Studer Community Institute

Guest commentary: Closing the achievement gap

March 23, 2015
/ Ora Wills
/ government

[sidebar] Editor's note: In the 2014 Pensacola Metro Report, education emerged as this community’s top priority. As a result the Studer Community Institute staff in February launched the Pensacola Education Report 2015. A series of stories in three-part installments looked at, among other issues, the history of the FCAT, students, principals and teachers who are making a difference, and building better readers in early education. To provide insight and perspective, the Institute invited people in the Pensacola Metro area from various walks of life to share their thoughts and impressions of the Education Report. Over the next several days, find out what they have to say at PensacolaToday.com and StuderInstitute.com. [/sidebar] Almost everything you need to know about education in Escambia County, the state and around the country, you can learn in the three-part Studer Community Institute Education Report. Anyone who has carefully read these reports has learned about areas ranging from wealth and achievement gaps, to parental involvement and early childhood education, to testing and how skills affect graduate wages, and a whole lot more. For some of us who have labored in area schools for more than 40 years, we have been eyewitness to the changes that have occurred. Following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, over a period of 10 to 15 years, schools moved from segregated institutions to integrated ones and back toward re-segregation in some schools in many districts, usually caused by white flight or income inequality, with low-income students grouped together in neighborhoods and housed in often failing or low-performing schools. Today there are at least eight elementary schools in Escambia County that are predominantly African-American. Middle and high schools in the county tend to still be integrated, though early on, black students tended to be re-segregated or re-segregated themselves within these schools by enrolling in low-level courses. Research indicates that the achievement gap greatly narrowed during the era in which schools grew more integrated. In “The Transformer” Linda Pearlstein suggests, “When assessing the state of America’s public school children, people speak of the achievement gap between the middle class and the poor. But really there’s an everything gap: a health gap, a safety gap, a technology gap, a conversational gap, ‘a turning off the TV and going to the library’ gap. Schools can make up some of these deficits, but they can’t make up all the difference.” In addition to the achievement gap, and other gaps, there is the gap that is most likely the cause of many of the other gaps — the wealth gap. According to the Pew Research Center, wealth inequality has widened along racial and ethnic lines even though, since the Great Recession, economic recovery has begun. Wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013 compared with eight times the wealth in 2010 and 10 times that of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010. White net worth was $141, 900, while black net worth was $11,000 and Hispanic $13,700. The typical household had a net worth of $81,400 in 2013. It is common knowledge that income for middle-class workers has been stagnant for the past 30 years with no remedy in sight, while many low-income workers are paid a mere $7.25 minimum wage. How to solve these nagging problems must be addressed soon. The results of tests administered to students in the U.S. and students worldwide show U.S. students lagging behind students in places like Finland and Korea by wide margins. A number of approaches to lessen the achievement gap have already been discussed in the third installment of the Education Report. However, Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Promise Zone’s approach discussed in “Whatever It Takes,” by Paul Tough outlines how the school created “Baby College” to assist parents in honing their parenting skills. “Baby College” is a nine-week experience for fathers and mothers of newborns and toddlers. The emphasis is on the birth to age 3 group that is essential when preparing children for kindergarten and life. Parents are encouraged to talk and read to their infants. Regular home visits are made to reinforce the curriculum and make sure that families’ needs are met. The Children’s Zone says that the key to the program’s success is its “outreach and flexibility. The staff is dedicated and goes door to door, apartment to apartment, building to building, and block to block to engage new participants.” In recent years, U.S. students have not fared well in competition with European and Asian students. Students in Finland, Korea and Poland have placed much higher than U.S. students, which might suggest that our methods may need some adjusting. If you read Amanda Ripley’s book “The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got that Way,” you might understand why. In the world we inhabit today and the world our children will inhabit in the future, these youngsters will be our children’s competition, so it might be useful to read this book which presents school systems, teachers, and students whose attitudes toward education diverge from many of our own. The Education Report has presented a thorough examination of the state of education in the Pensacola Metro area — what works here, what works in other places and what needs to be done. There is much for educators and others to ponder and to seek to improve. One must wonder, however, if the messages presented have reached those who need this information most. If these messages have not reached the parents and guardians whose children are at-risk, how can teachers, administrators and others engaged in this mission effect change? While attention needs to be devoted to some persistent problems in the upper grades, the most long-term changes will result from convincing parents that engagement in their young child’s education must begin at birth — that birth to age 3 is crucial if the child is not to be doomed to arrive at K-4 deficient in knowledge of words and other essentials. How can this end be accomplished? Perhaps something akin to the Baby College approach might be initiated locally in community centers, schools and churches — anywhere parents can gather and interact with someone with expertise in these matters. Some things already in place, such as Imagination Station and ECARE, can help if enough parents can be convinced to use them. Some of us will argue that it is almost impossible to get parents involved and engaged in sessions like these, or that is has been tried with little participation. We must try again and again. The alternative is not acceptable.

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Guest commentary: Closing the achievement gap

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