The Achievement Gap - Myths and Reality

The Achievement Gap: Myths and Reality Author(s): Mano Singham Source: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol 84, No (Apr., 2003), pp 586-591 Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20440430 Accessed: 10/12/2013 13:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org Phi Delta Kappa International is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Phi Delta Kappan http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions T4 A The G Achievement Myths and Gap: Reality The repeatedattempts to explain and solve the vexing problem of the achievement gap have clearly been inadequate,Mr Singham points out Perhaps we have been focusing on thewrong factors entirely,he suggests BY MANO SINGHAM HE GAP BETWEEN the achievement of black students and thatof white students is one of themost infuriatingproblems afflicting education After all, it is clear that thereisnothing intrinsicabout "black ness or "whiteness"that can be the cause of the gap.'There areno genetic or other immutable traits that could conceivably be the cause of the gap.Thus the problem ismanifestly one that can and should be solved In addition, thisques tion has been studied extensively,and as a resultwe under stand a lot more about the causes of the gap now than we did a generation ago Why then has the problem not been solved? As Iwill ex plain below, part of the problem is that the topic is fraught with myths The difficulty with myths isnot that they are nec essarily false, but rather that they are beliefs whose truth or reality is accepted un critically It is relatively easy to debunk outright falsehoods Much harder to over come are those beliefs that have some element of truth in them but that are promoted with a single-mindeddeterminationthatcan undermineattemptsto systematically solve theproblem M'ANO SINGHAM is a theoretical physicist and associate director of the University Center for Inno vation in Teaching and Education, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland 586 PHI DELTAKAPPAN Illustrationbassedon photo: EveWire Ima1ges This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The persistenceandprevalenceof thesemyths can be seen if you attend any meeting or read any news papereditorialthatdealswith thecausesof theachieve ment gapbetweenblackstudentsandwhite students Youwill finda rangeof analyses(anda corresponding varietyof suggestedsolutions): biasedstandardized tests, teststhatdo notmatch the learningstylesof blackstu dents, lessmoney spenton educatingblackstudents, socioeconomicdifferences,lackofmotivation, nega tivepeerpressure,lackof familysupportforeducation, All of these teacherbiases,andmany otherpossibilities figureprominentlyin themenu of causes What iswrongwith all thesediagnoses?Inone sense, nothing.They allcontain(orat leastcontainedat some time in the past) some element of truth, and their ad ment gapmay be telling us that such a linear approach may not be thebest strategyfor thisparticularprob lem.In fact,Iwill tryto arguecounterintuitivelythat, while specificactionstargetedtoward minoritygroups may be requiredin specialsituations,a betterway to reduce or even eliminate the gap isnot to focus on the gap at all but to look elsewhere Itmight be productive,forexample,to lookat the importantrole thatmathematicseducationplays in the futuresuccessof students.Mathematicsperform ancehasbeen studiedextensivelyandprovidesuswith awealth of data One of themost interesting studies isbyCliffordAdelmanof theU.S Departmentof Ed ucation,who conducteda detailedanalysisof the fac tors that play a role in determining the rates of bach herentsmay be excusedforespousingthem.But none elor'sdegreecompletion.6 He useddatageneratedby of them,by themselves,can come close to explaining theHigh SchoolandBeyond longitudinalstudy, which thegap.Almost everyhypothesishas somedegreeof followedanationalsampleof 28,000 students who were validity;yet,when each one is carefullystudiedand high schoolsophomoresin 1980until1993 (whenthey solutionsbasedon it are implemented,it failsto solve had reached an age of roughly 30) to seewhat factors theproblem affectedcollegegraduationrates Adelman foundthat, Forexample,the testscoregap shrinks,but only by althoughthecollege-access whitesandblacks gapbetween a little,when