The Educator′s Handbook for Understanding and Closing Achievement Gaps

Joseph Murphy, Joseph F. Murphy

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781412964555
• eBook ISBN: 9781452272962
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

"Beginning with a remarkably comprehensive and accessible analysis of the gap?s causes, the book offers a refreshingly balanced, evidence-based, state-of-the-art outline of productive solutions that should inform the work of all educational stakeholders."
—Ken Leithwood, Professor
OISE/University of Toronto

"No one is better positioned than Joseph Murphy to provide lessons for education leaders on this important topic."
—Andrew Porter, George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education
University of Pennsylvania

"For too long, the achievement gap has been proclaimed, discussed, and then dismissed as a subject of despair. Seldom has it been systematically defined, placed in historical perspective, or positively addressed. Through thorough scholarship, comprehensive knowledge, and creativity, this book fills that void."
—James W. Guthrie, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Educational Leadership and Public Policy
Vanderbilt University

"While offering no simple pathway to progress, this book reminds us how much more we can do to close achievement gaps."
—Michael S. Knapp, Director
Center for the Study of Teaching & Policy, University of Washington

Discover what research says about the achievement gap and what educators can do to close it!

Distinguished researcher Joseph Murphy has gathered and analyzed the most up-to-date research and data to help school leaders understand what the achievement gap is, why it persists, and what educators can do about it. This comprehensive handbook:

• Examines external factors that contribute to achievement gaps, such as socioeconomic status, family environment, racism, and individual differences
• Covers internal factors such as instruction, school culture, and school support
• Provides strategies for addressing both internal and external factors to make an impact

PART I

BACKGROUND

1

---

Bringing Achievement Gaps Into Focus

America is a diverse society in which educational differences have the potential to become a progressively larger source of inequality and social conflict. Many people now recognize that eliminating these differences has become a moral and pragmatic imperative. (Miller, 1995, pp. 1–2)

Beyond policy mandates, however, there is a moral mandate. A good education, one that overcomes the burdens on children of racial discrimination and poverty, is the hope of every parent in schools where too many children are failing. (Lewis, 2008, p. xi)

SETTING THE STAGE

The term “achievement gap” is used to describe differences in learning among specified groups of students (Reynolds, 2002). More specifically, it refers to differences in academic achievement between socioeconomically advantaged and white and Asian students, and their minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged peers (Symonds, 2004). It is also widely used to capture efforts to reduce these learning differentials (Bingham, 1994; North Carolina State Department of Education, 2000).

The achievement of minority students represents a long-standing issue in the field of education. Across the U.S., white students and students from wealthy, well-educated families have consistently outperformed students from most other ethnic backgrounds and students from impoverished families on virtually every indicator of academic achievement in the host of studies that have addressed this issue. The term “achievement gap” is often used to refer to this phenomenon. (North Carolina State Department of Education, 2000, p. 4)

While the achievement gap represents “a long standing issue in the field of education” (North Carolina, 2000, p. 4) and while analysts have taken notice of differences in achievement between youngsters from different races, cultures, and levels on the economic ladder for some time (Hedges & Nowell, 1999; Meehan, Cowley, Schumacher, Hauser, & Croom, 2003), the achievement gap problem did not begin to generate concerted attention in the United States until the mid-1960s. Or, as Miller (1995) reports, “Substantial societal interest in identifying, understanding, and attempting to eliminate variations in educational attainment and achievement patterns among racial/ethnic groups is a very recent phenomenon” (p. 85). In a broad sense, the civil rights and Great Society movements directed interest to disparities in learning opportunities and outcomes for minority and low-income youngsters. In addition, the achievement gap problem was propelled onto the school-reform stage with the publication of important research studies conducted during these movements. Noteworthy here are the studies of inequality by Coleman and his colleagues (1966) and by Jencks and his research associates (1972). Also important were the development of more refined methodologies to study achievement gaps, especially the introduction of large-scale surveys that employed nationally representative samples (Hedges & Nowell, 1999).

