Education Law

Chasing “the gap”

The achievement gap is one of the eduterms that pops up almost daily in articles, blogs, and research reports.  An article written by the California School Boards Association on the topic last June was off our radar screen until recently, and BoardBuzz thinks it’s worth a look.

The article uses California examples that are repeated over and over in every state, district, and school, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, where the color of a student’s skin is a factor in discipline.  While strides have been taken to end this practice in the last 50 years, sadly, it still happens.  But putting those examples out there is important to understand the context of the following statistics.  While we often hear about the high costs of educating students, especially in urban districts, critics say things like, “the cost of educating a student is too high, $10,000 per year is too much.”  Consider this:

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 20 percent of black men between the ages of 24 and 35 have served time. But among dropouts the picture is far worse, with some 60 percent acquiring a prison record by their mid-30s. More alarming, one researcher calculated that incarceration for a black dropout in California was ?practically a certainty? by the time he reaches his 50s. Ultimately, each dropout costs the state almost $400,000 in lost wages, taxes and increased social services over a lifetime, the California Dropout Research Project calculated.

The article continues and demonstrates how parents often become the driving force behind change.  Some parents wind up on the school boards leading those changes, while others orchestrate change in other ways using grassroots support and other means to close “the gap.”  The good news for some of these California districts is they are starting to see their efforts pay off on test scores and higher academic achievement for students of color.  The work continues there, and if your district is struggling with similar challenges, California’s districts may have a lesson plan to follow.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).