Closing the Achievement Gap with Data and a Personal Connection

October 5th, 2009

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What does a successful student look like? Does race or ethnicity play a part?

Researchers asked a group of African-American students these questions, among others. The researcher/school counselor surveyed one school’s data, selected 45 African-American students who had never taken the Georgia High School Graduation Test, and asked for volunteers from the group to participate in a program to help the students pass the test.

Of the self-selected group, all of them passed the high-stakes test and several exceeded the mark for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The school’s pass rate among this group of students rose from just 38.7 percent passing in 2006-2007 to 63.2 percent passing. That’s pretty close to the white students’ pass rate of 70.5 percent for that school.

In other words, the school counselor helped close the achievement gap.

The school counselor pulled these students out of class for group sessions once a week for eight weeks. The article includes all the session topics and questions the students and counselor discussed. They talked about how they define school success, test-taking strategies, and their perceptions of the school culture and climate.

For classroom teachers, the big take-away is in the study participants’ feedback. “Students seemed most pleased with their interactions with their school counselor and least satisfied with administrator and teacher fairness toward African-American students,” the article’s authors wrote. “Further, students were not pleased the teachers’ expectations of African-American students.”

The African-American perceived that the administrators and teachers treated them unfairly and had different expectations for them than the other students.

Ouch. In other words, bridging the achievement gap can be a matter of school and classroom climate.

It’s a good set of questions for the classroom teacher: what am I doing to make sure that my students understand that the profile of a successful student doesn’t include race or ethnicity? What can I do to make sure that the expectations are high for everyone? How can I pass on behaviors that are important for school success?

REFERENCE:

Bruce, A., Getch, Y, & Ziomek-Daigle J. (2009). Closing the Gap: A Group Counseling Approach to Improve Test Performance of African-American Students. Professional School Counseling,450-457.

Tags: achievement gap

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