Closing the Achievement Gap

By Rachel P. Norton

To make progress, we must take a hard look at the way we distribute resources and set priorities throughout the district, to be sure they are aligned with best practices in education.

I also believe it is important to give every child access to a high-quality curriculum that is differentiated to his or her specific needs. High-achievers need more challenges; children with learning differences need to access information that is tuned to their developmental level or optimal learning style.

The district's new strategic plan calls for reducing "the predictive power of demographics" in student outcomes. We must take a hard look at the way we distribute resources and set priorities throughout the district, to be sure they are aligned with best practices in education. We began this conversation with the passage of Proposition A, which addressed the problem of recruiting and retaining new teachers in our most challenging schools; what we learned from this successful campaign was that all stakeholders must keep an open mind and work together to craft a compromise.