A Problem with Our Problem? Some Thoughts on the Racial Achievement Gap

A Problem With Our Problem?:  Some Thoughts on the Racial Achievement Gap

Amy Higer

A candidate for school board discusses the racial achievement gap.

The “racial achievement gap” usually refers to differences in the average academic performance of different racial/ethnic groups on measures of academic success, but most often on standardized test scores.  Simply put, African-American and Latino/a students tend to do less well on tests than otherwise similarly situated white or Asian peers.  This problem is not only enormously complicated, it is also fraught with great potential for misunderstandings.  No blog post could do it any justice, but it is important for candidates for the school board to make their views known.  If elected, here are six guiding principles and observations that I would bring to the conversation.

First, and foremost, I think there is a problem with our problem, or, more precisely, a problem with the way we often frame it and talk about it.  Language matters.  I think the better terms to use (if they weren’t such a mouthful) are “the opportunity and test score gap.”  Achievement is about more than test scores, although test scores are one important measure.  As we “mind the gap,” we should be mindful of the potential for the whole conversation to reinforce the negative stereotypes that we need to move beyond.  Too often, the test score gap gets talked about as a problem about certain children’s deficiencies or deficits.  In common parlance, it is a problem only about “them”—the struggling children—and not about “us.”  If we remembered to define the problem as one we all share, then we would be more likely to focus on the nexus between individual and social responsibility—for example, between individual motivation and effort, on one hand, and whether our schools are doing everything possible to be warm, caring, and supportive places for all students, on the other.

We should also remember that what can look like disengagement or even defiance from various subgroups of students is often simply an effort to forge and belong to a community.  Respect and understanding can go a long way toward fostering the trust needed to promote sustained academic engagement.

Second, standardized test scores matter.  They are one good measure of our students’ present skills and knowledge, they provide educators with valuable information, and they are a student’s ticket to college and success in life.  Every one of our students needs to learn how to do well on tests.

Third, at the same time, we should take care not to let the current infatuation with test scores narrow our vision of education.  Every candidate in the school board contest has lamented the short shrift given to science and social studies in the elementary schools.  But the fact that this narrow approach is driven at least in part by high-stakes testing only in math and language arts goes less remarked upon.  We should hold fast a humanistic vision: Our ultimate goal should be to make sure that students become creative learners, critical thinkers, and productive, active citizens.

Fourth, our district is unusual, and therefore our local test score gap problem is also distinctive.  Our district is not one marked by racial isolation, concentrated poverty, and failing schools.  While a majority of our disadvantaged students are black, the majority of black students are middle class or affluent.  And plenty of our struggling students are not black.  The test score gap is a “racial” one, but we can’t understand it without also taking socioeconomic status and gender into account.  This complexity sometimes gets lost in the careless way we often talk about test score data in our community.  Our carelessness, in turn, serves to increase anxiety over how our district is doing in its response to the test score gap. 

Fifth, the district has instituted a number of reforms in response to the test score gap.  These include:

• Full-day Kindergarten;
• A focus on literacy in grades K-2, with frequent assessments that can help us identify and meet needs early on in a child’s education;
• An excellent new language arts curriculum in the elementary schools and leveling up in the middle school;
• Extending language arts enrichment to all 4^th and 5^th graders;
• Leveling up three out of four core subjects in grades 6-8; and
• A high school restructuring plan that moves more and more students into more rigorous coursework. 

Thus, if elected, I would join a school board that has taken the achievement gap very seriously.  All of these changes move us forward.  The gap has narrowed over the past several years.  We are headed in the right direction.

Sixth, beyond these and many other specific changes and interventions, we must continue to be guided by our values and our vision.  From Kindergarten to high school graduation, we have to be telling all students, not only by what we say but also by what we do, that intelligence is malleable and expandable; that intelligence is many things, not one thing; that we are going to hold all students to very high standards; and that we really believe that they can meet those standards.  That’s what all great schools do.

I am running for school board along with Jennifer Payne-Parrish and Tia (Karen) Swanson.  For more information, see http://www.AmyHiger.org and http://Payne-ParrishAndSwanson.org.  Please vote on Tuesday April 17^th, polls open 2-9 pm.