In her final column for the
Herald-Leader, Merlene Davis talked about the achievement gap. Actually, she
talked about how there's been too much talk about the achievement gap, and not
enough action. Fair enough.
But after all these years, her final
contribution is wishful, but provides no insight into the practical realities
of the work. There are after all only two ways to close achievement gaps. 1)
Lower standards so that a higher percentage of all students can meet them, or
2) Maintain high standards, but seek ways to provide advantages to previously
disadvantaged students.
Solution 1 is no solution at all since
its gamesmanship damages excellence in favor of equity, producing a poor
outcome for all. Solution 2 requires thoughtful, purposeful action that targets
individual students in need and provides services ($) that, while they might be
good for all, are only provided to those identified as "gap kids."
Part of the problem here is that denying needed services to any student is
unpalatable for most teachers, who generally prefer to do the most good for the
most students. Given two students who need an intervention - one white and the
other black - I believe most teachers would find it repugnant to withhold the service
from one and provide it to the other, based on race. All means all. The result
is that interventions provided to all may well increase the learning of
minority students, but it also benefits majority students, and that tends to
maintain or even increase the gap.
Davis satisfies herself that
"Maybe there just isn't the 'deep true commitment' that is needed to
change things."Can it really be that simple? On one hand, she is correct.
If racism had never existed, we would surely be in a much better place
nationally.
But this way of thinking suggests that
FCPS could have ignored the social realities of the time and closed all
achievement gaps by 1955, if only there was the deep desire to do so. Since
that didn't happen, it is the desire that must be lacking. When teachers have a
deep-enough-desire, the gaps close, and the problem goes away. In the meantime,
we just blame and shame teachers and administrators for not being superhuman.
Of course, if deep true commitment was
the solution, I suppose historically black colleges and universities would
rival Harvard for results. Is the fact that they don't indicative of a lack of
desire from HBCU professors? I seriously doubt it. After 400 years of
racism and oppression, it is unreasonable to expect that there would be no
residual negative effects for African Americans. The over-representation
of African-Americans among our nation’s poor is perhaps the most powerful of
its manifestations. Throughout our history, active measures were taken to
assure that African-Americans were kept down through a set of “Jim Crow”
laws that prevented any real equality, and seriously limited opportunities,
thus perpetuating the generational poverty that already existed. And, poverty
is well-known by educators to have a debilitating impact on far too many of our
students, black and white. (Suggestions that the achievement gap was first
revealed in 1992 is stunningly naive.)
Don't forget that the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed a significant narrowing of the
gap between blacks and non-Hispanic whites on reading and mathematical tests
between 1971 and 1996. Although the NAEP did not begin collecting data until
1971, the seventeen year-olds it tested in 1971 were born in 1954 and entered
school around 1960. Their scores, therefore, reflect the cumulative
effects of home and community environments dating from the late 1950s and 1960s
including,
- National efforts to equalize
opportunity and reduce poverty that began in the mid-1960s and continued
or expanded in the subsequent decades [Head Start, compensatory funding
for poor schools, affirmative action].
- Educational changes that were not
primarily intended to equalize opportunity [such as increased spending and
early schooling].
- Changes in families and
communities that may have been influenced by efforts to equalize
opportunity and reduce poverty but occurred mainly for other reasons.
[Parents had more formal education, more affluent blacks moved to the
suburbs].
The importance of social programs to
the success of school students appears to be significant and direct. During the
presidency of Lyndon Johnson, when such programs flourished, the gap began to
narrow. After the cuts made during the Ronald Reagan administration, the gap
grew.
But like Barney Fife with one bullet in
his pocket, school superintendents have little power to influence national
economic policy, so they are constrained to work within the system as it
exists. It is this lack of ammo that tends to push superintendents into making
broad aspirational statements, with little hope of realizing the goal.
Superintendent Peter Flynn flirted with
Davis' approach by coercing the FCPS administrative staff to engage in a bit of
magical thinking. In 1998, Flynn, set a goal for his administrators
saying:
“Through our collective efforts, all
children will read ‘on level’ by June of 2001.”
