It Makes Me Want to Shout!

"Learning to Teach to Bridge the Achievement Gap". This is the currently the biggest buzz phrase in education. It is powerfully loaded, politically correct, eduspeak. But what does it really mean?

'Closing the gap is this generation’s civil rights issue, said Charles Weis, superintendent of schools in Santa Clara County. “We know what needs to be done; we know how to do it,” Dr. Weis said at a rally for educational improvement. Yet, he added, “educators are notoriously bad at adopting others’ good ideas".'

So what are some of those good ideas? Well here is one being used in a school district in Santa Clara County:

'On a recent day in Martha Borg’s third-grade classroom, she asked three students to join her at a small semicircular table. While the other students worked in their notebooks or with tutoring programs on computers, the three sounded out some new words — like “natural,” “environment” and “tortoise” — and then read aloud as Mrs. Borg moved from one to the next.'

That is the way that reading was taught 40 years ago. It appears to be working once again. We didn't use computers, instead we practiced our math algorithms (but that was before it was called drill and kill). And guess what? Students don't know their math facts anymore, especially fractions, but at least they haven't suffered sudden death due to practicing their multiplication facts and perhaps more of them are learning to read again.

Those educators who are "notoriously bad at adopting others’ good ideas", by Superintendent Weis' standards anyway, might just be the ones who, having practiced in the field for years, know what works. In this instance, the "new" method is indeed the "old" method which was sloughed-off some time ago in favor of some new fad in reading education.

"Small groups are a part of all classes at Anderson, and students get small-group time with the teacher. The groupings cluster students of similar skills, as determined by another practice the new leadership introduced: continual assessment. The assessments then guide individual instruction."

The bold and italicized type is mine. My goodness! Another example of the reversal of a longtime trend of integrating students of different skill levels. What is being said here? That teaching small groups of similarly skilled students is effective. Don't all of us of a certain age remember reading groups 1, 2 and 3? But then they changed the names of the groups (red, yellow, and blue) so the students wouldn't feel bad if they were in a lower level group, except that the plan didn't work and all the students knew which group was reading more difficult material. Sorting students into ability groups was called "tracking", a reviled practice now, and there has been a movement to abolish it for the last 30 years.

Some of the rationale to abolish tracking was good. Too many students who had the ability to do well in school were often placed in the lower tracks. This generally correlated with race and class. Conversely, students who should never have been put into an "honors" class were placed there due to their place in society and the influence of their parents.

Teacher training programs claimed that multi-level learning groups were more effective. Of course research was cited and examples given. The efficacy of the able students helping the less-able students to master the material was touted as an idea. But if a person thinks about it for more than 2 seconds, the grand plan doesn't make very much sense in terms of efficiency or outcomes.

It is ironic that a type of program that was tossed because it was unfair is being re-introduced, under a different name of course, to "help close the achievement gap".

It makes one want to shout! I hope Arne Duncan is listening.

More Vindication

The main policy of the district where I work: Close the achievement gap.

I have done this before with a forward thinking Principal. Double the time that students take math and the achievement gap narrows.

From an article in the New York Times:

‘No Child’ Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap

'Where we see the gap narrowing, that’s because there’s been an emphasis on supplemental education, on after-school programs that encourage students to read more and do more math problems,” Dr. Hrabowski said. “Where there are programs that encourage that additional work, students of color do the work and their performance improves and the gap narrows.”'

But then there is the problem that most math teachers are familiar with:

'But Dr. Hrabowski said said that educators and parents pushing children to higher achievement often find themselves swimming against a tide of popular culture.

“Even middle-class students are unfortunately influenced by the culture that says it’s simply not cool for students to be smart,” he said. “And that is a factor here in these math and reading scores.”'

I love it when what I read confirms what I know.

Closing the Achievement Gap - An Impossible Feat

The Fordham Institute released a new study today: High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB. The study consists of two parts:

Part 1 - An Analysis of NAEP Data
(The National Assessment of Educational Progress)
Part 2 - Results From a National Teacher Survey

Part 1 finds that although the rate of achievement has increased for the lowest 10% of students, the rate has remained virtually flat for the top 10% of students. Part 2 finds that the majority of teachers report that "low-achieving students receive dramatically more attention" than their high-achieving counterparts, yet the majority of teachers "believe that all students deserve equal attention". The majority of teachers (especially those in the nation's lowest-income schools) recommended that advanced students be in homogeneous classes, or magnet schools that bring advanced students together. (...so much for the concept of "de-tracking", ubiquitously taught in teacher training programs!)

According to the report summery, the pattern of bigger gains for low achieving students and lesser gains for high achieving students is "associated with the introduction of accountability systems". The term "accountability systems" refers to student testing "regimes" in general, and specifically to the accountability system of NCLB.

A New York Times article cited Amy Wilkins, a vice president at Education Trust, an education lobbying group:

“My concern is that this report makes it seem like we have to choose between seeking equity and excellence,” she said. “We need to strive for both.”

What? Of course we need to strive for both. The report is saying that it is not occurring, and it does not occur in the "high stakes" testing environment of NCLB.

From the Education Trust Web Site (italics added):

Mission Statement

The Education Trust works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, pre-kindergarten through college, and forever closing the achievement gaps that separate low-income students and students of color from other youth. Our basic tenet is this — All children will learn at high levels when they are taught to high levels.

What We Do

The Education Trust advances its mission along several fronts, from raising its voice in national and state policy debates to helping teachers improve instruction in their classrooms. Regardless of where it occurs, our work maintains a relentless focus on improving the education of all students, and particularly those students whom the system has traditionally left behind.

Closing the achievement gap is impossible (see explanation below). The gap can only be practically decreased by helping the lower achieving students, intensively, from birth. The achievement gap is a massive cultural problem that will not be solved by putting pressure on teachers to improve.

Closing the Achievement Gap

These graphs are hypothetical representations of learning achievement. They are for elucidation purposes only and do not represent actual data.


The assumptions are that at birth (age 0) children know virtually nothing and by the time they are age 15 there is an achievement gap between the upper 10% of students and the lower 10% of students.

Graph 1 is a baseline representation. The top 10% of students are achieving at at faster rate (steeper slope) than the bottom 10% of students. The distance between the two graphs at age 15, represents the "achievement gap".

In graphs 2 and 3, the achievement gap has narrowed from the base line graph. In graph 2 the top students' achievement rate remained constant, but the lower 10% of students achieved at a faster rate than in the base line graph. In Graph 3, the the achievement rate of the lower 10% of students remained constant, but the achievement rate for the top 10% of students declined.

In graph 4, the rate of achievement for both groups increased. The rate of increase doubled (increased by 100%) for the lowest students but only increased by 50% for the highest students. Even though the rate of achievement was twice as much for the lower students, the gap remained the same.

A major problem with the NCLB act, is that it is narrowly focussed. It assesses student achievement with testing, then focuses on overall school performance and teacher improvement. This has put an impossible burden on teachers. Administrators come under scrutiny by the public when test scores indicate that a school needs to improve. They, in turn, put pressure on the teachers? It would be interesting to see if the NCLB correlates with an increased number of teachers fleeing the profession.