By Dr. Vernard Gant, Director of ACSI Urban School Services
“The racial gap in academic achievement is an educational crisis, but it is also the main source of ongoing racial inequality. And racial inequality is America’s great unfinished business, the wound that remains unhealed.” That is how Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom (2003) characterized the achievement gap in the introduction to their book No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. In a speech to the nation’s governors, Bill Gates (2005) described the gap in more practical terms: “In district after district, wealthy white kids are taught Algebra II while low-income minority kids are taught to balance a checkbook! The first group goes on to college and careers; the second group will struggle to make a living wage.”
It was this gap that led President Lyndon Johnson to thrust the federal government into the education arena as he signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act so that children who were “held behind” would have the opportunity to catch up. This same gap led President George W. Bush to reauthorize the legislation, entitling it No Child Left Behind, with an end goal that children would not be left behind. Yet, despite these laws and sentiments by the highest office in the land, the achievement gap persists, and the consequences are more glaring and more costly than ever.
The History of the Gap
In a previous issue of The Meantime (volume 3, issue 3), I used the following allegory to illustrate the historical reason for the achievement gap that plagues African American students. I repeat the allegory in order to expand on it for the purpose of arriving at a solution to the crisis it represents.
One day two men set out to run a long-distance, multiday race. At the onset of the race, however, something very strange happened. One man was given a 350-day head start. Along the way, food, water, and fresh pairs of shoes were provided for him. He was given comfortable and restful overnight lodging so that he would be well rested to resume the race the following day. Cheering crowds lined the course, encouraging him along the way. Billboards, posters, and banners provided constant visual reminders of how good a runner he was.
In the meantime, the other man was held back. For 350 days those holding him fed him a starvation diet—barely enough to keep him alive. During this time they severely beat his legs to the point of nearly crippling him. He was denied peaceful and restful sleep, further deteriorating his already fragile health. Moreover, the extent of his oppression went far beyond what was being done to him physically. Every day while this was going on, he was constantly told how inferior a runner he was. There were no cheering crowds or signs to encourage him that he was anything other than half a runner.
Finally, after 350 days he was let go and told to start the race. He was offered no food for strength, no bandages for his wounds, and no shoes for his feet. He was simply told to “go!” Forty days later, so as to add insult to injury, those who had held him back the entire time the other man was running came to him in the midst of his race and asked, “What’s the matter—you haven’t caught up yet?” “What’s wrong with you?” and “Why can’t you get over it and get on with it?” Some standing along the course who cheered the other man asked this man: “Now was it really that bad?” They then concluded with a self-fulfilling declaration: “See, we told you that you were an inferior runner.”
For 350 years the system was designed to leave black children academically behind. Now, after 50 years of a national effort to undo years of what Bill Gates calls “education rationing” (2005), the lack of substantial progress reveals just how effectively the 350-year strategy worked. Patterns and beliefs were set in motion that are largely self-sustaining and self-perpetuating despite all efforts to counter them.
The Indices of the Gap
As a result,
- 73 percent of black children are enrolled in schools where the majority of students are eligible for free- or reduced lunch compared to 23 percent of white children.
- Twice as large a percent of black children repeat a grade compared to white children.
- The high school dropout rate is twice as high for black children as for white children.
- On the average scale scores in reading, math, and science, 17-year-old blacks perform at the same level as 13-year-old whites. (Hoffman and Llagas 2003)
While blacks are graduating from high school with 12 years’ worth of schooling, they are receiving only 8 years’ worth of education. Moreover, their chance for graduation in the nation’s largest school districts, in which the majority of blacks are enrolled, has now become a 50/50 proposition. For those who do graduate from high school with ambitions of going on to college, even in this situation they are hounded by the gap. According to a report entitled Crisis at the Core: Preparing All Students for College and Work, released by the ACT testing program (2004).
- Blacks are five times less likely than the total population to be ready for college biology.
- The percentages of these groups meeting the benchmark for algebra were only slightly higher.
- African Americans were about one and a half times less likely to meet the benchmark for college English composition.
- The average ACT composite test score for whites is 21.8 and 16.9 for blacks.
- Whites score an average of 100 points higher than blacks on the verbal and math portions of the SAT.
This means that roughly half of black students in urban school districts will graduate from high school on time. Of those who do, approximately 40 percent will enroll in college. Of that number, 40 percent will graduate after 6 years. To put it another way, less than a fourth of black students entering high school today will complete a college degree. This is at a time—in a knowledge based, information-driven society—when college training is more important than ever. According to the ACT report (2004).
- 70 percent of the 30 fastest-growing jobs will require an education beyond high school.
- 40 percent of all new jobs will require at least an associate’s degree.
- Today, an estimated 85 percent of jobs are classified as “skilled,” requiring education beyond high school.
- 60 percent of future jobs will require training that only 20 percent of today’s workers possess.
Bill Gates (2005) drew similar conclusions in his address to the nation’s governors:
Today, most jobs that allow you to support a family require some postsecondary education. This could mean a four-year college, a community college, or technical school. Unfortunately, only half of all students who enter high school ever enroll in a postsecondary institution.
That means that half of all students starting high school today are unlikely to get a job that allows them to support a family.
Students who graduate from high school, but never go on to college, will earn—on average— about $25 thousand a year. For a family of five, that’s close to the poverty line. But if you’re Hispanic, you earn less. If you’re black, you earn even less—about 14 percent less than a white high school graduate.
