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December 2002/January 2003
| Volume 60 | Number 4
Equity and Opportunity
The Line and the Gap
Marge Scherer
Profoundly Multicultural Questions
Sonia M. Nieto
Educators must ask themselves profoundly multicultural questions, that is, troubling questions about equity, access, and fair play—questions that examine the sociopolitical context of education and school policies and practices. Who is taking calculus and other academically challenging courses? Are programs for bilingual or special education students placed in the basement? Who is teaching the children—for example, why aren't highly qualified teachers teaching children in low-income districts? How much are children worth—do we value some children over others? Until we confront these broader issues and do something about them, we will be only partially successful in educating young people for the challenging future.
Toward a Fair Distribution of Teacher Talent
Kati Haycock
The fact that poor and minority students lag behind their peers should not surprise us, writes the author, considering the stark inequities in teacher quality that exist throughout the United States. Poor and minority students are substantially more likely to have teachers who lack certification, who are teaching outside their subject area, who score poorly on college admissions tests and teacher licensure tests, and who are ineffective in the classroom. The author demonstrates that teacher quality makes “a huge difference in whether students learn.” She offers concrete actions that education leaders can take to reduce teacher inequities, such as offering financial incentives to encourage the best and most experienced teachers to teach in high-poverty schools.
The Resurgence of School Segregation
Gary Orfield, Erica D. Frankenberg and Chungmei Lee
African American, Latino, and white students are becoming more isolated from one another in U.S. schools, The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found in its analysis of data from the NCES Common Core of Data. The authors of this article conclude that, “Despite the growing diversity of the school-age population, our research indicates an overwhelming trend toward school district resegregation.” Neither residential patterns nor school choice accounts for this trend. Rather, the resegregation of U.S. schools has been sparked by a series of court rulings since the early 1990s that have dismissed long-standing desegregation orders and prompted a return to neighborhood schools, even if this means a return to segregated schools.
From Court Order to Community Commitment
Nancy Doorey and Bruce Harter
After more than 20 years of living with a massive busing plan to achieve integration and the most pervasive court desegregation order in U.S. history, one community—the Brandywine school district in Wilmington, Delaware—voted by a wide margin not to return to neighborhood schools, favoring instead to maintain its schools' socioeconomic and racial diversity. Although some citizens voted with their pocketbooks after evaluating how much returning to neighborhood schools would cost, the dominant theme at public meetings was the need to ensure equitable access to the best possible education for all students in the district's schools. The authors review the process of bringing this important issue to a public vote by providing information on the educational and financial impacts of their decision and allowing people to come to their own conclusions about the trade-offs that they were willing to accept to meet the more important goal of quality education for all.
First, Do No Harm
Jay P. Heubert
Used wisely, high standards and associated large-scale testing can help improve teaching and learning, especially for low-achieving students, but the improper use of graduation and promotion tests hurts our neediest students most. The author reviews research that shows that certain policies do more harm than good, including retention in grade, assignment to low-track classes, and requiring students to pass graduation or promotion tests before schools have given students an opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills that such tests measure. In too many places, graduation and promotion tests are putting many students at sharply increased risk of suffering the serious, well-documented harm associated with grade retention and denial of high-school diplomas. Those at greatest risk include the very populations—students of color, students with disabilities, English language learners, and low-income students—that standards-based reform could potentially help the most. We can do better.
Strategies That Close the Gap
Larry I. Bell
Many high-poverty, high-minority schools across the United States have succeeded in closing the achievement gap and enabling their students to learn at high levels. During the author's extensive experience working with such schools, he has observed several basic strategies that teachers can use to emphasize reading skills, teach higher-order skills to all students, routinely re-teach, make at-risk students participate, require students to speak and write in complete sentences, and get students emotionally involved in learning. Underlying these strategies, the author stresses the importance of exercising patience and showing students that you care.
Getting Past “See Spot Run”
Meg Gebhard
The author, a researcher of second language learning in schools and a former middle school ESL teacher, asks: Why do so many schools provide inequitable and inadequate instruction for their English-language learners, and what can we do about it? Examining three elementary schools that participated in a school restructuring initiative in California, she identifies two common misconceptions about academic literacy in a second language: 1) that students can develop language ability through silent and independent learning without social and linguistic interactions with peers; and 2) that second language literacy development is linear and must proceed from simple to complex. The author describes a school that provides “a complex web of support that enabled English-language learners to engage in challenging, content-based tasks.”
Educating Latino Students
Carmen A. Rolón
Respecting what Latino students bring to the classroom can help educators adopt effective school reforms and culturally sensitive pedagogy. The author reviews the historical challenges that Latino students have faced in schools; reviews the policies of schools that have successfully raised the achievement levels of Latino students; and suggests teaching strategies that meet the needs of all students, particularly those with diverse backgrounds. She urges educators to examine whether their backgrounds have limited their appreciation of other cultures. With the number of Latinos and other students of color increasing in our schools, it is time to embark on this most urgent endeavor.
