Browsing by Subject "Achievement gap"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Attempting Education Reform through the Courts: The Inefficacy of Abbott V Court-Mandated Funding Reallocation and Reforms in Underperforming School Districts in New Jersey
    (2010-12) Song, Kevin
    This research project analyzes the effects of the 1998 Abbott V New Jersey Supreme Court decision on student achievement in the state’s underperforming Abbott districts. The Court mandated the reallocation of the districts’ state aid to best practice reforms. This project uses regression analysis to compare the Abbott districts to socioeconomically similar districts in New Jersey while controlling for the confounding factors of each district’s Black student percentage, Hispanic student percentage, socioeconomic status, and expenditure per pupil. The results show that Abbott V had no effect on fourth grade achievement between 2004 and 2007 and lowered achievement growth for cohorts of students who entered fourth grade in 2004 and 2005. The results hold for both language arts and math achievement measured both as district proficiency rate and district average score. The project concludes that Abbott V was not effective in increasing student achievement and that the state was justified in eliminating the Abbott district system under the School Funding Reform Act of 2008.
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    Compensatory Education: Approaching the Problem from the Wrong Direction
    (2016-05-23) Prince, Francesca

    *Designated as an exemplary master's project for 2015-16*

    The American approach to disparities in educational achievement is deficit focused and based on false assumptions of equal educational opportunity and social mobility. The labels attached to children served by compensatory early childhood education programs have evolved, e.g., from “culturally deprived” into “at-risk” for school failure, yet remain rooted in deficit discourses and ideology. Drawing on multiple bodies of literature, this thesis analyzes the rhetoric of compensatory education as viewed through the conceptual lens of the deficit thinking paradigm, in which school failure is attributed to perceived genetic, cultural, or environmental deficiencies, rather than institutional and societal inequalities. With a focus on the evolution of deficit thinking, the thesis begins with late 19th century U.S. early childhood education as it set the stage for more than a century of compensatory education responses to the needs of children, inadequacies of immigrant and minority families, and threats to national security. Key educational research and publications on genetic-, cultural-, and environmental-deficits are aligned with trends in achievement gaps and compensatory education initiatives, beginning mid-20th century following the Brown vs Board declaration of 1954 and continuing to the present. This analysis then highlights patterns in the oppression, segregation, and disenfranchisement experienced by low-income and minority students, largely ignored within the mainstream compensatory education discourse. This thesis concludes with a heterodox analysis of how the deficit thinking paradigm is dependent on assumptions of equal educational opportunity and social mobility, which helps perpetuate the cycle of school failure amid larger social injustices.
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    Documenting the Growth of the East Durham Children’s Initiative (EDCI) through Photography
    (2010-05-11T19:04:48Z) Crumpler, Cat
    This paper is the written supplement to my Graduation with Distinction project in Documentary Photography. Through photography, I documented the initial growth of the EDCI’s programs to benefit the low-income populations of East Durham, as well as East Durham’s commitment to overcoming the constraints low poverty has put upon its children’s education. The timing of my documentary project is especially important in the first full year of programs under the EDCI.
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    North Carolina Public Kindergarten Teacher Perceptions on Readiness and the Development of a State K-3 Assessment
    (2013-04-22) Sharma, Chinmayi
    An established pioneer in matters of early childhood education, North Carolina will be using the Race to the Top grant money they won in 2010 to create and implement a statewide K-3 assessment. The Department of Public Instruction formed a think tank to develop the vision for the tool and the final product will be administered to all public schools in 2015. This study is one facet of a multidimensional project aimed at bringing several key stakeholders to the table to discuss the development of this assessment instrument. In this project, teachers were asked to rate 22 items suggested for inclusion in the assessment on a 1-6 scale in terms of importance, 1 being the least important and 6 being the most important information for their day-to-day classroom instruction. Respondents were also asked to comment on the helpfulness and delivery of the assessment as well. Previous studies led to the hypothesis that teachers would prioritize the Social/Emotional Development domain of assessment over Cognitive Development or Literacy. The data were gathered by an online survey sent in an email to 9,493 public school kindergarten teachers and the respondents comprised a volunteer sample of 2,596 cases, a 25.62% response rate. Results showed that teachers placed greatest importance on Language and Literacy Development, followed by Cognitive Development. Parent’s Education Level was given the lowest mean rate of importance out of the 22 suggested items. There was broad support for the assessment and the use of electronic tablets in its delivery. However, teachers did not support the option of the assessment being delivered through home visits. Demographic variations by region, locale size, education level and experience of teachers existed but were not robust.
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    Yes, “All Students Can Be Taught How to be Smart”: How Anti-Bias Teacher Preparation Paired with Scaffolding of Rigorous Curriculum Can Eradicate the Achievement Gap
    (2019-04-10) Phillips, Erica Roberson
    Lauren Resnick, an educational psychologist, claims, “all students can learn to be ‘smart’" through a process called educational nurturing. In this paper, I explore the central question: Is it feasible that policies can be designed and introduced that will eradicate the achievement gap? I identify racism as the root cause of the systemic problems in the United States, and name the achievement gap as the most inequitable outcome in the education system. Because the achievement gap is racial between white students and Students of Color, countertheories of cognitive inferiority are debunked. Next I explore previous literature on what has worked in past efforts to close the achievement gap. The research shows that anti-bias training that raises educators’ expectations of Students of Color, followed by detracking homogeneous (racial) grouping are both effective methods to close the achievement gap, but they cannot be sustainably successful alone. A third support structure needs to be in place to tie the strategies together: AVID, a program that complements detracking, aiding students as they transition from less challenging to more challenging classes. AVID is a program that emphasizes equity, and is beneficial to use while detracking, because while students are tackling rigorous course work, AVID teaches academic skills for students to learn how to “be smart,” as Resnick mentioned. I analyzed the three different programming site options for AVID and uncovered that the schoolwide and district-wide AVID implementations are the most effective, with transformative results in closing the achievement gap in both types. My conclusion is that the achievement gap can close with the dismantling of institutionalized racist thinking which must happen through anti-bias training for people within the system and for those who will enter it in the future. This training eliminates stereotype threat and raises teachers’ expectations for Students of Color. After anti-bias training has shifted the culture of the school, the school will be prepared to implement a system of detracking with a structure in place, like AVID, to teach academic soft skills. Therefore, my central question is confirmed, and the title of the paper is explained: “Yes, All Students Can Be Taught How to be Smart”: How Anti-Bias Teacher Preparation Paired with Scaffolding of Rigorous Curriculum Can Eradicate the Achievement Gap.” For reform efforts to persist when the “groundwater” is still contaminated, there are logical steps to follow in order to overwhelm and shake the system. 1. Analyze, influence, write, and change policy 2. Train the people within the system 3. Train the people about to enter the system The implications concluding the paper include a policy brief with suggestions to change K-12 policy in the US to include anti-bias training, detracking mandates, with AVID scaffolding. Furthermore, included are ways to impact the system present-day and in the future: a professional development plan for in-service teachers and a syllabus for pre-service teachers.