Math(NCTM), and the like. The choice of a metaphor for education is very powerful and can be counter productive, we need new metaphors.
Second, the media with polls such as the one included here, force us to think in terms of simplistic, univariate, silver-bullet solutions. Most replies here see through that simplistic notion. So there should be another multiple choice selection in the poll above(which clearly indicates the problems of our current system focused on multiple choice, high stakes, testing), "all of the above." Housing policy is education policy. Health care policy is education policy, labor and wage policy is education policy, etc. There are multiple, complex and contextual issues that lead to the acheivement gap. We need multiple policy initiatives that are coordinated and focused on improving equity above all other values.
Third, the Acievement gap is really about the failure of coordinated (federal-state-local)equity policy. It seems like arounf the 1980s we simply as a society gav up on the inner cities. Why don't we identify the 10 most problematic urban contexts producing the greatest acheivement gaps and highest incarceration rates for drop outs and then apply an new equity policy that focuses on teacher quality including as a part of its definition of high quality, culturally relevant and sensitive instruction. The affective realtionship between teacher and student is shown to have a powerful effect on academic achievement. As a part of this, we might also instill hope in students by giving at-risk students an assurance of post-secondary educational funding if success is shown and also work on the racial context of our economy that often still discriminates when it comes to hiring decisions. Let's not forget to include colleges and schools of education that train the bulk of our teachers in these solutions.
Fourth and last, why don't we ever ask the students who are the subject of the acheivement gap what the problem is and how we should go about addressing it from a policy perspective. Most educational policy is created by people who are far removed from the actual ground level and has been ineffectual. Yes, experts, and scientists are important but practitioners and students and parents need to be an active part of policy formulation.
History
The only way to address this gap is better service by our education system at an individualized instructional level. Put motivated teachers into a class of low acheivers at a five to one ratio, giving the teacher plenty of time for individual instruction, no amount of professional development will correct this problem if we continue to have large ratios of students to teachers with these lower performer. THEY MUST HAVE INDIVIDUALIZED ATTENTION AND INSTRUCTION, otherwise no program under the sun will work with them. Lets get real here and spend some money and apply some common sense to a problem that clearly the educational leaders of our day are incapable of solving in old traditional ways.
I know tracking students is
I know tracking students is looked down upon - but imagine tracking learner types - This might allow us to maintain larger class sizes than you are suggesting and still offering children an enhanced approach to learning.
Where is the necessary mentoring?
Parents need to be interested and involved but many students need more attention than parents and the school can give. Where is the mentoring that used to come from the old quote "it takes a village to raise a child" we are all involved.
Decrease the achievement gap
Family involvement and education for uninformed parents is the way to go.
Closing the achievement gap
We must treat children fairly, not equally! Children come to school presenting unequally, that is not all are the same. To be fair to one child means that the treatment for education may be different from another child, thus, not equal! No Child Left Behind is a political joke!
A Few Good Ideas...
More attention to middle schools and tweeners.
Gender specific classes in (at least) math, language arts, and P.E.
Later starting schools. 7:30 is too early for middle schoolers to begin a school day.
Traditional year schools. Single Track Year round schools are just plain silly. What's the point?
Tweaking curriculum maps so that they are more conceptual, and not 'a mile wide and an inch deep'.
Mastering the basics (basic facts & times tables, spelling bees).
The use of technology, i.e., audio books (I PODS), to increase a love for reading.
Utilizing the tested and research proven strategies available in NCLB.
Union teachers having more respect for the law - NCLB.
Achievement Gap
If you want good teachers to work in ghettos, gang infested areas, broken down and poorly maintained schools, almost no resourses in those areas, well guess what, pay in those areas will have to be greatly increased. Would you teach in a place like that for the same pay or more you could get in a nice sleepy 'burb? Graft and corruption in many large city areas like LA drive out the good teachers. Lots of jobs in the 'burbs and small cities that pay well and teachers are not blamed for or expected to cure every social ill.
Until the government steps
Until the government steps in and takes total control of the family and home, there appears to be little we as educators can do to completely close the gap. I fight illiterate and uneducated "young" single mothers daily who do not understand why their children need to behave in class or make a consious effort to learn. Unfortunately, these parents pass on those beliefs to the children I am attempting to teach. Please, please tell me how to combat this growing epidemic!
By the way, no, I do not believe the government needs to take control of the family and home . . . I was merely trying to make a point.
I believe that what will
I believe that what will most close the achievement gap is a commitment by all stakeholders (students, parents, teacher, administrators, community members, state officials, and national officials) to make a strict commitment to a standards-based educational system. If we define what all kids should know and be able to do and hold these high expectaions for all our students, then we are truly creating an equitable system where all students will receive an appropriate education. As a result we will prepare our students for their lives ahead. We have seen time and time again that when we have high expectations, students will meet them. We need to follow through on this promise to them and provide that high level of rigor that they require.
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