As part of his leadership toward this
goal, the district’s administrators were
assembled in Conference Room C and asked to stand on one side of an imaginary
line if they agreed with the statement, and on the other side if they did not.
Confidently, upper level administrators followed the Superintendent to the
"right" side of the line.
Uncomfortably, most others followed.
The brave (a mere handful) did not follow, and soberly looked across the line
at those soon-to-be-praised for their faith. It was an interesting exercise in human psychology, because everyone knew what was coming next.
Marlene Helm openly criticized the faithless saying, “If they can’t even say
they believe it, how can we possibly achieve it.”
Viewed in retrospect, the few were, of
course, correct, and everybody on the “right side” of the line was wrong.
Flynn had presented an ambitious goal, one that was monitored with colorful
charts in every school, but no new assistance was provided to actually help a
student read. As the pretty charts clearly showed, the district missed its
goals - by a lot.
Of course, Flynn and Helm were simply
following the game plan advised by Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch at the time (before
Ravitch recanted). "Celebrate great teaching, shame those who hold to the
status quo, and remind parents that they are their children’s first and most
important teachers," they advised.
Narrowing the achievement gap in our
schools is likely to be our nation’s best chance to achieve ultimate racial
equality. But, do we have the political will to do what is necessary to close
the gap? So far the answer seems to be, "No." Today's political
climate is markedly more conservative and political attacks on
"entitlement" programs hold little promise for poor adults who are
cast by some as worthless leeches unworthy of assistance - and that extends to
their children. Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer, while the poor get
poorer.
Commissioner Gene Wilhoit engaged in
some achievement gap talk in 2001, when he launched the Minority Student
Achievement Task Force in the six districts which included more than 70 percent
of Kentucky's African American students (Bardstown, Fayette, Hardin, Jefferson,
Owensboro and Paducah).
“Even though all
demographic groups of Kentucky children have shown improvement in academic
achievement over the past 10 years, the achievement gap that existed 10 years
ago is still with us,” said Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit. “That’s
unacceptable, and the work of the districts involved in this pilot program will
help other districts close that gap and reach proficiency. It will help real
Kentucky children do their best -- remaining true to our conviction that all
children can learn at high levels.”
The Task Force was essentially a bust,
but Wilhoit expressed the refrain that would repeat itself over and over again
- anytime an education leader went before the legislature, or spoke to the
press, the message was the same. "We've made a lot of progress, but we
still have a long way to go."
Of course, it's a dicey business
to judge school effectiveness on student test scores anyway. In “Which
Achievement Gap, Where?” (2002) Skip Kifer argued that the most common methods
of looking at achievement gaps used mean group scores and masked the fact that
gaps exists across that whole range of scores. He found that in Kentucky “there
is a negative correlation between the size of the achievement gap and the
proportion of black students in the school.”
There is what I consider a naive view
that backgrounds of students should be ignored when looking at whether schools
are effective. At the same time there is an almost religious belief in the
efficacy of test scores as the way to determine whether a school is good. Such
views defy common experience and ignore research about schools and schooling.
Some schools, for example, have relatively small amounts of turnover during a
school year; others turnover almost completely. Some schools have huge amount
of parental participation; others have virtually none. And, it remains true
that the strongest within country correlations with test scores in
international studies are based on the background characteristics of students.
This from Merlene Davis in the
Herald-Leader:
It's time to move from talking about closing the achievement gap to doing it
State Education Commissioner Terry Holliday advised the
Fayette County school board recently that "if district support of low
performing schools does not immediately improve, all options must be
considered to narrow Fayette County's significant achievement gaps at
the elementary, middle and school levels."
The state doesn't seem
to think local school officials are as serious about closing the
educational achievement gap as they say they are.
Just this week, acting Superintendent Marlene Helm said, "We must do better. We can't just talk about it. We have to do it."
And
even the board set aside $620,000 to help low-performing schools, and
another $15 for each student receiving free or reduced lunches.
So we all ought to be applauding, right?
Maybe not.
Fayette
County education folks have a long history of saying the right thing
about closing the achievement gap, and a similarly lengthy history of
not doing it.
