Note: This blog originally appeared in Politics in Minnesota.
The educational achievement gap will not be solved by
better teaching, or by firing teachers or bashing unions. Or by vouchers, charter schools, teacher pay
for performance, pre-school, all day kindergarten, or simply by a new
curriculum. The achievement gap is a
matter of race and class that may not be solved by the schools or educators
alone. It requires attention to the
social economic forces that define the lives of students and which affect their
ability to learn.
Addressing
the educational achievement gap is the issue de jure. The Minneapolis and St Paul mayors want to be
the education mayors. R T Rybek sees his
gubernatorial future in talking about the gap, and politicians and educators of
all stripes are talking about it. A
recent Pew research Center Report entitled The Rising Cost of Not Going to
College points to the erosion in the value of a high school degree and the
need to get more students of color into
college. The gap nationally and in Minnesota is real. Simply stated, while Minnesota has one of the
highest graduation rates in the nation, with student standardized test scores
second only to Massachusetts, the story is very different for people of color
and for the poor. The graduation rate
and test scores between whites and students of color in Minnesota is the largest in the
country. We are largely failing (in both meanings of the term) students of
color–the children who will be the future of this state. This failure also overlaps with poverty,
meaning that many poor whites also fit into this category of those victimized
by the gap.
So
now the question is what to do?
Minnesota to a large extent has been an education innovator over
time. We were the first to introduce
open enrollment, allowing students to cross district lines to attend
school. Yet with more than a generation
of experimenting with open enrollment, few parents participate in it and there
is little data that it has made much difference in outcomes. Minnesota also led the nation in pushing for
charter schools, believing somehow that these educational experiments freed
from normal rules and bureaucratic constraints–and teachers unions–would be
better run by a bunch of educational amateurs.
Largely the evidence here to is inconclusive regarding their efficacy,
although there is powerful data offered by the University of Minnesota’s
Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity that charter schools have enhanced
segregation. Finally, Minnesota has
experimented with magnet schools, tinkered with class size, and given lip
service to rectifying educational funding disparities across school
districts. It has also talked of full
day kindergarten and universal pre-school–both laudable adventures–but so far
little money has been forthcoming for these adventures.
In so
many ways Minnesota is a terrific microcosm of the reforms many advocates
proposal to fix public schools and address the achievement gap. So many of the current ideas revolve around
ideas such as vouchers, school choice, holding teachers accountable with merit
pay, and closing poorly performing schools.
For the most part, as education scholar Diane Ravich points out in
recent books such as Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement
and the Danger to America's Public Schools and The Death and Life of the
Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,
these fads have mostly failed. There is
little evidence that they have improved performance overall for students let
alone addressed the achievement gap.
Instead, they seem more the product of ideology–conservative attacks on
teachers’ unions, government, and taxes–and less about education reform.
What
Ravich is hinting at is that part of the reason why Johnny and Jane cannot read
is about what schools are or are not doing, and part is about what society is
or is not doing.
Perhaps
the best recent book on the failure of American education is Amanda Ripley’s The
Smartest Kids in the World. She
examines what the best performing school systems in the world are doing by
looking at South Korea, Finland, and Poland.
What she finds is that–to paraphrase President Obama–“That used to be
us.” These countries take education
seriously. Teaching and education are
held out to be important. Only the best
and brightest are selected to be teachers, educated at a finite number of
colleges that impose rigorous standards.
Teachers are subject to constant training and support and–mostly
importantly–are paid well for their efforts.
There are also high demands set
for students, and families are expected and do support schools and their
children. Moreover the purpose of
schools is clear and unambiguous–educate–and not confused with other distractions such as sports. In short, for those of us who grew up in the
age of Sputnik and the race with the Russians to the Moon, education was
culturally taken seriously. While
singer Sam Cooke may have lamented that
he did not know much about history, ignorance was not accepted as bliss. This is part of the message that South Korea,
Finland, and Poland teach.
But
what the Ripley and Ravich books also point out, and what we learned in the
1960s, is that students cannot learn if they come to school hungry, sick, or
abused. The school lunch and breakfast
programs as well as Head Start started under Lyndon Johnson pointed out that
Johnny cannot study if he is hungry or starts at an educational
disadvantage. That is still true
today. Income and educational
achievement are powerfully correlated, and if we want to address achievement
gaps we need to address poverty. We also
need to address racism–the racism that still condemns many students of color to
inferior schools. The 1954 Brown v.
Board of Education decision was supposed to desegregate schools and banish
separate but equal from America. But the
reality is 60 years later America’s schools remain as segregated as ever, with
race and class reinforcing one another.
One need only read Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, Amazing
Grace, or Fire in the Ashes to see the reality of how racial and
economic discrimination plague American
education.
So
what is the point of all this when it comes to the achievement gap? Perhaps yes there are some things we can do
in the classroom to improve educational outcomes and performance, but they are
not what we are currently doing. Maybe
smaller class sizes will help, but the evidence suggests only up to a
point. Tracking or separating students
out by ability also lacks data supporting its efficacy. But all day kindergarten, universal
pre-school, and even all-year school demonstrate improved outcomes and life
prospects for students. Programs such as
HOSTS which feature one-on-one reading with students, yield results. Frankly, all students do better when they all
do better, and that means we all of them are given the same chance and
encouragement to learn.
Perhaps
the most important thing we can do to address the achievement gap is to
confront the underlying poverty and
racism that prevents students from learning.
Governor Dayton was correct in proposing that the government pay for the
lunches for students who cannot afford it.
We need to go further. We need to
stabilize the family situation of many students–nutrition programs, health care,
housing, and other social service programs need to be strengthened so that
children and family do not have to worry about where the next meal is coming
from, or where their next bed will be located.
We are never going to solve the achievement gap in the classroom until
such time as we address the gap that separates students before they even walk
into the classroom.
My take: It many not be yours, I would suggests that the primary causal factors leading to poor performance (a) the core values and attitudes of the parents and (b) the peer group of the student. Any thoughts?
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