“Reviewing your student achievement gap, I’m very concerned.”
Christine Johns-Haines, superintendent of Utica Community Schools in Michigan and candidate for superintendent in Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Quote of the Day: Outside educator sees big problems in Louisville’s schools
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6 comments:
"Quote of the Day: Outside educator sees big problems in Louisville’s schools"
I agree. As long as public schools remain a monopoly quality will be low and costs will be high. Vouchers, school choice, charter schools, evaluating teachers' performance by pre- and post-testing of their classes each year and tying their pay changes to student performance annually are all needed to enable KY to make significant progress.
Thanks for your comments, Ray. We agree.
Sir, Does Dr John-Haines, and do you, understand that the academic achievement gap cannot be narrowed without the high achievers progressing slower than the low achievers?
RE: John Little's Comment
Mathematically, you are obviously correct.
However, at present even the high achievers in this state are not moving very fast. Example: Our large college remediation rates continue with very little improvement.
Given the slow pace of the higher, college-bound achievers, the failure to close the gaps is a real problem.
Mr. Innes: So, those who want to narrow (or, omg, close) the gap, should be thankful for those high achievers who are progressing slowly?
From where I sit, we should forget the gap and seek responsibile learning (and teaching) of stated outcomes--outcomes developed for all levels of achievement. We should develop a serious approach to learning and demand a high level of productivity from everyone involved in the learning process, including students teacher and administrators.
RE: John Little on June 20, 2011 10:51 PM
Little writes:
"From where I sit, we should forget the gap and seek responsibile learning (and teaching) of stated outcomes--outcomes developed for all levels of achievement."
As soon as you started talking about setting standards for "all levels of achievement," you lost me.
Who decides which level of achievement is suitable for which students?
Don't you see that your approach opens the door for a child of color have a lower level of achievement expectation? Ditto for a child in poverty?
Right now, excuses from educators in our poorest performing schools tightly relate to this dangerous concept of multiple levels of performance. Those teachers excuse the gaps by saying that kids of color and kids in poverty cannot be expected to learn to the same level as other students.
The big problem for your ignore the gap theory is that we see examples from charter schools and better-led regular public schools serving high poverty populations (e.g. J.B. Atkinson in Louisville) that your multiple levels of expectation are wrong.
That theory just plays into the hands of the status quo crowd. Based on real world examples, we're too informed to buy it at the Bluegrass Institute.
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