Tag Archive for 'Kati Haycock'

Achievement Gap or Proficiency Gap?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 15, 2009 in Assessment and Testing, Curriculum, Education News and accountability. 5 Comments

Lots of coverage of the latest NAEP scores and what it means for efforts to close the achievement gap.  Results show efforts to close the gap “may have a limited shelf life for kids,” notes USA Today’s Greg Toppo. 

“Since the early 1990s, schools have helped minority elementary schoolers close the achievement gap in basic math and reading skills, with real progress showing up recently on a federally administered test given to thousands of kids around the time they’re in fourth grade. But by the time they get to middle school, it seems, their progress all but vanishes.”

“Some of the scores are higher than ever, some show no gains over time,” observes Diane Ravitch, a former member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees and sets policy for NAEP.  “A closer look reveals that the rate of progress is no greater than–and in some cases, less than–the pre-NCLB years.

In the New York Times, Sam Dillon fixates on evolving regional differences.  “The nation’s most dramatic black-white gaps are no longer seen in Southern states like Alabama or Mississippi,” he notes, “but rather in Northern and Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Nebraska, Connecticut and Illinois.

Why does the achievement gap persist?  “African-American students are less likely than their white counterparts to be taught by teachers who know their subject matter,” Ed Trust’s Kati Haycock tells the Associated Press.  “They are less likely to be exposed to a rich and challenging curriculum,” she said. Meanwhile Richard Whitmire, citing Haycock,  points out that states that focus on early literacy skills are making more progress. 

In a non-NAEP post over at Flypaper, Mike Petrilli tosses off an interesting and provocative comment on what we mean — or what we should mean — when we say “achievement gap.”  Mike’s eyebrows went up when he heard DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee say that if present trends continue “within six years we will have completely eliminated the achievement gap between black and white students in the District.”  Says Petrilli:

Now that’s quite a statement. To the man on the street, it surely sounds miraculous. You mean black students in the District of Columbia, most of whom live in abject poverty in places like Anacostia, are going to be learning at the same level as the handful of white students in the system, most of whom come from affluent, well-educated families clustered on Capitol Hill and the upscale neighborhood of Chevy Chase, where houses start in the $750,000 range? Wow! Except that’s not what she means at all. She’s referring to the proficiency gap—and by boosting the percentage of black students getting to “proficiency,” she is automatically closing said gap because almost all of the white students are already over that bar. But that doesn’t mean that the average black student will be achieving at the same level as the average white student, which is what “eliminating the achievement gap” sounds like.

Talk of closing the achievement gap is “sloppy and misleading,” Petrilli notes.  “Let’s stop talking about the achievement gap entirely, and instead focus on raising achievement across the board,” he concludes. ”It’s more honest, and, in my view, more equitable, too.”

On Curriculum: The Silence of the Dems

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 14, 2008 in No category. 10 Comments

Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools has laid her hands on a 34-page transition memo written by Democrats for Education Reform, and puts it online for all to see.  She leads with DFER’s touting Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp or Chicago schools boss Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education over NYC’s Joel Klein (the memo is pretty clear, however, that in DFER’s ideal world, Klein or Washington’s Michelle Rhee would get the job).  

Here’s what you won’t read in the DFER memo: anything about curriculum.  The word appears only once in 34 pages, and that’s in someone’s job title.  The memo to the President-elect lays out dozens of staffing recommendations and a legislative strategy that addresses accountability, teacher quality, and a 20% increase in Title I funding.  DFER even suggests the Obama Administration ”steer clear of getting involved in any aspect of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind until it has firmly gotten its footing.”   On what kids should actually be learning?  Cue the crickets.  Chirp. 

This is not to single out DFER.  Ed reform groups across the board have much to say about funding, structures, choice, charters, incentives and myriad other topics yet virtually nothing about what children are actually taught inside the classroom.  There are clear connections to be made between curriculum and reading achievement, but with 15% to 18% of school age children moving in a given year, student mobility alone is reason enough to support a uniform national curriculum.  Without it, we institutionalize the gaps and repetitions that occur as student’s move from class to class, school to school or town to town.  In particular, low-income children, who move far more often, are profoundly impacted by this. 

To her credit, Kati Haycock touched briefly on the issue in her address at the start of the Education Trust National Conference in Washington yesterday, asking educators to consider not just common standards but ”common curriculum, some common lessons and assignments, and a carefully sequenced development of skills, knowledge and vocabulary.”

At least someone’s talking about it.  Anybody listening?