Raising Minority Academic Achievement:
A Compendium of Education Programs and Practices

A Forum — October 26, 2001 and November 19, 2001

The American Youth Policy Forum held two forums to release Raising Minority Academic Achievement: A Compendium of Education Programs and Practices—a new American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) report, supported by the William T. Grant Foundation, detailing a two-year effort to identify, summarize and analyze evaluations of school and youth programs that show gains for minority youth across a broad range of academic achievement indicators. [Click here for the full report.] This compendium is the fourth in a series of AYPF compendia including: Some Things DO Make a Difference for Youth: A Compendium of Evaluations of Youth Programs and Practices, MORE Things That DO Make a Difference for Youth, and Raising Academic Achievement.

At the October 26th forum, Stephanie Robinson, Principal Partner of The Education Trust, set the stage for discussion of the report by emphasizing the importance of collecting and making public disaggregated data on academic achievement by race, ethnicity, poverty level and locality. In part, Robinson said, data can be used to dispel myths about the “negative effects” of race and poverty, to show that low achievement is caused by a combination of factors particularly prevalent in high-poverty schools that many African American and Latino children attend. These factors include low academic standards and expectations for students, inadequate resources and under-qualified teachers. Robinson cited examples such as “excruciatingly low level assignments at the 3rd or 4th grade level given to students in high school” and how “A” students in high poverty schools may be at the same level as “C” and “D” students at more affluent schools. Extensive data available on the Education Trust’s website www.edtrust.org documents educational disparities in many localities, but also provides evidence of academic success for low-income minority students in schools and youth programs that have raised expectations, teacher quality, and resources.

At both forums, Donna Walker James, Senior Program Associate, American Youth Policy Forum, editor and co-author of the report, described the criteria for selecting evaluations, findings and recommendations. Evaluations were selected for inclusion based on sound methodology, demonstrated academic achievement outcomes for young people, and outcome data disaggregated by race and ethnicity. The report includes 3-4 page summaries of 38 successful programs that met the criteria for inclusion, describes the academic gains achieved by youth in these programs and draws conclusions about the most effective strategies used by these programs.

Academic achievement gains varied by educational level as follows:

• When compared to control groups, low-income minority children who attended early childhood development programs were more likely to remain in school, complete more years of education, and require less special education.
• Elementary through middle school evaluations were almost exclusively focused on test scores, which generally showed incremental improvement, but continued evidence of achievement gaps.
• The high school/transition programs that were studied showed increased high school graduation, more high school credits earned, higher GPAs earned or increased enrollment in higher-level courses.
• The postsecondary programs demonstrated the importance of generating and sustaining achievement across the academic spectrum.

The combination of strategies used by the effective compendia programs were:

• Quality implementation, leadership, accountability
• Academically demanding curriculum
• Family involvement
• Individualized supports for students
• Community involvement
• Scholarships and other financial supports
• Professional development for teachers and staff
• Reduced student-to-teacher ratios
• Extended learning time
• Long-term (multiple-year) programs

Among the policy recommendations made in the report are that at the national, state and local levels there should be increased (1) focus on improved academic achievement and outcomes for all, (2) supports to ensure student success, and (3) a commitment to both early childhood interventions and a continuum of learning throughout elementary, middle and high school and postsecondary education.

At both forums, Precious Jackson, a sophomore at Howard University, described her middle and high school experiences as a participant in the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program--one of the programs featured in the report. AVID is a structured and rigorous academic program focused on college preparation for low-income young people with average grades. AVID is in over 1,000 middle and high schools in 23 states and 14 countries. AVID staff became an important source of emotional support and motivation to Jackson, helping her to overcome a difficult home life and become the first in her family to attend college. She also received a $5,000 college scholarship through AVID.

At the October 26th forum, Patricia Gàndara, Professor, Division of Education, University of California, Berkeley, shared her extensive experiences with educational evaluation including two projects in particular: Priming the Pump: Strategies for Increasing the Achievement of Minority Undergraduates for the College Board’s National Task Force on Minority High Achievement; and Paving the Way to Postsecondary Education: K-12 Intervention Programs for Underrepresented Youth, a report of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative Working Group on Access to Postsecondary Education. Gàndara was also the author of two of the evaluations summarized in Raising Minority Academic Achievement: High School Puente and Chicanos in Higher Education.

Gàndara discussed the following common difficulties with educational evaluation. Program evaluations often:

• Do not articulate a theory of action—they don’t share why they thought the program was successful or not successful
• Provide little evidence of program fidelity—“is the program doing what it thinks it is doing?”
• Are only descriptive—they do not provide youth outcome data
• Are non-specific about participant selection and/or do not have reasonable comparison groups making it difficult, if not impossible, to tell what impact they actually have on young people—an evaluation may not describe whether program staff members take the most motivated youth or the most at-risk
• Rarely provide baseline data
• Provide no data on “dosage,”—how much of the program it would take to be effective
• Only count as participants those students who are still present at the end of the program, so that an outcome like “90% of participants went to college” is meaningless because one does not know if 50% of participants dropped out well before the end of the program when this figure may have been calculated
• Are not specific about outcomes—when evaluators report that “90% went to college,” one does not know what type of college and if the young person actually enrolled and graduated

Donna Walker James concluded the forum by sharing the report’s policy recommendations regarding research and evaluation including the need to: create a comprehensive national educational research agenda; provide funding sources to support high quality evaluation; disaggregate and share a broad range of data on academic achievement.

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