blackchildrenandwhite childrenattend and Latinos has closed over the past two decades, the gap thesameschools.Also, theaverageblackchildand the in degreecompletion remains20% or higher.What white child live in schooldistrictsthatspend is interestingis thatsocioeconomicstatus (SES)pro average almostthesameamountperpupil.2 Black/whiteincome vides only a very modest contribution to this gap and mattersvery,very little thatrace/ethnicity differences are found to have only a small effect on test scores.3 So what doesmatter? What determines the degree Traditionalmeasuresof socioeconomicstatus (consistingof income,wealth, andparentaleducation) completion gap?Adelman found that a measure de accountforatmost one-thirdof thegap.4 finedas "academic resources" (madeup of a composite Some studies also suggest that the social costs and of high schoolcurriculum,testscores,and classrank) benefits of academic success are about the same for blacks as forwhites, thus casting doubt on the "nega tive peer pressure" theory,which asserts that, for a va has much greater power than SES in predicting col legedegreecompletion.For example,studentsin the lowesttwoSESquintiles,butwith thehighestacadem rietyof reasons,blackstudentcultureisaversetohigh Both blackstudentsandwhite academicachievement studentsdo littlehomeworkoutsideof school.Medi that the impact of high school curriculum is farmore an blacks and median whites between two and four pronouncedpositivelyfor black andLatino students hoursof homeworkperweek, andonly 14%ofwhites than any other measure and that this consistently over whelms such demographic variables as gender, race, and 10% of blacks 10 ormore hours per week Ra cial differences are also found to be negligible for skip Of course,such studiesdepend to some ping school.5 extenton self-reporting by studentsand arethusdiffi While thevalidity cult to carryoutwith high accuracy of thesestudiescanbe challengedon suchgrounds,it isclearthatnoneof thesepopularnotions areself-evi dently true With most complicatedproblems,theusual strat egy is to try to rank-ordertheproblemsand dealwith themone at a time.But thefailuretoclose theachieve ic resources, graduated at higher rates than themajor ityof studentsin thehighestSESquintile.He alsofound and SES In otherwords, improvingthehigh school curriculumhas a disproportionately positiveeffecton studentsfromgroupsthattraditionally underachieve Within thehigh schoolcurriculum,thehighestlevel ofmathematicsa studenthas studiedhas thestrongest effecton degreecompletion.Finishinga coursebeyond the levelofAlgebra2 (forexample,takingtrigonom etryor precalculus) more thandoublestheodds thata studentwho enterscollegewill completea bachelor's degree APRIL This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2003 587 Why mathematicsplayssuch a crucialrole is a lit tlepuzzling.After all,most peoplemanage to leadsuc cessfulandproductiveliveswithout having to under standthemysteriesof, say,thecosinefunction.Formost everydaypurposes,some facility with basicelementsof arithmeticandperhapssomeunderstandingof proba bility areall thatpeople need But thereare tangibleadvantagesof knowingmore mathematics.Itcanbe arguedthatsubjectsthatformer lywere substantiallyqualitative(biology,psychology, economics,government,geography)arenow takingon more quantitativeaspectsand thatlackof comfortwith abouttak mathematicscanmake studentsfeelinsecure ing thosesubjectsand thus underminetheirperform schoolsinPittsburgh This schoolsystemhas challeng ingdemographics:40,000 studentsattend97 public schools (59 elementary, 19middle, 1 high, and oth er); 56% of the students are black, and 44% arewhite or other;more than60% of studentsqualifyfor free or reduced-price Most significantly lunches forthepur poseof thisstudy,sincetheearly1990s,Pittsburghhas made a coherenteffort to implementstandards-based educationinmathematicsand other subjectareas Schoenfeld'sanalysisdistinguishedbetweenwhat were called"strongimplementation" teachersandoth er teachers The strongimplementationteachers were in those whose classroomsstudentswere familiar with activities andprocedures spe cificto the reformcurricu ance to an extent that is lum,visualaidsandmanip well out of proportion to cvult5 Thow that use ulatives were accessibleand theactualquantityofmath showedclearsignsof use, of the rcform curricula