Schools Slow in Closing Gaps Between Races

 

It's good to see the achievement gap getting front page coverage in the NY Times. 

When President Bush signed his sweeping education law a year into his presidency, it set 2014 as the deadline by which schools were to close the test-score gaps between minority and white students that have persisted since standardized testing began.

Now, as Congress prepares to consider reauthorizing the law next year, researchers and a half-dozen recent studies, including three issued last week, are reporting little progress toward that goal. Slight gains have been seen for some grade levels.

This is poorly written because one can't tell if the gap is one year (8th grade vs. 9th grade) or five years (12th grade vs. 7th grade):

Despite concerted efforts by educators, the test-score gaps are so large that, on average, African-American and Hispanic students in high school can read and do arithmetic at only the average level of whites in junior high school.

In fact, as one can see from pages 8 and 9 of the attached slide deck, the situation is far worse: the average black and Hispanic 12th grader read and do math at the same level as the average white 8th grader!  That's a FOUR-YEAR achievement gap!

 

It's also incorrect to say that there's been no progress -- look at pages 10 and 11 of the attached and especially at the chart below, which shows that in reading and math, for both 4th and 9th graders, there has been steady improvement among the % of black students testing below basic (and for white students as well, but the gains have been greater for blacks).

 

As for what to do about closing the gap more rapidly, that's a VERY complex topic and it's nearly midnight, so I'll return to this topic later...

 

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Schools Slow in Closing Gaps Between Races

 

By SAM DILLON

Published: November 20, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/education/20gap.html

When President Bush signed his sweeping education law a year into his presidency, it set 2014 as the deadline by which schools were to close the test-score gaps between minority and white students that have persisted since standardized testing began.