Lets talk about the achievement gap

Just about any educator will tell you that there are many factors to high and low achievement:

• Literacy
  
• Socio-economic status
• Race
  
• School resources (money)
  
• Gender
• Health
  
• Home/School support

The one thing that most people don't like to talk about is race. We talk around poverty and race and access to nutrition and we may or may not mention race. We discuss McIntosh's White Knapsacks of Privilege and agree that as educators we need to work very hard to overcome the institutional racism that exists in our society. We know race affects student achievement and the achievement gap, but what are we DOING about it?

I am proud to say my new school district is, not only talking about achievement, gaps, and race, but we are actively shrinking that gap (or so the charts say). We have administrators that are passionate about this issue. The teachers seem to recognize the need for changes. The perfect storm for taking on race and achievement seems to have formed and I'm excited to be there. We all know that it's a long road. We know there isn't a map to help us. But we also know that, as a country, there are VOLUMES of research about how to address achievement and we are using it!

~J


The links above are from Case Western Reserve University and RethinkingSchools.org