ematicsinvolved Forwhat studentshad frequentop everreason, mathematics has portunitiestowork togeth \ igni {ficintly narrrowcd becomeakey "gatekeeper" erandexplaintheir work to Mathematicsteach course one another,studentwork the gqp bctwccn white and ing and learning has also showedcurriculum-specif been the toughesteduca icprojectsandactivities, and mrinoritihc, whilc unde,rrcprc5ntE tionalproblem;thesubject no othercurriculum was evi has thelowestpass typically dent.The studycompared in1crCa5ngthe pcrformranceof both ratesinproficiencytests themathematicsperform Sincemathematicsclear anceof studentsinwhatwere groUP ii ,allcatcgoric5 ly plays an important role called "strongimplemen in the fiitnre success of stn tationschools"(schoolsin dents,what does it taketo reducetheachievementgap which all the teachers were consideredstrong imple inmathematicseducation? An answerto thatquestion menters)with thatof studentsin "weakimplementa might give us insightsintohow to addresstheoverall tion schools" (inwhich atmost only one or two teach achievementgap.Fortunatelyforus, themathematics erswere strong implementers) educationcommunityhas,within the lasttwodecades, The resultsshow thatuse of the reformcurricula made a determinedeffort to addresstheproblemsof significantly narrowedthegapbetweenwhites andun mathematicseducation derrepresented theperform minorities,while increasing In 1989, theNationalCouncil ofTeachersofMath ance of both groups in all categories On tests of so ematics issuedCurriculumand EvaluationStandards calledbasicskills,scoresforwhites increasedfrom48% adocumentinterweaving forSchoolMathematics, to 72% (a50% increase), while scoresforblacksrose tent (number,algebra,geometry,measurement,data from30% to75% (a150%increase) On problemsolv analysis,andprobability) with process(problemsolv ing,white scoresincreasedfrom18% to54% (a200% ing, reasoningand proof, connections,communica increase), while black scoresrosefrom4% to 32% (a tion,and representation) By themid-1990s, good cur 700% increase) On mathematicsconcepts,scoresfor riculareflectingthesestandards were availableforadop whites increased from 20% to 60% (a200% increase), tion Large-scale data are now beginning to come in that will allow us to analyze the results of such stan dards-basededucation A recentstudybyAlan Schoenfeldpoints to some significantfeatures.7 Schoenfeldanalyzeddata from 588 while scores for blacks increased from 4% to 40% (a 900% increase) Thus, while both groups improved, thescoresforminoritygroupsimproved bymuch larger amounts What these data suggest is that it ispossible to great PHIDELTA KAPPAN This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions schoolsindicatesthatit takesa seriousefforttoprovide ly reduce(andinsomeareaseliminate)thegap inmath measuresthat all-roundgood teaching.It takesabout10 yearsof sup ematicsachievementthrougheducational study, development(collaborative not directlytargettheachievementgap.The educa portandprofessional The re observation,knowledgeof curricula,and lessonrefine tionalremediesadoptedwere not race-specific ongoingdailyresponsibilities) ductions in thegapswere achievedby a generalfocus ment aspartof teachers' foreventalentedbeginningteacherstoacquirethechar on improvingtheeducationalachievementof all stu teachers:thatis, acteristics of "strongimplementation" dents,whatever theirethnicity,gender,or SES professionals (It is interest is to become accomplished both a effort at improvement broader That such necessaryanddesirablecan be seenby lookingat the ing thatthisparticularresultis replicatedin independ Prog ent studiesof college teachersaswell.') But such sus Assessmentof Educational NAEP (National latest to tainedinductionandprofessionaldevelopmentrarely are given NAEP tests mathematics ress)resultsfor New teachersareuncere of studentsatvariousgrade happeninour schoolsystems cross-sections representative and leftto fendfor levelsacrossthe countryand aregradedon a 0-500 moniouslydumpedintoclassrooms themselves.Is itanywonder thatsomany noviceteach white scale.Forgrade-12 studentsin2000, theaverage scorewas 308, and the averageblack scorewas 274.8 ersfail to developashoped forand even leaveteach A traditionalfocuson eliminatingthegapwould try ing? why good teachingre It isnot hard to understand to findways to raiseblack scoresto