Resources

BONUS RESOURCES FOR CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

Strategies to Improve Instruction
A report released by the Learning First Alliance shows how five high-poverty school districts have raised student achievement by focusing on district- wide STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE INSTRUCTION. The report recommends that state departments of education should use multiple measures to gauge student success and should support districts' role in helping schools improve.
Dispelling the Achievement Myth
Dispelling the Myth is an ongoing project of The Education Trust to identify and learn from high-poverty and high-minority schools that have high student performance or have made substantial improvement in student achievement. Resources include an interactive website that allows users to employ their own criteria to conduct rapid searches for high-performing or high-improving schools in nearly every state in the nation (including Alabama).
Staff Development + Capacity Building = Success
Schools that served large proportions of low-income students are more likely to advance the achievement of all students when professional development addresses not only the learning of individual teachers, but also other dimensions of the school's organizational capacity, say researchers at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Beating the Gap: Community Action Plan
The Durham NC Public Education Network and numerous community partners spent "countless hours and resources" to focus the attention of the community on the existence of an achievement gap among students of different backgrounds. The resulting report, "Closing the Achievement Gap through Community Action," recommends community initiatives that can support schools as they address the issue.
"Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Achievement"
If we expect schools and districts to close achievement gaps by improving professional development, they need more explicit guidance about how to bring quality staff development practices into the mainstream of school life, says respected education researcher Richard Elmore in this thought-provoking 2002 paper published by the Albert Shanker Institute (PDF file)
Closing the District Gap
The superintendent of Virginia's oldest public school system -- the Norfolk Public Schools -- describes how his high-poverty, high-minority school district has made significant improvements in student achievement by "making standards work" in this January 2003 article, "Beating the Odds," from the American School Board Journal. (PDF file)
"The Pedagogy of Poverty vs. Good Teaching"
Some teaching strategies used with low-achieving students amount to a "pedagogy of poverty" that can retard learning and development of higher cognitive skills. says researcher Martin Haberman (1991) in this often-cited article. The education that minority and low income students receive is generally characterized by lower quality teaching, lower expectations for performance and behavior, limited access to challenging coursework, and insufficient instructional resources.
"Closing the Gap: Done in a Decade"
A careful analysis of available data shows just how wrong it is to conclude that an achievement gap based on color or family income will always
be with us, say the authors of this article in Thinking K-16 (Spring 2001). They describe several factors that are "getting in the way" of change, including enduring myths about student achievement, and solutions that don't fit the problems. (PDF file)
The Professional Development Gap
Schools that close achievement gaps emphasize the professional growth of teachers through job-embedded, inquiry-based staff development. So why is inquiry-based professional development seldom practiced in schools? In the "Dilemmas of Professional Development" (Kappan, January 2003), Virginia Richardson tries to untangle the knots that bind school districts to outmoded, ineffective practices.
Community Action to Close the Gap
Community activists in Louisville, KY used tools available under the state's school reform law to tackle the achievement gap. This article from Middle Ground, the magazine of the National Middle School Association, describes the process they used to "make every child count," including school shadowing studies and community dialog.
Missing: Top Staff in Bottom Schools
A seemingly endless list of strategies has been proposed to close the achievement gap. But one idea has received scant attention in discussions of reform strategies: redistributing the best teachers and principals to the lowest performing schools. Why don't school districts simply assign the most effective educators to the schools that serve children with the greatest needs? AASA analyst Cynthia Price examines the issue in this article from School Administrator (August 2002).
http://www.aasa.org/publications/sa/2002_8/prince.htm
http://www.aasa.org/issues_and_insights/issues_dept/challenges.htm (report)
Facing Up to the Achievement Gap
Five years ago, more than 86 percent of students at Houston's Lanier Middle School in Houston passed state tests, earning the school an "acceptable" rating under the state's accountability system. But when the faculty looked more closely at the school's results, they realized that their overall performance masked wide differences in achievement. This story in the Annenberg Challenge Journal (Winter 2001-02) describes how schools across the US are removing the "mask" of test score averages and using a variety of data to isolate and address achievement gaps.
Achievement Gap Website
The Education Commission of the States has a new "issue site" that provides readings, research summaries and statistical information on the causes and effects of the achievement gap. It also offers a look at some of the strategies and reforms that states, districts, schools, non-profits and others are using to help boost the achievement of ethnic and racial minority students.

WTE JOURNAL RESOURCES FOR CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

"Closing the Achievement Gap"
Kati Haycock, the director of the Education Trust, explores why differences in academic performance are widening among ethnic and racial groups. To increase the achievement levels of minority and low-income students, she says, we need to focus on three things: high standards, a challenging curriculum, and good teachers. (Educational Leadership, March 2001)
When We Insist Kids Can Learn, They Do
K-6 principal Susan Williamson turned her high-poverty school around by changing culture and emphasizing data. This newspaper story describes how Williamson restored order and discipline, scrounged for additional dollars to get better training for her teachers, and moved her faculty to a reliance on data to drive classroom instruction.
High-Performing, High-Poverty Elementary Schools
"Expecting Success"(2002) is a study of five high-performing, high-poverty Texas elementary schools that demonstrate it is possible to meet and even surpass high standards while including students with disabilities in state assessments and in the state accountability system. (PDF file)
"Turnaround Middle Schools"
This study (2002) from the Dana Center at the University of Texas investigates how seven high-poverty middle schools managed to demonstrate strong academic improvement so that they were performing at levels consistent with, and in many cases better than, higher-income schools in their states. Volume 1 of the study contains the cross-case analysis. Volume II offers a case study of each school. (PDF files)
http://www.utdanacenter.org/research/reports/ms_vol1.pdf
http://www.utdanacenter.org/research/reports/ms_vol2.pdf
Differences Among High-Poverty Schools
Case studies in four high-poverty Texas schools (two average- and two high-performing) looked for practices that might account for differences in achievement among similar students. This article in the Best Policies and Practices newsletter of the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality summarizes nine findings.
Community Dialog about the Achievement Gap
This free online guide, "Dialogue and Action to Help Every Student Succeed," can be used to generate deep conversation among communities and schools about the meaning of "a good education" and ways to break through barriers that keep some students from succeeding. Developed by the Study Circles Resource Center and the National School Public Relations Association. (PDF file)
"The Secrets of Can-Do Schools"
A study of 12 high-performing, high-poverty schools in Louisiana found 12 common characteristics, including highly focused, job-embedded professional development. The schools' can-do spirit impressed researchers. "They literally just roll over obstacles and they believe that no obstacle is too great." (NSDC Results, February 2003)
The Gap: Causes and Cures
Addressing the Achievement Gap, produced by the Washington State Department of Public Instruction, includes two chapters of interest to all educators. Chapter 3 summarizes research about the root causes of achievement gaps and the conditions that tend to perpetuate them. Chapter 4 looks at steps schools can take to begin closing the gap. An extensive bibliography will help schools explore the research in more detail. (PDF file)
Parent Outreach Can Help Close Gap
A new federal study of standards-based practices in Title I elementary schools finds that when teachers used three parent outreach strategies, their students tended to make greater gains in reading and math. Student achievement also increased when professional development programs were closely aligned to a school's reform plan.

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