Posted on 08/06/2005 5:11:55 PM PDT by Coleus
The achievement gap between minority and white students has long been a stain on the bright mosaic of culturally and racially diverse school districts.
From North Jersey to Cleveland to San Diego, whites as a group generally score considerably better on standardized tests than their minority peers. Whites also tend to enroll in more honors classes, while minorities are more prevalent in remedial courses.
Now, one Bergen County district is introducing a sweeping concept that it hopes will bridge its gap by addressing a wide range of possible roadblocks to academic success.
The initiative includes dozens of ideas. Some are in the talking stage, while others are concrete goals, such as establishing small learning communities, or academies, at the district's middle schools.
"If Teaneck is going to be successful in closing this gap, we need to do something dramatically different," said schools Superintendent John Czeterko. "We want to go back and look at everything we do and see whether or not we can do it better."
The district offers a solid academic program. Nine out of 10 graduates attend college and several each year are accepted into Ivy League and other top universities, school officials said. Extra help and tutoring are offered to at-risk students and the district continuously reviews curriculum.
But the achievement gap remains. Especially troubling is that in some areas, such as eighth-grade math, the gap has widened of late.
This summer, school officials are taking the first steps to launch what they are calling the Teaneck Achievement Challenge. Short-term goals include having an academic assessment team in each of the district's seven schools come September.
"They're going to look at their school and assess needs," said Assistant Superintendent Spencer Denham. "Whether it's test scores, learning environment, buildings and grounds. ... Whatever about their school is troublesome, they will put together a plan to address their needs."
Other short-range projects include recruiting community volunteers and mentors, and establishing programs with nearby colleges and universities for students to earn college credits.
A review of academic requirements for participation in sports and extracurricular programs is also on the agenda.
Currently, a student with a D average may participate in such activities as long as the number of credits they've earned is on track for graduation.
"I think [the initiative] will create a new energy," said Czeterko, who was appointed superintendent 18 months ago. He was a teacher and administrator in the district for 30 years, and he said bridging the gap is his top priority.
Racial changes
The gap has become more pronounced in Teaneck over the past decade, the result of a dramatic change in the district's racial and ethnic makeup.
In 1995, enrollment in the 4,300-student district was 39.6 white, 39.3 percent black, 11 percent Asian and 10 percent Hispanic. Today, the 4,285-student district is 48 percent black, 20 percent white, 20 percent Hispanic and 11 percent Asian.
There were 834 white students in the district this year, down from 1,296 in 2000. Overall enrollment since 2000 is down about 400 students.
According to the 2000 census, the town's racial and ethnic makeup is 56 percent white, 28 percent black, 10.5 percent Hispanic and 7 percent Asian.
The figure is more than 100 percent because Hispanic is an ethnic category that can be counted in more than one racial category.
Shrinking white enrollment is due in good part to the influx of Orthodox Jews into the township in the past decade. Nearly all Orthodox families, who make up roughly one-third of Teaneck's population, send their children to religious schools.
Still, some feel that the overall enrollment decline reflects a lack of confidence in the district by white parents and minority parents alike.
Brenda Allen, who is black, pulled her two daughters from Teaneck schools after eighth grade in recent years, opting to send them to the Bergen County Academies in Hackensack and Bergen County Technical School in Teterboro, respectively.
She said she felt that the county schools gave her daughters a better chance to succeed.
"Until the message is that Teaneck is an excellent school district for all children, there's going to be a brain drain," Allen said.
But she also hopes that the achievement initiative will lead to higher scores and growing enrollment in Teaneck.
"It's important to create a pro-academic environment in the community," said Allen, who has started a discussion group about the gap. "I moved here because the schools were excellent, and I believe that the percentage of blacks and Latinos in advanced classes can be representative of the population."
Denham, the assistant superintendent, defended the district.
"I think we have an exceptional school district," Denham said. "We give students every opportunity to walk out of [high school] with a diploma that means something."
To be sure, minorities in Teaneck achieve at levels above the state average and do better in some age groups and subjects than their peers in districts with similar economic and social characteristics. On an individual basis, many minorities do better than white students.
There's also good news on a national level.
The 2004 National Assessment of Educational Progress's annual study, released this month, found striking improvements in minority test scores.
Nine-year-olds across all racial groups registered the highest math and reading scores in three decades, and 13-year-old black and Hispanic students showed significant improvement in math. High school students did not see as many gains. Individual state results will be released in the fall.
Educators and academics say there is no single reason for the achievement gap.
"The blame doesn't settle in any one place, and the responsibility to contribute to improvement is widespread," said Ronald Ferguson, a Harvard professor who has examined the achievement gap for more than a decade and is co-author of a widely publicized study on the problem in Shaker Heights, a diverse and affluent Cleveland suburb.
Experts do agree that a student's family background, rich or poor, is a major influence on academic achievement.
"Most children who are not achieving have social needs that are not being met," said Marilyn Davis, of the center for pedagogy at Montclair State University. "You have to look at what's happening in the family structure, in the community, that may be influencing their ability to come to school ready to learn."
