Achievement Gap Bibliography

By Shirley Issel

Having sought to identify and study the best research based thinking on the causes of the Achievement Gap, I have assembled a small library of what I consider to be key articles, books, papers, organizations and web sites on this important issue within our community.

Discussion: During the past two years that I have served on the BUSD School Board, I have attempted to understand the nature of the Achievement Gap that exists in between Asian and Caucasian students and Blacks, Hispanics, both in Berkeley and the rest of the country. I have also sought to identify and study the best research based thinking on the causes of the Achievement Gap. Finally, I have tried to synthesize this material into some preliminary policy questions and recommendations for BUSD.

As part of this effort I have assembled a small library of what I consider to be key articles, books, papers, organizations and web sites on the subject. I have also collected local materials that reflect our achievement data, programs, partnerships and initiatives that are specifically designed to increase student achievement while closing gaps, e.g., Early Literacy Plan, Prenatal to Pre-School, Alliance. Finally, I have created an annotated Bibliography, with web links of the materials available in this Library. I have tried to limit this Bibliography to findings and recommendations that are widely agreed to reflect the best research, analysis, policies and practices in the country today.

The library is located in the BUSD Instructional Services Conference Room (East Wall). There you will find a "Copy Binder" with master copies (and extras) of the articles mentioned below. You will also find a lending library of books and other materials referenced below. Jennifer Vital, Program Coordinator for Chris Lim (644-6268) has kindly agreed to check materials in and out.

ACHIEVEMENT GAP BIBLIOGRAPHY

THINK TANKS AND INSTITUTES

Brookings Institution: Brown Center on Education Policy <http://www.brook.edu/gs/brown/brown_hp.htm> Tom Loveless, Director The Brown Center conducts research on topics in American education, with a special focus on efforts to improve academic achievement K-12. "By producing research grounded in clear-headed analysis rather than ideological assumptions or fads, the center seeks to inform all educational stakeholders." (David Gergin)

1. "It Takes A City: Getting Serious about Urban School Reform" by Paul T. Hill and others. Argues that it takes citywide collaboration to achieve effective school reform. Web site has summary and ordering information. First chapter is available in the Brookings "copy binder. Web site has summary and ordering information. The book is also in Instructional Services Library.

2. "The Black-White Test Score Gap" by C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.) Offers evidence that schools can narrow the black-white test score gap which "would probably do more to promote racial equality in the US than any other strategy now under serious discussion." Urge readers to understand that "any politically workable educational strategy for reducing the gap has to promise some benefits for whites as well as blacks. Reducing class size, requiring greater academic competence among teachers, and raising teachers' expectations for students who have trouble with schoolwork all meet this test." (P.45) Web site has summary and ordering information. Key chapters and summary are in Brookings "copy binder."

3. "The Tracking Wars:" State reform meets school policy" by Tom Loveless. Cites research that suggests detracking (which is primarily adopted to reform urban schools) can actually limit the opportunities of high performing minority students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Web site has summary and ordering information. The book is available in Instructional Services Library. Key chapters and summary are in Brookings "copy binder."

4. "The Brown Center Report on American Education: 2000" by Tom Loveless. A kind of National "State of the Schools" report with an emphasis this year, on math achievement. Web site has downloadable document and ordering information. Complete document is available in Brookings "copy binder."

5. Click on "Publications" to find additional articles, reports, books and commentary on Education.

THE EDUCATION TRUST, WASHINGTON, D.C. & OAKLAND, CA
<http://www.edtrust.org>

1. "Dispelling the Myth: High Poverty Schools Exceeding Expectations." Explores the six common characteristics of high performing, high poverty schools. Can be downloaded on the Ed Trust Web site (click on publications). Copy and summary is also available in the Education Trust "copy binder" in the Instructional Services Library.

2. "Good Teaching Matters: How Well-Qualified Teachers Can Close the Gap." A Thinking K-16 report that puts forth a documented and well argued proposition that schools can succeed with minority and high poverty children simply by providing effective teachers who teach students what they need to know to perform at high levels. Can be downloaded on the Ed Trust Web site (click on publications). Copy is available in the Education Trust "copy binder."

3. "Not Good Enough: A Content Analysis of Teacher Licensing Examinations." A Thinking K-16 report that refers to a growing body of research that demonstrates a simple fact: teacher quality is the single most important factor in student achievement. They make a case for offering ongoing professional support for current teachers and rigorous preparation for intending teachers. In "copy binder" and can be downloaded on the Ed Trust Web site (click on publications).

