Can Current Education Reform Efforts Close the Growing Achievement Gap?
A Forum — March 14, 1997
The Achievement Gap
Today's forum featured Kati Haycock, Director of The Education Trust, who examined the growing gap in academic achievement between poor, minority students and middle- and upper-income, white students. While overall achievement scores, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have remained relatively constant since the late 1960's, the gap between white and minority students has widened. More specifically, white students have improved in math at higher rates than minority students, while all students have experienced a decrease in reading proficiency--more severely for minority than white students.
Over the past 30 years, many low-income, minority, inner city youth have faced increasing societal problems. Instances of poverty, child abuse and neglect have risen dramatically. According to Haycock, it is remarkable that students from these environments do not perform at even lower levels of achievement. This situation, however, must be addressed "as we enter the 21st Century." Test scores indicate that only one in ten high school graduates has mastered the skills needed to succeed in the workforce. As these skills expand and change, simply maintaining current levels of achievement will make the growing achievement gap even larger.
Statistics show that poor minority youth are much less equipped for educational success than more affluent whites. For example, for every 100 white students who enter kindergarten, 88 graduate high school, 40 attend college, 12 earn an undergraduate degree, and two go on to some form of graduate school. For blacks, only one-half as many reach the same level of education. These numbers are reinforced by student performance on standardized tests--while one in twelve white students achieve level one of the NAEP reading test, only one in fifty black and Hispanic students reach this same measure. This achievement gap grows wider the longer young people are in school. In terms of reading achievement, the average 17-year-old black or Hispanic student reads at the same level as a 13-year-old white student.
The Policy Response
Policymakers have designed and implemented numerous policies and programs in an attempt to diminish this achievement gap, from in-school reform to out-of-school social supports. Haycock contends that the failure of such efforts lies in policymakers' perceptions of the problems facing young people. While adults often account for differences in academic performance by citing higher poverty rates, evidence of parental neglect, the lack of reading outside of school and violence in the community, students report that the problem lies with disinterested principals, unprepared teachers, low expectations and poorly designed curricula.
According to Haycock, this suggests that policies aimed at the family and the broader social environment have missed a critical element of why academic performance has diminished--low educational expectations for poor minority youth. For example, curricular tracking has a dramatic impact on the achievement levels of students, as NAEP results show that students who take more vocational courses score lower on standardized tests than students who participate in more rigorous, academic-based classes.
A school's teachers and the standards to which its students are held also have a dramatic impact on student performance, and schools in low-income areas are often lacking in both areas. Most notable is in the area of teacher preparation, as students in high-poverty schools are often taught by teachers who do not even have an undergraduate minor degree in the subject they teach (at a rate as high as 33 percent in some cities).
These schools often have similarly low expectations for its students. According to Haycock, "We have much lower standards for poor and minority students." This problem often starts even before formal education begins: "In pre-school, [poor kids] do more coloring than reading and writing; by high school, a 15 to 25 page research paper is unthinkable." As a result, "‘A' students in a high-poverty school achieve at about the same level as ‘C' students in affluent schools."
Haycock outlined evidence of policy interventions aimed at correcting these widespread deficiencies. Milwaukee, Wisconsin has directed its education reform efforts on the development of rigorous academic tests, and is providing all students with the supports necessary to pass--and they are doing so. New York City Chancellor of Education Ray Cortines has eliminated all non-Regents-level courses in the city's public school, and students are now passing the Regents tests at higher rates than ever before.
The problems facing students in poor areas are severe, but by addressing the content of the curriculum and the preparation of teachers, these young people can be prepared for economic success. As Haycock concluded, the focus should be on "uniform, clean standards for all, helping to get the kids there and hiring teachers who can design a curriculum that gets all kids to the standards."