Ferguson was more blunt: Teachers and parents are "the primary sources of instruction and academic experiences for kids," he said. "Typically, both have a lot of room to get better."
Another possible factor: the view among some minority students that doing well in school isn't "cool."
Get parents involved
Teaneck's plan includes stressing the importance of education to parents long before their children's first day of school. For example, a proposed Teaneck Toddler program would provide a gift basket of books and other educational items to the families of newborns.
A major component of Teaneck's approach involves its middle schools, where academies would be created in the seventh and eighth grades.
By September 2006, Czeterko hopes to have environmental science, fine and performing arts, business, law, and world language concentrations for students at the schools. Shuttle buses would transfer students between the two schools if necessary, Czeterko said.
The hope is that students would be more motivated to learn in an environment they choose, he said. Statistics show that the achievement gap in Teaneck, and throughout the state, grows from a crack to a chasm between the fourth and eighth grades.
"The level of enthusiasm, the parent involvement, the engagement of the kids, all seem to drop off [during that time]," Czeterko said. "This will be an engaging program that will capture students' interest and prevent indifference."
There are also plans to add business, humanities and building trades/culinary arts concentrations at Teaneck High School by 2007. The high school has a Technology Enriched Academy for Math and Sciences and an arts academy.
Skeptics and believers
Though Teaneck's plan appears more extensive than past efforts to bridge the gap, some residents are skeptical, noting that the district has tried to address the problem before without much success.
"I wish the superintendent and the school board the absolute best, but it sounds like a rehash," said Art Vatsky, who attends many school and municipal meetings. "There's always another program Then after that program [doesn't work], they say, 'We've got another new program.'Ÿ"
School officials are upbeat. The achievement challenge is more comprehensive than anything the district has attempted in the past, they say.
"I think we're quite open to new ways of doing things," said school board President Judith McKay.
But she also cautioned that the initiative's effect on the district will be measured in years. "It's not going be a quick fix," McKay said.
Denham said stereotyping also contributes to the gap and must be overcome.
"Some people feel that when a black person or a Latino person walks through the door, there's a preset that this youngster is not going to be an achiever," Denham said, "that he's going to be an average student at best.
"It's changing the mindset of our community," he said. "To demand and have expectations for [students] no matter what color they are."
Brainstorming
Here are some ideas that the Teaneck school district will pursue in an effort to bridge the student achievement gap.
The initiative can be viewed in its entirety at www.teaneckschools.org
There certainly is a White Minority learning gap! Look at all the Orientals in Graduate School as a percentage of the population. Where are the programs to narrow that gap?
The achievement gap between minority and white students has long been a stain on the bright mosaic of culturally and racially diverse school districts. What should we do?
Answer: Expel the white students. Problem solved.
Looks interesting. Bump for Morning Coffee read. :)
Teaching in ebonics in Oakland should help black kids improve dramatically (sarc) and just imagine the corporations knocking these kids' doors down to hire them.
How does one say "would you like fries with that" in ebonics?
No, just require that they do all their learning in ebonics. That'll take care of the gap.
'Sup dawg. Want some fries wit dat?
i bet anyone the black children that come from a two parent family scored better than the ones from a single parent family. same with whites, asians, hispanics, etc
"Wudja 'all lak frahs wid dat?"?
A possible factor??? There are very popular counter cultures in minorities that promote violence, crime, vulgarity, drugs and a hate for the powers that be. And our government subsidies these counter cultures through welfare programs. Take these away and show them how bad poverty can really be and you will have a renewed interest in education.
Yo buss dis. would you likes fries wit dat Sheeit!
(from: http://www.atlantaga.com/cgi-bin/ebonics.pl?U )
>>Nine-year-olds across all racial groups registered the highest math and reading scores in three decades, and 13-year-old black and Hispanic students showed significant improvement in math. High school students did not see as many gains. Individual state results will be released in the fall.<<
To me this represents better teaching than what is available in the other grades.
I thought it was all due to culturally biased tests!
But seriously, maybe its progress that they aren't parroting that crap anymore.
Damn white people!!! They are the Scourge of the Earth!! The liberals told me so!!
The key to solving a problem usually involves correctly identifying what the problem is. Here, they jave failed. The problem has NOTHING ro do with closing the gap. The problem is fixing black students. Of course, if they see it as a gap issue, they can simply divert resources from white students to blacks. The gap issue can also be fixed by dumbing down the whites, having two grading scales and grading blacks via self-evaluation. Soon, what is left of the wite student population will leave and there will be no gap. Nothing will have been fixed or improved, but the union teachers will claim additional rewards for having successfully eliminated the evil gap.
" No matter how good teaching may be, each student must take the responsibility for his own education."
-- John Carolus, S.J.
Funny, to the MSM idiots asians and indians obviously don't count as minorities.
They always tell the same sob story of ghetto children that ain't be knowin' how to speaks da inglish.
The problem they're having is that tests have been gone through with a fine tooth comb to find and eliminate bias.
There is no "bias" anymore if there ever was any.
Now they're left with the stark differences and they have few excuses left.
Soon they may be forced to face the facts.
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