Viewpoints Vol. 9

Bridging the Great Divide:
Broadening Perspectives on Closing the Achievement Gaps

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Overview

• Introduction


• Essay: Identifying and Eliminating the Achievement Gaps: A Research-Based Approach
  by Ginger M. Reynolds, Ph.D.
  An overview of the achievement gaps and in-school and out-of-school factors that contribute to the gaps.


• Programs With Promise
  Examples of programs that are successfully addressing achievement gaps.


• NCREL Tools and Resources for Closing Achievement Gaps
  NCREL-developed tools that address various aspects of the achievement gaps.


• References


• CD Contents

Audio CDs: A Guide to Contents

The CDs provide various perspectives on the issue of closing the achievement gaps.

CD 1 - INTERVIEWS (in order of appearance)

1. Meredith Phillips, Ph.D., is coauthor of The Black-White Achievement Gap. She teaches public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles. Her work focuses on what is known, and more importantly, what is not known, about the causes of and the solutions to achievement gaps.


2. Susan Sclafani, Ph.D., is counselor to U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. She began teaching 30 years ago as one of the first white teachers in an inner-city Houston school. She has seen the revolution in education in Texas and has gone to Washington, D.C. to promote a similar revolution.


3. Joseph Johnson, Ph.D., is special assistant to the superintendent of public instruction, Ohio Department of Education. He has studied districts in Texas that have made exceptional progress in closing the gaps and today leads Ohio's effort to do the same.


4. Martin Johnson, Ed.D., is professor of mathematics education and associate dean for urban and minority education, School of Education, University of Maryland. He began his career teaching in a segregated school in South Carolina. Today he heads the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education, an organization working to bring exceptional teaching to disadvantaged school districts in Maryland.


5. Pedro Noguera, Ph.D., is professor, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. He is interested in the cultural differences that make it difficult for schools to effectively work with children of color.


6. C. J. Prentice is an Ohio state senator and former teacher. She began her career teaching in one of Ohio's most advantaged school districts and now aims to give disadvantaged children the same effective resources.

CD 2 - INTERVIEWS (in order of appearance)

1. Claire Smrekar, Ph.D., is associate professor of public policy and education, Vanderbilt University. She led an extensive study of the Department of Defense's school system, perhaps the most effective U.S. district in educating students of color. The achievement gaps in these schools are well below those found in other school districts.


2. Michael Feinberg is cofounder of KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Academies, which are considered models of effective teaching and learning for disadvantaged students.


3. Dennis Preston, Ph.D., is professor of linguistics, Michigan State University. As a sociolinguist, he is interested especially in dialects and in social attitudes toward nonstandard speech. He believes that the speech of the home and street is unnecessarily denigrated in the United States, making education more difficult for speakers of these nonstandard forms.


4. Arie van der Ploeg is senior program associate, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL). He provides conceptual leadership in designing data tools for schools and building capacity for data-driven decision-making and school improvement. He designed a nationwide database on student assessment practices now maintained by the Council of Chief State School Officers, and has served as NCREL's lead analyst for work on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).


5. John Diamond, Ph.D., is research assistant professor, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, and researcher at the Minority Student Achievement Network. He studies student, teacher, and parent attitudes and data about minority achievement in some of the country's most advantaged schools.


6. Edmund Gordon, Ed.D., is professor emeritus of psychology and education, Columbia University Teachers College. He is one of the leading experts on minority achievement. Currently, he is writing about the career development of black men, especially those who educated themselves outside of formal school settings.


7. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Ph.D., is the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation, an organization that helps schools develop curricula that deliver the same knowledge to disadvantaged students as that given to advantaged students. As one of the country's most influential educational thinkers, he believes that education can and must help all children develop their minds.


8. Donna Lynn Ross is a teacher at Alcott Elementary School, an inner-city school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She works to expand the minds of her students and believes all of them can succeed. Through the Great Expectations Foundation, she has learned how to create a caring and challenging classroom.