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AEP Online |
Recent Studies Show Slow Progress in Closing Achievement GapsThree reports issued last week are reporting little progress toward closing test score gaps between minority and white students that have persisted since standardized testing began. The New York Times reports that despite the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and concerted efforts by educators, the test score gaps are so large that on average African-American and Hispanic students in high school can read and do arithmetic at only the average level of whites in junior high school. "The achievement gap is alive and well," G. Gage Kingsbury, author of a report issued by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), told the Times. The NWEA study found minority students' progress grew less than European-Americans in every grade level and all subjects and that students from poor schools grew less than those from wealthier ones. According to the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's review of state exams, none of the 50 states have made widespread progress in narrowing the gaps, and eight states had made "moderate gains." "Poor and minority students are doing very poorly and in most states are not making significant gains - and this in spite of NCLB and all the other reforms of the last 15 years," Fordham Foundation President Chester E. Finn, Jr., told the Times. Finally, a report issued by Standard & Poor's has found that while individual schools in some states have made progress in narrowing the gaps, overall the results are not positive. Sifting test data from 18 states, Standard & Poor's found 718 schools out of 16,000 had made significant progress toward the national goal set forth by NCLB.
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"School
Slow in Closing Gaps Between Races"
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