Those who drop out have it even worse. Only 40 percent have jobs. They are nearly four times more likely to be arrested than their friends who stayed in high school. They are far more likely to have children in their teens. One in four turn to welfare or other kinds of government assistance.
Closing the Gap
No matter what or who bears the historical blame for the achievement gap, the great challenge facing educators today is, how can it be solved?
The previous sections largely explain the historical underpinning of the achievement gap. The race analogy was designed to point to what is primarily the “blame” for the gap. This is, however, for all practical purposes, a moot issue. Perhaps another illustration will further clarify.
A person goes into the emergency room with a knife wound. This person is obviously a damaged and at-risk individual because he is bleeding and wounded, and the knife is still stuck in his body. If the emergency room attendants spend their efforts discussing the history of the wound or who’s to blame, then the person’s problem is only exacerbated. For example, the person’s condition will only worsen if while standing over him their conversations are as follows: “Who did this to you?” “Why did they do such an awful thing?” “They should not have done this.” “You poor person, you didn’t deserve this.” “This is not fair to you.” These are all matters of blame, and while they may describe how he got in the shape he is in, they do nothing to ameliorate his condition. At this point, from the standpoint of the person on the operating table, it is no longer an issue of who’s to blame for the problem, but who’s responsible for the solution. The person who inflicted the wound cannot undo the wound, and simply removing the knife will not solve the problem. The ER staff must work to solve the problem.
By the same token, no matter what or who bears the historical blame for the achievement gap, the great challenge facing educators today is, how can it be solved? To expand upon the race analogy, where two people are running a race and one person is behind the other, in order to close the gap between them, the following must happen: either the person in front has to slow down (which means to do less), or the person behind has to speed up (which means to do more), or there has to be a combination of the two. The reality is, however, that the children ahead of the achievement gap are not going to be permitted to slow down. That would be totally unconscionable and unacceptable. The only other way to close the gap is to help the children behind to speed up. They must do more, and in order to do more, they have to be given more. It is imperative that those who take on the task of educating children who are academically behind and at risk of being left behind bring to those children an educational package that works for them—one that equips them to do what is needed to catch up and stay caught up. If we leave them in the same shape as when they came to us, then we have rendered them a disservice and have only added to their problem.
The school overall must implement a curriculum that its staff can use to effectively educate its students. To be effective, the curriculum must be developed around the content of the subject matters and the context in which the curriculum is delivered. It must take into consideration what the student should know, how the student will be assessed, and how the student learns. The curriculum is developed around the students it serves as the vehicle that takes them from where they are to where they need to be. Prepackaged and scripted “curriculum,” on the other hand, is by design fixed, requiring students to conform to its mold. These programs do not take into consideration the context of the school, the staff, or the students. Those who successfully conform succeed; those who do not are left behind.
The staff must be both professionally and personally trained to work with gap children. Often times these children are being educated by teachers who, for all practical purposes, are foreigners— teachers who are socially, culturally, academically, and even racially removed from them. Professionally, teachers must be trained in the subject matter and in how to effectively educate resource-poor children. These under-resourced children cannot be taught or group processed in the same way that resource-rich children can. Resource-poor children require more individualized programs tailored to their needs. For the most part, they come to school and matriculate through school with an acute case of “ADD.” This ADD, however, is not the medical attention deficit disorder, but rather it’s the social attention deprivation disorder. These students have lacked the individual attention necessary to establish the kind of learning base that they can build upon. Their teachers, in order to be effective, must know how to teach to their conditions.
Not only must the teachers of gap children be professionally trained, but they must also be trained in personal nurture. Researchers have demonstrated that African American children and Latino children place a great deal of importance on whether their teachers care about them.* For these children, the teachers’ concern is as important (and sometimes more important) than their credentials, as evidenced in the impact that coaches have on the personal behavior and performances of their young athletes who feel that someone cares about and believes in them.
Children who have less need more. There are no shortcuts, quick fixes, or secret formulas.
Finally, the great challenge facing the school and its staff is how to educate multidimensionally poor children to function on the level of multidimensionally rich children. (This subject is addressed in more detail in the article “Educating the Urban Poor” found in this issue.) In other words, how do we help children with few resources to speed up so that they can catch up with their more advantaged peers? The basicprincipled solution to this is that the children who have less need more. There are no shortcuts, quick fixes, or secret formulas.
The gap was created, and it can be corrected. Schools throughout the nation are proving this every day they are in session. They are succeeding because they have the resolve to do so. They have purposed that the children who come to them will by no means be left behind.
*See Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb by John U. Ogbu and Closing the Achievement Gaps: What Doesn’t Meet the Eye by Ronald Ferguson.
References
ACT. 2004. Crisis at the core: Preparing all students for college and work.
Gates, Bill. 2005. Rising to the challenge. Keynote address, National Education Summit on High Schools, Washington, DC, February 26.
Hoffman, Kathryn, and Charmaine Llagas. 2003. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Status and trends in the education of blacks. NCES 2003-034 (September). (This page is no longer available on the web.)
Thernstrom, Abigail, and Stephan Thernstrom. 2003. No excuses: Closing the racial gap in learning. New York: Simon & Schuster.
The Meantime Volume 4 Number 3