Closing In On Closing the Black/White Educational Achievement Gap (Alan Bonsteel)
The Holy Grail of public education has always been to close the minority/white educational achievement gap. For a while, that seemed to be happening; especially after the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, black Americans’ standardized test scores improved significantly compared with those of whites. However, between 1988 and 1994, black reading scores fell dramatically, a decline that mirrored the greatest deterioration in the quality of America’s public schools, and since that time those scores have remained flat-line.
The early 1990s saw the birth of publicly-funded schools of choice, including both private schools supported by government scholarships, and charter schools, which are community-run public schools of choice. Despite the lower per-student spending in these schools of choice, and despite accepting less-prepared and largely ethnic minority students whose families were the first to flee public schools, these schools have shown significant improvements in test scores and dramatic decreases in dropout rates.
At first, defenders of the public school establishment disputed the data. As that data has become more and more convincing, the ranks of the defenders of the status quo have thinned.
Among the last and most influential defenders of the public schools has been the New York Times, which only last summer published its first article acknowledging the success of school choice in improving the lives of minority families. However, on Sunday, November 27, in a powerful and lengthy lead article in its Sunday magazine, even the New York Times signaled that it had come over to the side of the reformers.
This astounding article acknowledged the success of many charter schools in closing the black/white achievement gap, and singled out the KIPP (“Knowledge is Power Program”) charter schools as having the best shot at closing that achievement gap. These schools, which enroll largely minority kids, were nurtured in 1999 by a grant from California’s own Donald Fisher, the founder of Gap stores, and more recently by Bill Gates. They offer long hours, discipline, and the kind of community and sense of belonging that keeps kids in school.
As amazing as this turnaround by the Times was, more earthshaking still was its condemnation of the status quo, in which it observed: “The evidence is now overwhelming that if you take an average low-income child and put him into an average American public school, he will almost certainly come out poorly educated.” (Italics added.)
The Times offered an opportunity for rebuttal to its own former educational columnist, Richard Rothstein, considered by many the most eloquent defender of the nation’s public schools.
Rothstein complained that the success of the KIPP schools may not be reproducible, a surprising observation about an educational system that now numbers 52 schools. He notably failed to offer any roadmap for the public school system to close the black/white gap—no plan, no vision, no hope—and in fact explicitly argued that the problems of poor minority kids are simply too great to be overcome by any school, no matter how effective.
The intellectual debate about school choice is now over. The only defenders of the public school monopoly still standing are those who financially benefit from keeping the current broken system on a respirator.
Securing a decent education for the child of the single minority mom who empties the wastebasket at night is the unfinished mission of Abraham Lincoln. The passage of school choice laws throughout the land will bring us the racial equality and integration embodied by Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream,” and bring us together.
Alan Bonsteel, M.D. is president of California Parents for Educational Choice.
Comments
Join the conversation
I am so inspired by this post! I am currently part of the Teach for America program, which sends outstanding college graduates to teach in low-income, inner city or rural schools to aid in closing the achievement gap. In fact, the KIPP schools were founded by two Teach for America alumni.
In this program, we too are focusing on closing the achievement gap, and as optimistic as I am, I have come to realize these past few months just how difficult a process this will be. I am currently a high school teacher in Las Vegas and after only teaching a few short months, I have already run into problems galore. These high school students are so far behind in their reading and math skills, that to teach them science seems like a near impossibility! There are some days when I have returned home completely exhausted and discouraged after working with students who either do not speak English or who can not add integers. I often wonder if public education is, in fact, the best route for these kids.
Then there is the whole motivation conundrum. There are many students in my classes who are just not motivated to achieve whatsoever. I feel that sometimes, these kids suck the energy right out of me. This disheartens me in realizing that the students who do want to learn but are just a few steps behind do not get my full attentions because these other students are stealing it away. I have often found myself in a catch 22 in not knowing whether to ignore these students who could care less about education and focus on the students who actually want to achieve, or to try to get these unmotivated students to care. It is so difficult to walk into a classroom that is so far below grade level and have to raise them up to the current grade level, and it makes it that much more difficult when not all of the students want to be there in the first place.
Add to this the fact that the state has “strongly encouraged” the use of a common textbook across all schools in the valley which is leaps and bounds above the reading level of my students. I, as well as my students, only become more discouraged when we try to complete the activities in the book. It takes the entire class period just to get through the instructions! I realize that many schools in more affluent areas may soar through this book, but these kids need to be brought up to speed before taking on something of this caliber.
I feel that my school in particular is at even more of a disadvantage because it is a magnet school, which draws strong math and science kids to apply. I am teaching the “neighborhood kids” who are definitely not up to that level. Because there is this stark separation, the school often focuses on the wellbeing of the magnet kids, while leaving behind the “neighborhood kids.” This just exacerbates the achievement gap dilemma even more!
And one more drawback for these students is the lack of technology available to them. If these kids could have access to the technology given to their more affluent counterparts, they may have a much easier time catching up. But as it stands right now, there is just not enough money to allow that to happen.
I often have thought that when I leave the Teach for America program, I would like to work at a school similar to the KIPP schools. I would love to work in a school where the school is focused solely on the achievement of underprivileged children. And I believe that a benefit of these schools lies in their belief in their students’ abilities to achieve, which, in turn, raises the confidence of the students and motivates them to have the desire to WANT to succeed in the educational setting.