Closing the Achievement Gap - Washington State School Directors ...

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help achieve the school’s goals and meet the needs of its students andfamilies. A description of each type of involvement follows:Type 1 – Parenting: Assist families with parenting and child-rearing skills,understanding child and adolescent development, and setting home conditionsthat support children as students at each age and grade level. Assistschools in understanding families.Type 2 – Communicating: Inform families about school programs andstudent progress through effective school-to-home and home-to-schoolcommunications.Type 3 – Volunteering: Improve recruitment, training, work, and schedulesto involve families as volunteers and audiences at the school or inother locations to support students and school programs.Type 4 – Learning at Home: Involve families with their children in learningactivities at home, including homework and other curriculum-linkedactivities and decisions.Type 5 – Decision Making: Include families as participants in schooldecisions, governance, and advocacy through PTA/PTO, school councils,committees, and other parent organizations.Type 6 – Collaborating With the Community: Coordinate resources andservices for families, students, and the school with businesses, agencies,and other groups, and provide services to the community.The overall purpose of Seattle’s Family Partnerships is to improve studentachievement. Parent and community involvement is the means, not theend. The purpose of addressing parenting skills is to help families navigatethe school system and achieve family literacy, not trying to change culturalor family practices.A key is establishing systems that support parents, as well as students, andto empower parents to support children’s learning. Relationship building isthe first step to building trust so that parents can identify the services theyneed and the district can better meet their needs. One prospect is to colocateservices in the schools. Another strategy is to sort school enrollmentby home language and then use all means of making contact, includingholding meetings where the families are, not necessarily at school. The ideais to create cross-cultural competence for school personnel and for families.Assessment and AccountabilityAssessment and accountability are critical to closing the achievementgap. Assessments are the tools used to hold schools and districtsaccountable for student achievement. The state assessments(WASL and ITBS/ITED) are only one component, however, of an overallassessment system. Schools that are implementing successful reforms havecomprehensive assessment systems for evaluating student achievement atWASHINGTON STATE SCHOOL DIRECTORS’ ASSOCIATION41
the classroom, grade level, school and district levels, including use of datato inform and individualize instruction, provide feedback to learners andmake program and resource decisions. The use of Level Tests to measureannual rate of growth in reading and mathematics are currently used byseveral districts in Washington state.The state of Tennessee’s assessment and assessment information managementsystem provides for linking teachers to achievement of students intheir classroom and for measuring gains students make during the schoolyear. According to researchers at the University of Tennessee’s Value-AddedResearch and Assessment Center, “if equity is defined as the opportunityand realization of each student to make appropriate academic growth eachyear, then expectations for educators and students can be set in terms ofacademic growth rates” (Rivers and Sanders, 2000). More important,research has demonstrated that growth rates are primarily a function ofschools and teachers. Therefore, assessment systems should allow districtsto evaluate and monitor the variability among schools and teachers and usethese data to address the variability in teacher effectiveness and also toavoid assigning students to multiple ineffective teachers.With the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001(www.nochildleftbehind.gov) increased flexibility will be accompanied bymuch greater accountability. States, districts and schools will be held accountablefor the improvement in academic achievement of all studentsand for all students achieving proficient standards in core subject areas.Starting in 2002-3, states will be required to annually assess the Englishproficiency of English language learners. All students in grades 3-8 will betested annually in math and reading/language arts and at least once ingrades 10-12 beginning in 2005-6. Results of these indicators will be theprimary indicator of whether schools and districts are making adequateyearly progress. By 2007-8, students will be tested in science at prescribedgrade levels.In addition to these testing requirements, the NCLB act will require schooldistricts receiving Title I funding to issue a report card including:Achievement results in math and readingAchievement results separated by race/ethnicity, disability, socioeconomiclevel, gender, migrant status, and English language learnerGraduation ratesNumber and names of schools identified as needing improvementbecause of insufficient annual yearly progressTeacher qualificationsWSSDA’s Hot Topics issue of July 2002 provides a comprehensive summaryof the requirements for districts under the new No Child Left Behind Act(wssda.org, under “Hot Topics”).42CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP: A POLICY ACTION GUIDE
Page 4: Table of ContentsForeword .........
Page 7 and 8: My thanks to the members of the Ach
Page 9 and 10: Assess the achievement gap problem.
Page 12 and 13: Overview of the PolicyAction GuideT
Page 14 and 15: Understanding theAchievement GapWSS
Page 16 and 17: Data also show a clear pattern of a
Page 18 and 19: cient (LEP) students were dispropor
Page 20 and 21: All Students Can Learn:Evidence Tha
Page 22: The two building graphs are from Wa
Page 25 and 26: Allocation and Alignment of Fiscal
Page 27 and 28: What School Districts Are DoingIn t
Page 29 and 30: The No Child Left Behind Act (www.n
Page 31 and 32: What School Districts Are DoingThe
Page 33 and 34: Questions to Guide the Discussion1.
Page 35 and 36: economically disadvantaged families
Page 37 and 38: “We need to look inside ourdistri
Page 39 and 40: 5. To what degree have new ways to
Page 41 and 42: “Closing the achievementgap requi
Page 43 and 44: “Where there are differentlevels
Page 45 and 46: What School Districts Are DoingKenn
Page 47: 5. To what degree are parents and c
Page 51 and 52: technology and professional develop
Page 53 and 54: tion, learning environments, progra
Page 55 and 56: Statewide 6th Grade ITBS Results: 2
Page 57 and 58: Train teachers to meet the demands
Page 60 and 61: ReferencesBrumbaugh, S. (1997). “
Page 62: Waymack N. & Drury, D. (Summer/Fall
Page 65 and 66: Gary Wilson Principal and Linda Hah
Page 67: Notes

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