achievement gap
Growing Excellence
Posted on 02. Sep, 2009 by Maggie.
Saturday September 19th the Seattle Alliance of Black School Educators (SABSE) will be hosting a conference at the John Stanford Center for Excellence. Topics will address how to close the achievement gap, with special focus on knowing your child’s performance, your child’s changing graduation requirements, how to prepare your student for college, and how to help measure your school and student’s results.
It will feature keynote speaker Erin Jones, as well as a discussion panel with LEV staff Chris Korsmo, Kelly Munn, Maggie Wilkens and others.
To register, visit the SABSE website or email Ina Howell at ighowell@seattleschools.org.
Hope you can attend!
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Achievement gap and WASL reports out
Posted on 13. Jan, 2009 by admin.
The HB2722 Advisory Committee (also known as the African American Achievement Gap Committee) issued it’s final report Monday. In the report, the Committee sets four goals for closing the achievement gap for African American students.
The goals are:
- By 2014, all school districts ensure that teachers, staff and administrators in schools with 20 percent or more African American students are qualified, trained and effectively meeting the academic, cultural and social needs of these students.
- By 2014, provide all African American children, birth to five, with high quality and academically focused early education to prepare them for success in school.
- Increase the on-time and extended graduation rates for African American students to reach parity with the highest-performing demographic group by 2014, and to achieve a 100 percent graduation rate by 2018. All graduates should be work- and college-ready without the need for remediation.
- By 2018, increase the number of African American students entering and completing post-secondary education and/or job training to be at or above parity with the highest-performing demographic group, and to achieve 100 percent participation by 2024.
The WASL Workgroup also released it’s final report and recommendations on the state assessment system. The workgroup makes some long- and short-term recommendations for Washington’s assessment system, namely making the system more informative and responsive.
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TIMSS 2007 report now available
Posted on 10. Dec, 2008 by admin.
***NERD ALERT***
Highlights from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2007 were released yesterday by the National Center for Education Statistics. TIMSS is an international comparison of 4th and 8th grade students in mathematics and science, and administered every four years.
While math scores of U.S. 4th and 8th graders have increased since 1995, we still lag behind Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore, among others.
Mark Schneider, vice president for new educational initiatives at the American Institutes for Research, wrote an editorial in Education Week detailing his concerns with the 2007 TIMSS results. One big point is the variance within the U.S. is greater than the variance between the U.S. and Hong Kong.
Chad Aldeman, policy associate at Education Sector, highlights the gap between white and non-white students in the U.S.
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Acheivement Gap (HB 2722) meeting recap
Posted on 21. Oct, 2008 by admin.
Last week, the HB 2722 Advisory Committee met in Tacoma to continue discussion of their proposal on closing the African American achievement gap.
The committee’s Best Practices workgroup came up with five goals to be included in the committee’s proposal to the Legislature.
1. Increase the on-time graduation rates of African American students by 10 percent a year, to achieve 100 percent by 2018.
2. Reduce the dropout rate of African American students by 10 percent a year, to eliminate dropouts by 2012.
3. Increase by 50 percent the number of African American students entering higher education or other post-secondary opportunities, without needing remediation, by 2014.
4. Ensure proportional representation of African American students enrolled in all special programs (including special education and gifted programs) by 2014.
5. Provide all 3- to 5-year-old African American children with high-quality, academically focused early childhood educational opportunities by 2018.
Attached to each goal are strategies for meeting the goals. Committee members discussed the goals and made suggestions for change. Some members wanted to increase the urgency of Goal 1 and 2, changing the rate of increase from 10 percent to 25 percent. There was also a push to include in Goal 1 the idea that students not only graduate from high school, but graduate college and work ready.
After discussion of the goals, Edie Harding and Warren Smith from the State Board of Education made a presentation about the accountability plan being developed by the Board. Committee members provided feedback that they want to see more of a “stick” to get districts to improve, rather than having a plan based on voluntary participation.
Finally, Federal Way Superintendent Tom Murphy and former Clover Park Superintendent Doris McEwen Harris presented on leadership in closing the African American achievement gap. Both spoke pointedly about happenings in their districts and how leadership has and will continue to help close the achievement gap.
The committee’s next meeting is November 20th at City University’s Renton Campus.
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HB 2722 committee to meet tomorrow
Posted on 15. Oct, 2008 by admin.
Posted by Heather
The HB 2722 committee, more commonly referred to as the African American Achievement Gap Committee, will meet tomorrow at the Tacoma campus of The Evergreen State College. The agenda features:
- A presentation on aspects of leadership required to address the achievement gap by Doris McEwen-Harris, distinguished educator at the University of Washington (and former superintendent of Clover Park School District), and Tom Murphy, superintendent of Federal Way Public Schools.
- An overview of a proposed system of accountability by Edie Harding, executive director of the State Board of Education.
I’ll be there taking notes, and blogging afterward.
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WASL scores unveiled
Posted on 26. Aug, 2008 by admin.
Posted by Heather
WASL scores for 2007-08 were released today by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. As we all could probably predict, results are mixed, but let’s look at this through a glass-half-full lens.
For the Class of 2008, passing rates on the Reading and Writing WASL are now at 92.9 percent, up 1.5 percent, or 684 students, from June (I wrote about those results here). No, we can’t boast a pass rate of 100 percent. And yes, these numbers do not include the students who have dropped out (9,000+) or been reclassified into other grades (9,500+). BUT, we also can’t call the WASL-as-graduation-requirement a “train wreck” (as many thought it would be).
For the Class of 2009 (incoming 12th graders), scores are also going up, with 86 percent having passed the Reading and Writing WASL. Scores for all subgroups are up when compared to the Class of 2008 at the same point last year, although the achievement gap persists at a similar rate (between 11 and 17 percentage points).
Source: OSPI
And for the Class of 2010, scores weren’t too bad either. On the first go-round, 75.41 percent passed the Reading and Writing WASL. Unfortunately the achievement gap persists between subgroups, ranging from 7 to 25 percentage points.
Source: OSPI
In grades 3-8, Science and Writing WASL scores were up, although not always by leaps and bounds. Increases ranged from 1 to 2 percentage points in Writing and 3 to 6 percentage points in Science. Grade 5 had across-the-board score increases while grades 4 and 7 saw decreases in Reading and Math. Scores in grades 3, 4 and 6 varied little from last year.
Detailed results are available on the OSPI website here.
Support materials, including press release and PowerPoint, are available here.
