Achievement Gaps
Editor’s Note
Articles on this page examine ways that educators are addressing well-known, persistent achievement gaps between subgroups of students in the U.S. by race, ethnicity and socio-economic status. Included in this topic are articles about research into the underlying causes of achievement gaps and ways that differences in background and culture can affect student performance in school.
Schools grapple with a growing population of poor children
By Jon Marcus
David Kopperud was acting principal at a West Sacramento, Calif., elementary school when one of his first-graders stopped showing up. The child was so chronically absent that Kopperud went to see the child’s mother. What he learned has stayed with him since.Continue
A Matter of One Goal or Two?
By Greg Esposito
The Common Core State Standards released this month are meant to make all students “college or career ready” by the end of high school. But as they try to determine the best way to prepare students to meet this goal, policy makers and researchers are struggling with the question of overlap: Just how similar are the skills needed to succeed in college and the skills needed to succeed in a career that does not require a college degree? And can the two sets of skills be taught together?
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Passion, frustration, mid-course corrections mark rapid reforms
By Laura Pappano
Last fall, when I set out to write a journalistic book about schools going from bad to great (and fast), the plan was to report on what was working in school turnaround. But it quickly became obvious that such information did not exist in definitive form. Instead, I stepped into a process that—while energetic and intense—is still being figured out.
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Related Articles
Teachers and administrators are becoming researchers as they work to narrow the black/white achievement gap in schools
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A Harvard professor connects research on race and schooling to his experiences as a student and father
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Segregation or Salvation?
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How to Close the Gap
By Reino Makkonen
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What educators and researchers are learning from high-achieving African American and Latino students
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Concerns about early achievement gaps prompt programs that link prekindergarten with elementary school
By Sue Miller Wiltz
An interview with Catherine Snow on vocabulary, comprehension, and the achievement gap
By Darcia Harris Bowman
Prekindergarten—not just preschool—may be the key to narrowing disparities in achievement by race, ethnicity, and income
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An interview with Ronald Ferguson on how lifestyle factors and classroom culture affect black-white differences
By Nancy Walser