Dive Brief:
- A new ranking, the Education Equality Index, was released this week by the school reform organizations Education Cities and GreatSchools, with funding from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
- The EEI examines "equality of opportunity" in U.S. schools across the 100 largest cities in 35 states, finding that in major cities, between 2011 and 2014, the achievement gap between low-income students and middle and upper class students remained the same or grew.
- At the same time, the accompanying report shows progress: 90% of major cities have schools that are closing such gaps.
Dive Insight:
The pervasive problem of achievement gaps in U.S. schools needs to be examined holistically. Gaps not only exist between schools, but also in specific subject areas. Take science, for example: A recent longitudinal study by researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the University of California found the gap in science performance for black and white middle schoolers begins with disparities in early childhood education. Reasons cited for the gap are related to class and poverty, and affect student learning in math, reading, and other subjects, too.
In 2013, the ACT was reportedly taken by the most diverse group of students in its history, but the results of the test further underscore the problem of educational inquity in American classrooms. Only 11% of black students scored "college ready" as compared to 49% of white students, and the 2014 ACT English section showed an achievement gap of 76% of white students and 34% of black students hitting targets.
And two other recent studies released in October 2015 found that differences in how students of different races or economic backgrounds perform within the same school could contribute more to the achievement gap than actual differences between schools.
As for possible solutions for districts? George Bohrnstedt, an American Institutes for Research fellow who co-authored the NAEP study, told Education Week that change needs to start inside individual schools, by "...making sure the students who have been having the biggest problems in performance have the best teachers, or that extra professional development is available to those teachers who are working with the kids who are struggling the most—as opposed to simply moving resources between schools.”