about308, thus eliminatingthe34-pointgap.But evenifwe succeeded, duces the gap.What happens in the classroom of the in of the teacher does and re both terms what Hardly wouldwe havesolvedtheunderlyingproblem? I suggestthat thegapwe shouldbe focusingon is lationshipthatiscreatedbetweenthe teacherand stu isextremelyimportant But a disturbinganal thedifferencebetweenwhere allstudentsarenow and dentysisbyKatiHaycock,CraigJerald,andSandraHuang wherewe believetheyshouldbe.TheNAEP scoresal lowus tomake thiscomparisonbecausebenchmark showsthat,ingeneral,blackstudentsreceiveadispro Comparedwith levelsare specified,enablingone tomake judgments portionateamountof poor teaching.10 blackeighth-graders aretwiceas The realityisquite white eighth-graders, aboutthe levelsreachedby students who place littleemphasison de likelytohave teachers depressing.For studentsin grade 12, a basic levelof achievementinmathematics(denotingpartialmastery veloping labskills,four timesas likelyto be assessed usinghands-onactivitiesonceor lesspergradingperi of knowledgeand skillsthatarefundamentalforpro who does od, twiceas likelytohave a scienceteacher ficientwork) requiresaminimum scoreof 288; apro skills, three of data-analysis development solidacademicperformance not emphasize ficientlevel(representing timesas likelyto engageinhands-onactivitieslessthan and competencyoverchallengingsubjectmatter) re who partici quiresa scoreof 336; an advancedlevel(representing twiceamonth, lesslikelytohavea teacher aminimum scoreof 367 pated in professionaldevelopmentthepreviousyear, requires superior performance) NAEP believesthatallstudentsshouldreachat least much less likely to have a certified teacherwho has theproficient-levelscoreof 336 But we see that the subjectcompetency,fourtimesas likelytohaverooms NAEP scoresof bothwhite studentsandblack with little or no access to running water or a labora average ma studentsarewell belowtheproficientlevel.In fact,only tory,andmuch lesslikelytohaveall thenecessary while only terials 20% ofwhites scoreaboveproficientlevels, Compoundingthisgap in teachingqualityis thefact 3%of blacksareaboveproficient.So even if,aftertre that the impactof teacherexpectationsis threetimes mendous effort,we were to raisetheaveragescoreof as great for blacks as forwhites and also larger for girls black12th-gradersto 308, both ethnicgroupswould stillhave80%of studentsbelowproficiency.Inother and for childrenfrom low-incomefamilies.Interest would be equal,but equally ingly,the ethnicityof the teacherhas littleeffecton words, theirperformance dismal.There is littlepoint in eliminatingthegap in studentperformance:81%of blackfemalesand62% thisway Itmay solvethepoliticalproblemof inequal of blackmaleswant to please the teachermore than theydo aparent;thecomparablefiguresforwhites are problemof stu ity,but itdoesnot solvetheeducational 28% forfemalesand32% formales.1"Inotherwords, dent underachievement What would it taketoachievethemoreworthwhile the impact of the teacher is fargreater forminority stu goalof havingallstudentsreachat leasttheproficiency dents.Since effectiveteachersproduceasmuch as six teach gainsproducedby less-effective levelof 336?The Schoenfeldanalysisof thePittsburgh timesthelearning APRIL2003 This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 589 ers,'2it shouldnot be surprisingthatgood teacherscan positiveeffectonminoritystu havesucha differentially dents matterswill strike The condusionthatgood teaching suchpassiveclassrooms A secondnecessarycomponentof effectiveteach ing is theacquisitionof certaingenericteachingskills that are conducive towhat is known as "active learn ing"by students:the ability to organizewell-struc classrooms,knowinghow turedcooperative-learning and inquiry-basedinstruc we reallythoughtso, then thecontinuousprofessional to implementhands-on developmentof teachers,especiallythosenew to the tion, knowingwhat it takesto createconditions for motivation profession,would head the listof alleducationreform enhancingintrinsicasopposedtoextrinsic ma in students,14 and theabilitytopreparechallenging efforts.What's more, itwouldn't be justanykind of Teach terialand toprovidesupportforstudentsuccess professionaldevelopmenteither anddefinitelynot workshop-style ers should learn how to increase "wait time" in ways thekindof scattershot,single-session, more