What Doesn't Meet the EyeIntroductionOn January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Among other important features, this legislation dictates that states should publish achievement results separately for racial and ethnic groups and work to alleviate intergroup disparities. Thus, for the first time in the nation's history, raising achievement levels among racial and ethnic minorities and closing achievement gaps are explicit goals of federal policy.1 Improving the quality of inner-city schools will be an important aspect of pursuing these goals, but it will not be sufficient.2 Suburbs must respond as well. The U.S. Census for the year 2000 reports that 33 percent of the nation's African-American children, 45 percent of Hispanic children, 54 percent of Asian children, and 55 percent of white children live in suburban communities.3 Some attend poor, segregated schools, similar to the poorest in the inner city; others attend racially integrated schools in well-off communities, where resources are relatively abundant and schools are reputedly excellent. This paper concerns racial and ethnic achievement disparities in places where schools are reputedly excellent.4 Until recently, large achievement gaps in these districts were seldom discussed in public. (Although all racial groups were represented in all parts of the achievement distribution, blacks and Hispanics were underrepresented at the top and overrepresented at the bottom.) Schools took pride, as they still do, in the numbers of graduates scoring high on college entrance exams and matriculating to prestigious universities. Public officials, parents, and teachers alike considered the latter achievements to be proof-positive that the quality of education was high. Not surprisingly, the idea that schools and teachers should be searching relentlessly for ways to raise achievement—with special attention to African-American, Hispanic, and low-income students—was seldom a focus. Fortunately, this pattern of apparent neglect and denial is beginning to change. In 1999, 15 middle- and upper-middle-income districts in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, California, and Virginia formed the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN). Together, they acknowledged the racial and ethnic achievement disparities in their primary and secondary schools. They resolved jointly to seek ways of narrowing gaps between European-American and Asian-American students, on the one hand, versus Hispanic and African-American students, on the other. Among their first joint initiatives was an effort to understand better what students of different racial and ethnic groups were experiencing in school that might affect their engagement and achievement. During the 2000-01 school year, 95 schools across all 15 districts surveyed middle and high school students using a survey titled the "Ed-Excel Assessment of Secondary School Student Culture."5 The present paper reports some of what was learned from the responses of students in Grades 7-11 and discusses some implications.6 For these grades, the sample includes 7,120 blacks, 17,562 whites, 2,491 Hispanics, 2,448 Asians, and 4,507 mixed-race students.7 The analysis and associated tables in the paper pertain to this full sample of 7th to 11th graders.8 Questions in the Ed-Excel survey cover family characteristics, opinions about the quality of instruction, enjoyment of studies, achievement motivations, course-taking patterns, effort, comprehension, grade-point averages, and more. It is well known that survey data can have self-reporting biases. Further, it is virtually impossible—with data collected at one point in time and with only one observation per student—to distinguish causal relationships among variables from mere correlations. Nonetheless, the data indicate strongly that there are common forces at work across the various states and localities represented. The high degree of similarity among districts underscores the strength and consistency of historically rooted social and economic forces that today produce such similar patterns in so many different places. (Due to space limitations, the tables and discussion in this paper address aggregates, pooled for all 15 districts. However, district-by-district tabulations that show the similarity among districts are available on the MSAN Web site at http://www.msanetwork.org/pub/edexcel.pdf.) (Adobe® Reader® PDF)
The paper begins with a brief preview of key patterns. Then, the main body of the paper presents the survey findings in greater detail. Sections near the end of the paper discuss implications for schools, communities, and policymakers. There, I emphasize the importance of professional development programs that have a combined emphasis on content, pedagogy, and relationships. Findings concerning encouragement focus attention on the possibility that effective teacher-student relationships may be especially important resources for motivating black and Hispanic students. I argue that when teachers have strong content knowledge and are willing to adapt their pedagogies to meet student needs, adding good teacher-student relationships and strong encouragement to the mix may be key. Such relationships and encouragement may help black and Hispanic students seek help more readily, engage their studies deeply, and ultimately overcome skill gaps that are due in substantial measure to past and present disparities in family-background advantages and associated social inequities. |