4. "Ticket to Nowhere: The Gap Between Leaving High School and Entering College and High-Performance Jobs." A Thinking K-16 report which documents the low performance standards that lead entering freshman to score so low on placement exams that they wind up in remedial courses. The focus is on the changes needed in "both higher education and K-12 . . . to turn this pattern around. Can be downloaded on the Ed Trust Web site (click on publications). Copy is also available in the Education Trust "copy binder."

5. "Honor in the Boxcar: Equalizing Teacher Quality." A Thinking K-16 report that offers ideas for professional development to deepen teachers content knowledge and other means of equalizing teacher quality for all students. Can be downloaded on the Ed Trust Web site (click on publications). Copy is also available in the Education Trust "copy binder."

6. "Standards in Practice." SIP is a six-step, easy to understand and implement, team based professional development, and quality control process that can be used to align any assignment or program with state or local content standards. Complete description with samples of student writing is available in the Ed Trust "copy binder." By insuring that teachers, parents and Principals all understand standards, this process ensures that all students are held to the same standards. Recommendations are thus in alignment with strategies recommended by the authors of "The Black-White Test Score Gap."

ARTICLES, BOOKS, WEB SITES & REPORTS

1. Thin Ice: "Stereotype Threat" and Black College Students by Claude M. Steele. <http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99aug/9908stereotype.htm> Argues that "When capable black college students fail to perform as well as their white counterparts, the explanation often has less to do with preparation or ability than with the threat of stereotypes about their capacity to succeed." Stanford educators report their findings and propose solutions. Steel is also a member of the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement who issued the 1999 College Board report, Reaching the Top. See Articles "copy binder."

2. "Will Tracking Reform Promote Social Equity?" by Tom Loveless. This article reviews research on tracking and cautions educators that the relevant research demonstrates "no convincing evidence . . . that tracking has a special, adverse effect on the achievement of African American, Latino, or disadvantaged students. Nor does the research show that these students achieve at higher levels in untracked settings. Article cautions that tracking may depress the achievement of high performing minorities. Published in Educational Leadership/April 1999. See Articles "copy binder."

3. "Beyond the Classroom" by Laurence Steinberg. This book is based upon a comprehensive national study of High School students, Steinberg writes convincingly that events outside the classroom (peer and parental values and behaviors) have the biggest impact on student achievement. Copy of book is available and Chapter 5 is in the Articles "copy binder."

4. "The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System." (TVAAS) <Http://shearonforschools.com/TVAAS_index.html> Unlike other state wide accountability programs which rank schools by how their students score on standardized tests, TVAAS provides information to teachers, parents and the public on how schools are doing in helping each child make academic gains each year. Findings indicate that the least served students in Tennessee are high performing students of color. Schools and districts can contract for TVAAS services using our data.

5. Frontline: PBS Secrets of the SAT. Click on: "The Test Score Gap" You will find articles ("Thin Ice") interviews & relevant links)

NATIONAL TASK FORCE REPORTS

"Reaching The Top:" A Report of the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement. Organized by The College Board. <http://www.collegeboard.org> Argues that "school improvement strategies should be selected, in part, on the basis of their capacity to increase the number of top minority students." Makes useful recommendations. See Reaching the Top "copy binder." This report was an impetus for the formation of the Minority Student Achievement Network.

NATIONAL NETWORKS

Minority Student Achievement Network: Compendium of Programs Berkeley Unified is a founding partner of the Network which was formed in February 1999, when superintendents of 15 urban and suburban school districts agreed to work together to discover, develop, and implement the means to ensure high academic achievement of minority students, specifically African-American and Latino students. This effort, supported by the College Board's National Task for Minority High Achievement, housed in Evanston, Ill., and funded through grants from the Joyce and MacArthur Foundations, is a collaboration designed to conduct and publish research, analyze policies, and examine practices that affect the academic performance of minority students. Meredith Phillips, Ronald Ferguson and Pedro Niagara are included among the researchers for the Network.

"The Compendium of Programs: 2000." The compendium is a collection of Network programs targeting minority student achievement. The compendium is organized by categories as follows: Assessment, Student Behavior, Community Partnerships, Curriculum, Enrichment/Support, Guidance/Postsecondary, Parent, Policy, Staff Development, and Structural Change. Effectiveness ratings are given. It is a very useful document.

LOCAL REPORTS

"BUSD Early Literacy Plan:" This plan represents a significant General Fund investment on the part of BUSD to ensure that all students completing the third grade who have been in the District three or more years will be reading at the appropriate grade level. (More discussion)

"Pre-Natal to Pre-School Initiative:" Strategic Action Plan (Sept. 2000). The Planning Group has set goals in the areas of prenatal and child health care, high quality child care, preschool and parenting programs in order that all of Berkeley's children enter kindergarten healthy and "ready" to learn. The Initiative Working Group has secured $100,000 in funding from the Alameda County Proposition 10 Commission to implement its Action Plan.