thoughtfillyon ques programsthatpassforprofessionaldevelopmentin so thatenablestudentsto reflect tions It has been shown, for example, thatminority stu many schooldistricts morewhen dents in integratedclassroomsparticipate What needs to happen is for school systems to have thewait time is longer.This tacticimprovestheirper programof plannedprofessionaldevelop a sustained Teach of formance and alsochangesteacherperceptions a lasts over period that teacher new ment for each ersshouldalso learnthevalueof providingcorrective, about 10 years Such a sustained program should use our - a skillevenmore bestknowledgeofwhatmakes studentswant to learn neutralfeedbackto theirstudents who prac valuablethanextendingwait time.Teachers with thekindsofmen andshouldprovidenew teachers toring,training,and feedbackthatcan takethemfrom ticeprovidingsuchfeedbackare lessabletopredictstu which haspositiveeffectson who dents' laterachievements, promisingnew recruitsto theskilledpractitioners performance,especiallyforminority students can have a transforming effect of students This out The final component and one that is frequently come cannotbe achievedquicklyand cheaply is the need the teacher to havepeda for overlooked devel a What would such long-termprofessional gogicalcontentknowledgein thespecificsubjectsbeing opment program consist of? How People Learn, a re taught In any subject,studentsarrivewith precon cent publicationof theNational ResearchCouncil, ceived In this sur knowledgethatmay conflictwith what the in is on necessary."3 providesguidelines what structoris tryingto teach.This knowledge isoften so vey, a group of academics analyzed the research evi deeply buried in the student's mind that he or shemay dence fromcognitivescience,education,andbrainre searchand found a suggestiveconvergenceof ideas not even be awareof it, but thesediscipline-specific evidenceisquitedear learningobstaclesdrive learningnonetheless,and, if The research fromthethreefields teachers not take them into account, their best ef thatthreecomponentsgo intomaking effectiveteach fortscan be nullified ers:contentknowledge,genericteachingskills,andped For example,in teachingthe subjectof electricity, agogicalcontentknowledge many as so obvious as not to be worth stating And so it should be But we not act as if itwere obvious If It is easy to understand the benefits to a teacher of a teacher should be aware thatmost people believe im havinggood contentknowledge.It isextremelyhard plicitly and strongly that a battery provides the same for teachersto teachwith flexibilityand resourceful amount of current in all situations Iwas incredulous arehavingdifficultyunderstand when I first heard of this because no science textbook ness if theythemselves ingthecontent theyareteaching.Teachersdo not have ever teaches such a thing, and itwas inconceivable to me how anyonecould acquiresuchan erroneousbe to be content experts, but they need to have a suf lief Butmany yearsof teachingelectricityto teachers ficient levelof comfortwith thematerial Ihavecon developmentcoursesto re haveconvincedme thatthisbelief iswidespread.Now ductedenoughprofessional the chance that students will become engaged, begin to thus exposing explore new ideas,and so ask questions- that Ihave acquired a greater appreciation of how peo ple learn, it does not seem nearly so preposterous as it did a decade ago In the course of their everyday lives, people try tomake sense of phenomena and build (of ten unconsciously) mental models that satisfy them The idea that a battery produces a fixed amount of current the teacher'sown ignorance.Little learningoccurs in doeshavean empiricalbasis,and itmakes sensetopeo alize that, at least in themathematics and science areas, many teachersareunprepared,somewoefully so.Such teachers tend to take refuge in amode of teaching domi becausedoing so lessens natedby textbooksand lectures, 590 PHI DELTA KAPPAN This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ple If a teacher tries to teach electricity without hav ing his or her students examine the consequences of this hidden and erroneous belief, much of that teach ing will be wasted The same can be said about any subject, however esoteric No student isever a blank slate.They all come with preconceptions, and a teacher needs to learnwhat the specific