At a news conference May 26,
Lexington NAACP president William Saunders said Fayette County schools
are "beating around the bush and stalling like they've always done."
And that is exactly what Fayette County school officials have done for the most part.
In
1988, two Herald-Leader reporters wrote a series of stories about
Lexington's racial problems. In one of the stories, then-Superintendent
Ronald Walton said he was concerned about the lack of achievement of
black students and that a committee had been formed to study the
problem.
Helm, then an assistant to Walton, said more programs for
"at risk" children would be put in place. "I think when you have the
commitment, a deep true commitment, you can move," she said.
I
agree. Maybe that is why we still have the same problems. Maybe there
just isn't the "deep true commitment" that is needed to change things.
In
1997, then-Superintendent Peter Flynn told his top administrators to
remain focused on helping disadvantaged children even though that
objective was dropped from the board's annual goals.
"We know we can't have excellence unless we have all children learning what we want them to learn," he said.
In
1999, the Office of Education Accountability noted that the achievement
gap first revealed in 1992 had not narrowed much by 1998. "This is an
issue of serious concern for everyone," the director said.
Nothing.
In August of 1999, the local school board set another goal, this time to eliminate the gap by 2006.
In
2000, Superintendent Robin Fankhauser said closing the gap was the
district's new focus. Other initiatives would go on the back burner
until progress was seen. If that were true, things on that back burner
should be quite cold by now.
In 2001, Jack Foster, one of the
architects of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), said the gap "is
of enough magnitude in the elementary schools that it constitutes an
educational emergency and should demand immediate action."
Fayette County's response was, "He's pointing out the obvious. He's pointing out what we already know."
About
16 ministers, along with parents, community leaders, retired educators
and activists, members of a "No Confidence, No Trust" rally, filed
complaints with state and federal education departments, as well as the
Kentucky Human Rights Commission.
Crickets.
A year later,
One Community, One Voice, a blue-ribbon panel of educators, parents,
teachers, government officials and business leaders, met to come up with
ways to eliminate the gap. Then Mayor Pam Miller said, the community
needed to take this problem seriously.
In 2004, Helm, then interim
superintendent, said one of the biggest challenges facing this school
district "is making sure that the public has confidence that we are
focused on student achievement, that we are passionate about it and that
we will do everything in our power to close the achievement gap."
In 2007, the third year of Stu Silberman's tenure as superintendent, some new programs and partnerships were forged.
Board
member Larry Conner said at that time, "Is there need for improvement?
Yes there is. Are we improving? Yes we are. Are we going fast enough? No
we're not."
In 2009, even Silberman said the gap was unacceptable. "That keeps me up at night," he said.
By
2011, when Silberman resigned, the gaps had narrowed but were still
unacceptable. "I wish I was making the announcement that all achievement
gaps were closed," he said. "There is a difference between narrowing
and closing."
In 2014, the gap had widened again.
And so
here we are, more than a quarter century after the achievement gap was
first noted in this newspaper and we have done little more than talk
about it.
"They can talk all they want to talk, but if they
haven't done it, we don't need to pick that person," Roy Woods, chairman
of the Equity Council, said last year.
If history is an indicator of the future, that is exactly what we will end up with in Fayette County.
That is a very sad and embarrassing history.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/05/27/3871930/merlene-davis-its-time-to-move.html#storylink=cpy
It’s the American dream: get a good education, work hard, buy a house, and achieve prosperity and success. This is the America we believe in—a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last twenty-five years we have seen a disturbing “opportunity gap” emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now, this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was.
means to be a poor child in America. In 2003, Casey popularized the term “the high cost of being poor,” spurring a host of federal, state, and local policies to address problems from predatory lending to food deserts. Perhaps most critical, the Foundation has provided advocates and policymakers with detailed state-by-state information to advance policies that help families avoid and stay out of poverty. Indeed, Casey President and CEO Patrick McCarthy joined The Hill to “explore policy ideas aimed at expanding opportunity for low-income children and their families -- from early childhood education and children's healthcare, to expanding the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, to strengthening food assistance programs.” Check out the April 29 event summary here.
