Closing the Achievement Gap

By Alex Kajitani

A few years ago, I had an 8th grade student named Eduardo*.  Eduardo was constantly being poked fun at by his classmates for his inability to do simple things, such as add and subtract or tie his shoes.  His grades were very low in all of his classes, and for as long as he or his mother could remember, he had always failed in all subjects.  One day in class, I heard a student tell Eduardo¬, “You are so dumb, you don’t even know how to tell time!”   As he shriveled in his seat, I walked over to Eduardo and quietly asked him if that was true.  I then asked him the most simple, yet profound question a teacher can ask: Why?  Not allowing him to shrug his shoulders and say, “I don’t know,” I pressed him for an answer.  Finally, he exclaimed, “Nobody ever taught me!”  “What about your parents?” I asked.  “Nope.” he replied. 

I then proceeded to take the clock off the wall and explain how it worked.  Within 10 minutes, Eduardo knew how to tell time.  For 10 years, nobody had ever taken 10 minutes to show him how it worked.  Many had simply dismissed him as “unable to learn.”  He could learn.  After that day, his confidence began to increase.  He became interested in learning, because he knew he could.  He began doing his homework, and even started performing better on tests. 

The “Achievement Gap” has become a popular buzzword for students performing below, often far below, their expected grade-level proficiency.  However, for these students, the achievement gap is not a buzzword — it is a devastating disadvantage that, if left unaddressed, can severely undermine a student’s opportunity to live a successful life.  For many at-promise students like Eduardo, the achievement gap begins well before kindergarten.  It begins at home with parents who are not literate or who do not speak English.  It begins in neighborhoods where the concern over whether the family will eat that night far outweighs reading a book to the children before bed. 

And as a child’s education begins, the gap often continues to grow. As teachers, we spend significant amounts of time trying to “catch them up,” instead of focusing solely on the grade level standards.  A student who achieves only half a year’s growth for each year they are in school may be six or more grade levels below where they should be by the time they need to pass the High School Exit Exam. 

Yet the deep effects of the achievement gap extend far beyond a student passing this test.  As a society, we cannot afford to produce 18-year olds who have only a 6th grade education.  We cannot allow an achievement gap that preys upon our ethnic minorities, especially our Latino and African-American students, to persist.  Not addressing this gap means not addressing many of the economic and racial disparities that exist in our society.

Fortunately, there are resolutions.  While these resolutions are deep, varied, and highly debated, the main one should begin with us, the teachers. 

Here are four strategies you can use now in your own classroom, and at your school, to work toward closing the achievement gap with at-promise students:

Teach curriculum that is culturally relevant.  Let’s be honest: a 14-year old minority student living below the poverty line relates much differently to the world than a white student living in an affluent neighborhood.  With life experiences so different, why would we even attempt to teach them the same way?  Recently, when discussing percentages, our class pushed aside the standard curriculum in order to discuss dropout, graduation, and unemployment rates among Latino students, as well as differences in percentages of minority students attending college.  By making percentages culturally relevant, the students were able to see that percentages are a math concept that most definitely applies directly to their lives and their futures.

Keep good teachers at your school.  Getting high-quality teachers to come teach in schools with large achievement gaps is tough.  Getting them to stay is even tougher. Nationally, the average turnover for all teachers is 17 percent, and in urban schools, 20 percent.  That means that in schools like mine (and many of yours), we are replacing 1 out of every 5 teachers every single year.  You can be part of the solution to this turnover problem (which, by the way, the National Education Association (NEA) estimates is costing our schools $7 billion a year).  Be a team player.  Offer to help or support fellow teachers; show your appreciation for what they do.  Model commitment to and enthusiasm for teaching at-promise students, and remind your colleagues publicly what a difference they make and important job they have.  It may sound trite, but it is critical that we keep all teachers motivated and included to solve this educational crisis.

Get targeted training.  Advocate for professional development at your school site that addresses sociological as well as practical issues.  Become an expert not only on how to overcome teaching challenges, but on the larger issues surrounding your students as well—poverty, racism, and gang recruitment.  One of the best staff development meetings we ever had was when the gang-prevention officer from our local police department came and spoke to our staff about his job and its challenges.  I learned more from his presentation about the neighborhood in which I teach than I had in all the years I’d been teaching there.  Call your local police department, and ask about scheduling something similar.

Connect with the quiet ones.  The students slipping through the cracks aren’t usually the ones all the teachers know; they are the ones whose faces are fuzzy in our brains because their presence in the classroom is barely felt.  I saw one of my students from last year whom that description fit crossing the street in front of my car recently.  She was noticeably pregnant.  I couldn’t remember her name, and I realized that I had failed her.  Of course, it is a conglomeration of many circumstances that make these students fall from our grasp, but don’t be a contributing factor.  Go into your classroom tomorrow, notice each “quiet one” and find a way to connect.

Closing the achievement gap takes time, commitment, and understanding of the larger cultural and educational issues, as well as the “smaller” issues that may be happening in an individual student’s life, neighborhood and home.  It takes stopping and asking: Why?  And then working, 10 minutes at a time, to address a deficit that may have begun long before a student even started school. 

In all honesty, I’m not sure what happened with Eduardo.  As his life moved on beyond middle school, we did not keep in contact.  But at least I know that the next person who asks him for the time will not be disappointed in his answer.  And that’s a start.

Alex Kajitani, M.A., is known across the country as “The Rappin’ Mathematician” and teaches 8th grade math in Escondido, California.  Alex is the 2007 Middle School Math Teacher of the Year for Greater San Diego, and 2008 Teacher of the Year for his school district.  He also speaks nationally about “Making Math Cool.”  His company, Math Raps, won RAPSA’s Making a Difference Award at this year’s national conference in San Diego.  Check out www.MathRaps.com to hear some of his math rap songs!

*Names have been changed to protect student privacy.