Today, one of the most important challenges being faced by education is how to overcome the achievement gap. The achievement gap, prevalent in both private and public sectors school is an issue that has been raising concern amongst educators over the last decade.
The achievement gap is nothing but the disparity in the academic performance of one group of students in comparison to another group. The achievement gap in the United States invariably refers to the low academic achievement of low-income black, Hispanics and children of color as compared to the upper or middle class white students.
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was implemented in order to bridge this achievement gap between the classes and the races. This act introduced standards based educational reforms that strove to improve individual student performance and cumulatively overall academic achievement thereby ensuring that the schools funded by this act made the desired Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
The NCLB was thus established on the belief that the responsibility of low level of achievement by the low-income minority students was that of the teachers and administrators. While this is partially true, we cannot ignore the pernicious effects of poverty and social policies that affect student achievement.
David Berliner, in his article Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and Schools Success seeks to understand the effects of socio-cultural, psychological and other such variables that have a significant effect on the achievement gap. He tries to explore how coming from a low-income background contributes to diminished academic success and how these ‘out-of-school factors’ (OSF) influence students’ academic performance.
Berliner states that the ‘effects of OSFs on impoverished youth merit close attention for three reasons.’ First, evidence suggests that family and community have an impact on student behavior and academic ability. Second, research proves that poverty and academic proficient are interrelated thereby indicating that schools work better for students coming from high-income backgrounds than for those coming from low-income, high needs backgrounds. Lastly, the NCLB has shifted focus to an output oriented assessment of performance rather than focusing on the inputs that impact those very outputs.
Berliner suggests seven OSF’s that he believes have a profound influence on students. He deems it necessary to address these factors in order to narrow the achievement gap that exists. These factors include low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children; inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance; food insecurity; environmental pollutants; family relations and family stress; neighborhood characteristics and extended learning opportunities.
He states that these factors can cause physical, sociological and psychological problems that can lead to neurological damage, attention related issues, absenteeism, poor linguistic development and oppositional behavior among many others.
David Whitman, in Sweating the Small Stuff highlights how nearly half of all black and Hispanic children attend school that are failing. He believes that these schools are ‘dropout factories’ and must be at the epicenter of school reforms. He deems that factors contributing to this widening gap include discrimination, quality of education received prior to high school, socio-economic level, stability of home life, healthcare, lack of intervention to remediate low performance to maintain academic achievement on part with their white classmates.
Whitman states that education reforms must address intricacies of the education system, acknowledge the correlation between the economic and social structures and schools and seek to address the detrimental effects it has on student achievement. He makes his case stronger by citing examples of charter schools, located amid large, urban, high-poverty areas that have ratchet up student achievement and have not only narrowed the achievement gap but in some cases like Amistad school, eliminated it and attributes this success to their embrace of ‘The New Paternalism’.
Paternalistic schools are highly rigid, dogmatic institutions that teach students not just how to think but also how to act. They go beyond teaching values as an abstract concept- they have clear behavior expectations from students that is monitored and coupled with rewards and punishments. While they are inflexible they also ensure that teachers and principals are warm who many times act in place of parents and are not only authoritative but also caring.
Some of the features of paternalistic schools include rigorous, college-prep curriculum; regular and monitored assessments, no social promotion, uniform behavior expectation from all students, extended school day/year, monitor and enforce attendance, strong culture of achievement, parent accountability, stringent hiring policies, highly motivated and invested staff, value education seeking at building character, inculcating the importance of self-discipline in achieving academic standards among others.
Both David Berliner and David Whitman acknowledge the disparity in academic achievement among different classes and races and strongly emphasize the importance of not only bridging the achievement gap but eliminating it. However, while Berliner deems out-of-school factors to be a primary reason that affect student achievement, Whitman argues that these issues can be addressed with education reforms within the school thereby ensuring that culture is not a hindering factor to student achievement.
Berliner focuses on the impact OSF’s have on students’ academic abilities. He explains how low birth weight leads to cognitive and behavioral problems. In addition to this he identifies how acute medical conditions, if not addressed; lac of medical care and insurance; lack of dental care and vision care hinders students from fully participating in schools. Impoverished communities face the problem of under-nutrition which decreases attention and cognitive functions. This coupled with early development problems have permanent impact on the child. He states examples that link pollutants, often a major issue in poorer communities, to decrease in school attendance and increased illness. He explores how stress influences relationships and increases incidents of abuse and violence, depression and dysfunctional families that create mental illness, depression and defiant behavior tendencies in children. He also expresses concerns of instable communities and community violence, rampant in low-income neighborhoods that isolate and limit language acquisition in students. issues of neighborhood violence isolating students and limiting language acquisition. While he recognizes these as hindrances to academic achievement, he also enumerates the positive impact extended learning opportunities like summer programs, preschool programs and after-school programs offer opportunities for learning outside the school and contribute to bridging the gap.