Raising Minority Achievement in Science and Math
Freeman A. Hrabowski, III
Researchers project that in the next decade the number of new scientific and engineering jobs in the United States will grow by nearly 50 percent. With minorities projected to account for over 40 percent of new participants in the workforce, the nation needs to produce more minority scientists and engineers, both to meet the increased demand and to address the underrepresentation of minorities in these fields. U.S. schools must prepare minority students to succeed academically in math and science, where the achievement gap is most pronounced. Low expectations and lack of exposure to role models, advanced courses, and career opportunities send minority students the message that they cannot achieve in these fields.
The author describes ways in which schools can help minority students achieve academic and personal success, by elevating expectations for minority students and encouraging the full involvement of faculty, administration, and parents. The Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which recruits and nurtures minority students who excel in math, science, and engineering, provides a model, but any school can use its strategies to good effect.
How Can Title I Improve Achievement?
Geoffrey D. Borman
Although Title I has succeeded in narrowing the achievement gap between White and minority students, three forms of intervention could further the goal. Title l funds and funds from other federal and state sources could ensure equal education opportunities for children before they enter kindergarten, during the summers, and within the school year. To accelerate school-year learning, funds could enable a reduction in class size and the adoption of a research-proven comprehensive school reform program.
The Shifting Sands of School Finance
Al Ramirez
The author examines how school finance has evolved. Questions of adequacy and equity have guided the school funding debate for centuries, but only recently has student achievement been the proposed yardstick. As policymakers increasingly tie achievement standards to funding, they must consider the unique needs of students and school districts and provide the necessary financial resources to meet those needs.
Teacher Education Textbooks: The Unfinished Gender Revolution
Karen Zittleman and David Sadker
Despite decades of research documenting gender bias in education, Zittleman and Sadker found that gender bias persists in 23 of the leading teacher education textbooks covering foundations and methods. Teachers and students can counter these biases together by identifying and discussing them.
Helping Girls Succeed
Denice A. Jobe
Despite gains made by girls in college enrollment, withholding support from programs geared specifically for girls would be a mistake. Both girls and boys struggle with different challenges that need to be addressed through targeted programs and instructional methods. Focusing on one group without consideration for the other is unnecessary and detrimental.
Helping Boys Succeed
Deborah Taylor and Maureen Lorimer
Research indicating a growing disparity in boys' achievement scores, ability labels, disciplinary actions, and advanced course enrollment leads educators to rethink their curriculum and teaching methods. Educators have found that offering more technology and computer education, using multiple literacy strategies, encouraging mentoring relationships, and incorporating more hands-on learning activities increases boys' motivation and thus achievement.
Through the Eyes of Students
Kay Lovelace Taylor
The author asked 300 students in an inner-city Philadelphia high school why they thought minority students lag behind their peers in achievement test scores. In discussions and written responses, the students identified their own lack of motivation and effort as a major factor. They also identified teachers, parents, school factors, and their community environment as playing a role. Many of the students had never been made aware of how the achievement results of their ethnic group compared with those of other groups; they asserted that this knowledge would have motivated them to try harder. The author offers recommendations for informing students, parents, teachers, and religious institutions of the part they can play in closing the minority achievement gap.
The Minority Student Achievement Network
Allan Alson
Created in 1999, the Minority Student Achievement Network comprises 15 school districts with high student achievement levels but significant gaps in achievement between white students and their African American and Latino counterparts. The consortium aims to discover, develop, and implement ways to ensure the high academic achievement of minority students. The author, who convened the Minority Student Achievement Network, briefly examines the complex factors that contribute to the achievement gap and how the consortium has begun to collaborate to eliminate the gap through research, professional development, and student engagement activities.
Promoting Opportunity After School
Lucy Friedman
The standards movement has forced many schools to play a zero-sum game, sacrificing enrichment activities such as art, music, and sports to focus on basic academic subjects that will be measured on high-stakes tests. The weight of this sacrifice falls most heavily on low-income urban students whose families cannot afford to provide enrichment activities on their own. Thus, well-run after-school programs provide a way to promote equity and opportunity for urban students. The author describes an approach to funding and managing such programs through partnerships among foundations, the public sector, and community-based organizations. The After-School Corporation, which has funded programs serving more than 40,000 students in New York City and New York State, provides a model.
A Nation at Risk Really Ought to Take a Few
W. James Popham
To View or Not to View
Steven C. Schlozman
Addressing the Needs of Homeless Students
John H. Holloway
Racial Inequities in Special Education
Whose Lessons?
Alan Singer
ASCD Community in Action
Web Wonders / Equity and Opportunity
Christy Thorp
Study Guide / EL Extra
Deborah Perkins-Gough
Copyright © 2004 by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
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