preconceptions are for a particular topic and, instead of ignoring them, know how to use these preconceptionsto teachstudentsmore effectively The important point is that all these measures are good for all students The worst thing about much of the current discussion on how to eliminate the achieve ment gap is that it focuses on what should be done with minority students This has the effect of making it look as if it is aminority problem Such thinking has many unfortunate effects, apart from the fact that discussions of the topic invariably have jarringovertones of patronization and condescen sion toward theminority community First, many in themajoritycommunitydisengagefromthediscussion, feeling that it isnot their problem Second, the discus sion becomes divisive and is frequently framed as a competition for resources, with whatever is given to solve the "minority problem" being thatmuch taken away from teaching white children Third, seeing the achievement gap as aminority problem breeds the sus picion that attempts to narrow the gap involve trying to "dumb down" the curriculum so that equality is achieved by reaching some sort of lowest common de 1.Mano Gap ber in the Mine: "The Canary Singham, Between Black and White p 8; and 1998, sues?," Phi Delta "Race idem, and the Achievement Kappan, Septem What Are The Is 1995, and Meredith D.C.: Closing Phi Delta Intelligence: p 271 December Kappan, Christopher Jencks Score Gap (Washington Students," eds., The Black-White Phillips, Institution Press, 1998), Test p Brookings Ibid., p 23 Meredith et al., and Test Phillips the Black-White "Family Background, in Jencks Score Gap," Parenting and Phillips, Practices, pp 103 and Jens Ludwig, "The Burden of Acting White': in Jencks Academic Achievement?," Disparage Do 45 Philip J Cook Black Adolescents Phillips, Clifford dance U.S and pp 375-400 and Bachelors H in the Toolbox: Academic Degree of Education, Department Alan Answers Adelman, Patterns, 1999) Mathematics Schoenfeld, "Making and Equity," Testing, 13-25 pp Issues of Standards, 2002, The Nations 2000 Report Card: Mathematics for Educational Statistics, NCES Robert Bacon, theNew Advice for Boice, for All Children: Work Educational ary/February tional Center Intensity, Atten D.C.: (Washington, Attainment Researcher, (Washington, 2001-517, Faculty Member : Na D.C 2001) August (Boston: Janu Allyn and 2000) 10 Kati Haycock, in a Decade Craig Done and Sandra Jerald, (Washington, D.C: the Gap: Huang, Closing K Education Trust, Thinking 16, Spring 2001) 11 Ronald Gap," F Ferguson, "Teachers' Expectations and Phillips, pp 273-317 and the Test Score in Jencks 12 Haycock, 13 How ton, D.C: Jerald, People National 14 Alfie Kohn, op cit and Huang, Learn: Brain, Mind, Academy Punished Experience Press, by Rewards and School (Washing 1999) (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993).IC nominator.Finally,thewhole en terprise of focusing on the gap as a minority problem tends to ignore the serious matter of the educa tionalunderachievement of many white studentsaswell We need to create an awareness that the achievement gap is a symp tom of more widespread educa tional problems We should not treat it as a black problem, with white levels of achievement as the norm Ifmathematicsperformance is any indication, the overall per formance of both groups leaves much to be desired We need to re alize that implementingremedies that aregood for all can be even bet ter for those who are currently fallingbehind "I'mall forcontinuing education Ijustwish Dexter hadn't taken up pot tery." APRIL 2003 This content downloaded from 98.176.112.184 on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:08:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 591 ... T4 A The G Achievement Myths and Gap: Reality The repeatedattempts to explain and solve the vexing problem of the achievement gap have clearly been inadequate,Mr... that thereisnothing intrinsicabout "black ness or "whiteness"that can be the cause of the gap. 'There areno genetic or other immutable traits that could conceivably be the cause of the gap. Thus the. .. eliminatingthe34-pointgap.But evenifwe succeeded, duces the gap. What happens in the classroom of the in of the teacher does and re both terms what Hardly wouldwe havesolvedtheunderlyingproblem? I suggestthat thegapwe