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Closing the Achievement Gap One Classroom at a Time

by Blake West
KNEA Vice President

- In the classroom
- In the school
- Share your success

KNEA and its members have set their sights on the "achievement gap" as our goal for changing the world.

We have begun to use data on student learning to identify groups that are performing significantly below their peers. For example, in the April 2001 Issues, we saw how students on free/reduced price lunch performed significantly below their peers in both math and reading. While Quality Performance Accreditation (QPA) often seems to create burdensome amounts of paperwork, the data it generates (particularly when it is disaggregated) reveals these troubling differences in performance of subgroups of our students.

NEA and KNEA have provided significant support for schools working on school-wide improvement, but what can individual teachers do to make a difference - to close the gap? Let's consider two kinds of action.

In the classroom

When assessment is aligned with curriculum and instruction, students do better on the assessment. Well, there's a surprise! What this means for individual teachers, though, is a need to seriously look at our lesson planning to ensure we're not just following the textbook. Researchers also encourage teachers to focus their efforts on the most critical outcomes within the curriculum. Are these strategies "teaching to the test"?

Grant Wiggins provides some good insight into these ideas in the book Understanding by Design. In a nutshell, Wiggins suggests that we first identify what the essential (critical) learnings are within the curriculum. For those items, decide how students can demonstrate they truly understand the concepts. In other words, begin by deciding what students should learn and next designing assessment activities that truly reveal student understanding.

This leads to a second area to improve student learning. In Understanding by Design, projects and assignments that build student understanding and mastery will actively engage the learner. Teaching techniques and assignments that address the various learning styles of our students will increase student learning. The concept of "multiple intelligences" introduced by Howard Gardner provides excellent insight into ways we can help students understand the curriculum more thoroughly through varied teaching strategies.

When David and Myra Sadker wrote in Failing at Fairness about ways teachers unwittingly teach to boys more than girls, they identified some strategies that seem to increase learning for girls in upper level math and science classes. What further research has shown, though, is that the techniques suggested by the Sadkers increase learning for other students, too. For example, cooperative groups working on problems, discussing concepts, etc., attain deeper levels of understanding than individual students responding to questions during a lecture/presentation. Students that are allowed to respond as a small group to questions feel less threatened than when responding to questions in class as individuals and they are more likely to participate.

Each of these ideas also support two strategies suggested for the classroom and the whole school. First, hold high expectations for each student. Sometimes that means helping a student identify strengths, learning styles, etc., that work best for him or her. It may mean looking for factors such as language or problems outside school that interfere with a student's ability to succeed. Figuring out student interests or problems that affect learning is much easier if there is a strong connection with home. The second strategy is to reach out to the home to involve the parents. Sometimes extraordinary means are necessary to connect with the home, but there is no doubt that helping students believe in their potential and in the value of education is an important task for teamwork between school and home.

Finally for the classroom, references to such researchers as Gardner, the Sadkers and Wiggins reveal another key to closing the achievement gap. As a profession, we need to be engaged in reading about effective professional practice. And one step beyond, we need to be experimenting with new techniques, possibly even conducting our own action research projects in our classrooms.

In the school

Individuals can make a difference in whole school improvement, too, even if there is not administrative leadership for the efforts. For example, a key to school-wide improvement is to establish a "learning organization" culture. So, rather than reading a book or article as an individual activity, how about starting a small study/discussion group to read and reflect on professional practice? Invite a few colleagues to join you in a project such as studying Understanding by Design. The synergy of shared ideas will make it a more rewarding experience for everyone involved and the support group can keep the energy going as you experiment with the new ideas throughout the school year.

Every school must have a Professional Development Council (PDC) and that committee must be 50 percent teachers. Consider joining your PDC and help the group implement more effective professional development activities. Effective professional development includes follow-up, practice with new skills, is "job-embedded," emphasizes subject matter expertise, etc. Use the KNEA resources for effective professional development as your guide to making a better PDC.

Share Your Success

One last key to making a difference - share your successes. We are individually enriched when we reflect on our own professional practice, and consider why our efforts succeed or fail when we take some time to write about our efforts to improve student learning.

Take the opportunities that arise this year to tackle the problem of the achievement gap in your classroom or school. KNEA and NEA will be there as your resource and we'll also be anxious to hear about your successes. E-mail your success stories to resource@knea.org.