More recently, especially over the last decade, the spotlight has been focused even more directly and more brightly on achievement gaps. Indeed, it is accurate to assert that the issue of learning disparities among groups of students has moved onto center stage in society in general and in the education industry in particular (Hertert & Teague, 2003). As Kober (2001) has observed, “Racial/ethnic gaps in test performance have long been observed and debated, but recent trends in education, demographics, and the economy have made the achievement gap a high priority issue” (p. 15).

If the first wave of attention in the 1960s and 1970s was driven by a sense that addressing the gap problem was the right thing to do for children, the current second wave of attention is also rooted in a sense of the necessity of action. This necessity is for the well-being of the nation in a postindustrial economy and a twenty-first-century society. As the subsequent discussion illustrates, the costs of failure to confront the gap problem are larger and more noticeable today than they were forty years ago (Alvermann, 2005; Ferguson, 2002). Concomitantly, the threads of accountability are much more visible in the educational tapestry today than they were during the 1960s and 1970s (Murphy, 2006), thus pushing educators to assume ownership for problems that could have been simply attributed to others in the past.

For all of these reasons, addressing achievement gaps—which includes an understanding of the problem, an analysis of its root causes, and an investigation of potential solutions (Miller, 1995)—has assumed an unparalleled position of concern, a heightened sense of seriousness, and a palpable sense of urging in America at the dawn of the twenty-first century (Becker & Luthar, 2002; Bennett et al., 2007; Braun, Wang, Jenkins, & Weinbaum, 2006; Chatterji, 2006; Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008; Shannon & Bylsma, 2002). Indeed, it is routinely suggested these days that gaps in academic achievement between minority and majority students and higher-income and lower-income youngsters represent the most significant educational problem in the United States (Slavin & Madden, 2001; 2006) as well as “the most critical problem facing…continued economic development” (McGee, 2003, p. 64) in the nation in general and the major dilemma for urban education in particular (Norman, Ault, Bentz, & Meskimen, 2001). It is now at the “forefront of the debate over public education” (Symonds, 2004, p. 5).

In the balance of this introductory chapter, we undertake three assignments. We investigate the importance of achievement gaps for individuals and for society. We explore definitions of the achievement gap. We also outline important cautions readers need to carry with them as they travel through this volume in particular, and as they think about achievement gap issues generally.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM

The gaps…are enormously costly for minorities as well as for society as a whole. (Miller, 1995, p. 83)

Racial equality is still a dream—and will remain a dream as long as blacks learn less in school than whites and Asians. (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2002, p. 131)

As noted above, acknowledgment of, and demands for, action on the achievement gap have grown as the consequences of the problem have come into sharper relief over the last dozen years and as the depth of the problem—its pervasiveness and resistance to change (Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008)—threatens to overwhelm schools. The importance of the problem and the urgency for action are amplified by the fact that the economic, social, and political infrastructure of the nation is being transformed in ways that magnify the consequences of inequalities inherent in patterned achievement differentials by race and class. In terms of “consequences,” we are discovering that the achievement gap problem imposes tremendous costs on both individuals and society at large (Becker & Luthar, 2002; McGee, 2003; Schwartz, 2001): “The persistence of achievement gaps has both immediate and long-term consequences, not only for students…but also for the economic and social well-being of a state” (Spradlin et al., 2005, p. 2).

Cost to Individuals

It is widely recognized that these differences in educational outcomes contribute to large disparities in life chances. Viewed solely from the perspective of employment and earnings, educationally underrepresented minorities have much less opportunity to pursue well-paying professional careers and are much more likely to hold low-wage jobs that provide few chances for advancement. (Miller, 1995, p. 1)

While it is true that eliminating the black-white test score gap would not eliminate the black-white earnings gap, the effect would surely be substantial. (Jencks & Phillips, 1998, p. 46)

According to scholars from a wide array of disciplines, “Disparities in test scores are troubling not only for the underlying educational inequalities that they suggest but also because of the link between performance on tests and outcomes later in life” (Stiefel, Schwartz, & Ellen, 2006, p. 7). The argument in play is (1) that gaps “tilt the playing field precipitously” (McGee, 2003, p. 7) and negatively for many low-income and minority students; gaps are about “opportunities that some students will have and others never will” (p. 13) and (2) “similar achievement outcomes will lead to more equitable access to future education and jobs as well as a better quality of life” (Chatterji, 2005b, p. 48).