"Kindergarten Readiness" of Students Enrolled in the Berkeley Public Schools. December 1998. Prepared by Hatchuel, Tabernik & Associates. Impetus for this project came from the District's focus on early literacy (see the Literacy Plan) and the City-led Prenatal to Preschool Initiative. Results indicate those children coming to Kindergarten from Head Start and the districts Early Childhood/childcare centers are not competitive in terms of "readiness" with children coming from private preschools. Authors recommend that " . . . the district needs to develop a definition (of `Kindergarten Readiness') that all teachers understand, and one that can be clearly communicated to preschools, parents and other community members and organizations who share the responsibility for preparing Berkeley children for a successful transition into elementary school."

"School Linked Services" Sept, 1998.

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

The Berkeley Alliance <http://www.iurd.ced.berkeley.edu/alliance/index.html> The Berkeley Alliance is a partnership of the University of California, the City of Berkeley and BUSD dedicated to improving the quality of life in Berkeley. Through the Alliance, the partners collaborate on projects of mutual benefit, mobilizing community resources and developing creative approaches to challenges

State of California Standards <http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci> The State standards (called "the best in the Country" by Tom Loveless, Director of the Brookings Institution Brown Center on Education) describe the content students should master by the end of each grade level. The framework elaborates on those standards and describes specific grade-level, standards-based instruction necessary to help students achieve the levels of mastery." State Standards and Frameworks are available on line at the California State Board of Education.

BOOK REVIEW

"The Black-White Test Score Gap," by Meredith Phillips and Christopher Jencks Reviewed by Shirley Issel

The District now has a copy of the Brookings Institution, The Black-White Test Score Gap which is considered by some to be the best collection of research findings one this topic to date. The authors provide analysis and policy recommendations for schools.

To review at bit, the Black-White test score gap is a national phenomenon. "The gap appears before children enter kindergarten and persists into adulthood." The typical black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized tests.
The authors believe the gap can be closed because of studies that show:

• When black or mixed-race children are raised in white homes, their pre adolescent test score rise dramatically.
• Even nonverbal IQ scores are sensitive to environmental change.
• Black-white differences in academic achievement have narrowed throughout the century.

• If genes pay a role, it is insignificant.
• Poverty probably plays some role, but it too is modest
• Parental schools, parental income, single parent families, all play an insignificant role in the gap.
• Ability grouping and tracking-or their absence has little influence on the gap.

What DOES Play a Role in the Gap
I. Parenting practices appear to play a sizeable role in the gap. (Between a fifth and a quarter of the gap!) "Changing the way parents deal with their children may be the single most important thing we can do to improve children's cognitive skills. We should be promoting better parenting practices for all parents, using every tool at our disposal, from Head Start outreach programs and home visits by nurses to television sitcoms or anything else that might affect parents' behavior." P46. We can review our current programs and consider new ones.

II. Preschool experiences can be designed to enhance cognitive skills and close the gap. Ferguson reviews studies that "strongly confirm that compensatory preschools raise achievement test scores for both blacks and whites by the time they enter kindergarten, but studies disagree on whether the effect is lasting for blacks." We can review our current pre-school programs and consider increasing academic content.

III. Reducing class size in lower grades K-3 (to 15) raised both reading and math scores by about a third of a standard deviation for blacks and a sixth of a standard deviation for whites. (It is important to note that the black-white gap is one standard deviation. This would help blacks more than whites and there is basis for conjecture that reducing size in later grades would help maintain the gains. As we feel pressure to raise teaching salaries and as BUSD faces reduced BSEP "buy down power" there will be increased pressure to allow class size to rise. We should be aware that research indicates this will hurt blacks achievement in lower grades.

IV. Good Teachers. Students of teachers, who score high on standardized tests, also score high on standardized tests. (See the Education Trust Good Teaching Matters: How Well-Qualified Teachers Can Close the Gap and Not Good Enough: A Content Analysis of Teacher Licensing Examinations. Screening teachers for verbal and mathematical competence is likely to raise black children's test scores.

V. Teacher expectations of students with academic difficulties matter a lot! (Black White Test-Score Gap Chapter 8.) Believing in the ability of all kids to learn is critical. The outcomes of new initiatives (such as our Literacy Plan!) tend to depend on the site having a principal who understands the initiative and can provide a program of professional development that helps teaching staff to expect more and achieve more for both themselves and their students. Raising teacher expectations is difficult yet critical to closing the black-white test score gap. This suggests that the success of our literacy initiative will rest upon effective leadership by the District and at the site. Ongoing staff development will be required. We can focus on what's working, understand and celebrate it; identify what's not working and require it to be fixed

Copyright 2002 by Shirley A. Issel