Achievement gaps are seen as significant contributors to opportunity structure (Hedges & Nowell, 1999) and to the educational attainment, employment opportunities, and wages of individuals (Hedges & Nowell, 1999; McGee, 2003; Stiefel, Schwartz, & Ellen, 2006; Toenjes, Dworkin, Lorence, & Hill, 2002). Achievement differences reflected in gaps “hold severe consequences for life trajectories” (Seiler & Elmesky, 2007, p. 394); they “translate directly into differences in high school graduation rates…and in income and socioeconomic status” (Slavin & Madden, 2001, p. 4): “These differences have dire consequences once students leave school. Black and Hispanics are much less likely than whites to graduate from high school, acquire a college or advanced degree, or earn a living that places them in the middle class” (Chubb & Loveless, 2002, p. 1). According to scholars who study this area, because of the increasing importance of education in the postindustrial world (Ferguson, 1991; Kosters & Mast, 2003; Marshall & Tucker, 1992; Murnane & Levy, 1996) and because income and class are becoming “increasingly determined by educational success, the gap in achievement has shifted from being an indicator of educational inequality to being a direct cause of socioeconomic inequity” (Harris & Herrington, 2006, p. 210).

For minority and low-income students, achievement gaps are linked to increased risks of falling behind (Neuman & Celano, 2006, p. 179), and significant struggles as one moves into higher grades in the K–12 system (McGee, 2003); higher dropout rates (Balfanz & Byrnes, 2006; Land & Legters, 2002; Natriello, McDill, & Pallas, 1990); lower college attendance (Orr, 2003); higher enrollment in lower-ranked universities (Dabady, 2003; Orr, 2003), and lower college graduation rates (Slavin & Madden, 2006; U.S. Commission, 2004)—to reduced opportunities for higher education across the board (Lee, 2002).

Not unexpectedly, employment opportunities for youngsters on the wrong side of the achievement gap are truncated, leading to quite different and more limited career paths (Maruyama, 2003; McGee, 2003; Miller, 1995; Roscigno, 1998). Given the storyline of reduced career opportunities and a narrowed employment vista, it will come as no surprise to learn that low-achieving students earn less than their higher-achieving peers when they enter the workforce (Ceci & Papierno, 2005; Hedges & Nowell, 1999; Johnson & Neal, 1998;Velez, 1989): “People with higher scores tend to have higher earnings.…Disparities in reading and math achievement, as measured by test scores, explain a larger share of the differences between the races in average weekly earnings for young adult males” (Ferguson, 1991, pp. 1, 20). More troubling still, as Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor (2005) document, the gap in scores today “explains a larger percentage of the income gap between the races than it did in the 1960s” (p. 377). Or, seen from a different angle, “A test score gap of a given size involves a greater cost today than was the case in the past” (Murnane & Levy, 2004, p. 402). The takeaway message here is quite clear; reducing test-score differentials is an important dimension of eliminating inequalities in earnings (Fryer & Levitt, 2004).

Costs to Society

The achievement gaps are so wide that they threaten the well-being of the state and its economy. (Gandara, Rumberger, Maxwell-Jolly, & Callahan, 2003, p. 3)

Thus, on economic grounds, anything that can be done to prevent school failure from occurring (or to remediate it quickly after the first signs appear) seems like a rational economic choice. (Ceci & Papierno, 2005, p. 150)

In addition to having a negative impact on individuals, the achievement gap also has profound implications for the larger society (Kober, 2001; Slavin & Madden, 2001). For example, analysts routinely demonstrate that “the magnitude and persistence of [achievement] disparities is rightly regarded as problematic both for our long-run economic competitiveness and the health of our democracy” (Braun, Wang, Jenkins, & Weinbaum, 2006, p. 7) and for social cohesiveness in the nation (Kober, 2001; Miller, 1995). In short, it “will help shape the f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• PART I. BACKGROUND
• PART II. GRINDING UP HOPE: EXPLAINING THE DEVELOPMENT AND PERSISTENCE OF ACHIEVEMENT GAPS
• PART III. OPENING THE DOORS OF POSSIBILITY: STRATEGIES FOR CLOSING ACHIEVEMENT GAPS
• References
• Index