Transcript Action Research: September Reading

CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT
GAP THROUGH
CONVERSATIONS ON RACE
Delvin Dinkins, Ed. D., Principal,
Tredyffrin/Easttown School District,
Wayne, PA
Goals of this presentation
 To review literature and a conceptual
framework for the achievement gap
 To share a study that examined educators'
beliefs about underachieving students
 To explore ideas that may diminish effects of
the achievement gap
Abstract
 Achievement gaps more transparent due to NCLB, causing
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critical challenges
Achievement gap and black underachievement are complex
challenges in whiter suburban school districts
Should schools address the gap, shoulder blame, or "level the
playing field”
Needed: inquiry into how a group of teachers make sense of the
achievement gap in a highly regarded school
Beliefs profoundly shape how people define, frame, and
approach problems and interventions
Research Goals
 Invite voices that are often unheard, unfamiliar, or both
 Learn how a group of educators talked about issues
and problems related to low achievement
 Learn how educators mapped, named, and framed
problem(s), choices and solutions
 Generate local knowledge in order to respond to
underachievement
Conceptual Framework
 Present study was informed by three areas:
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Achievement gaps
Adult learning
Language and Belief systems
 Research Questions
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How do teachers talk about race, class, culture, and achievement?
What beliefs, attitudes, and practices shape their conversation?
How effective can a discussion group be in addressing such issues?
Achievement Gap
 Broad consensus about the factors that influence
achievement:
 racism and classism
 lowered expectations
 large class sizes
 ineffective instruction
 out-of-school factors such as health care, poverty,
and parent education level
Explaining the Achievement Gap:
Out of School Factors
 Historical Explanations
Long-held beliefs about black racial inferiority
(e.g., Jensen,1969)
 “Separate but equal”--1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson
 Deficit models
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Explaining the Achievement Gap:
Out of School Factors
 Conventional Explanations
1966 Coleman Report*: family background
 Capital: a useful concept for exploring resource
discrepancies among groups
 Cultural capital
 Social capital
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*Equality of educational opportunity, report of the office of education to congress and the
President
Explaining the Achievement Gap:
Out of School Factors
 Conventional Explanations
 Parental involvement
 Savvy, high SES parents
 Minority parents and parents of lower SES disadvantaged
 Community disenfranchisement
Explaining the Achievement Gap:
In-School Factors
 School/Organizational Factors
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Education/schools reproduce and sustain current structures
Forces within schools tend to establish differential
conditions and outcomes
Schools expect, and rely on, cultural capital
greater cultural capital  better prepared for academic
demands, receive favoritism by teachers, and reap the
benefits of encouragement and support in the schooling
process (Lareau, 2003; Kalmijn & Kraaykamp, 1996)
Explaining the Achievement Gap:
In-School Factors
 School/Organizational Factors
Schools tend to overestimate the resources of
parents and homes
 Racial and ethnic segregation
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Explaining the Achievement Gap:
In-School Factors
 School/Organizational Factors
Tracking: principal means of academic and societal
stratification
 Effects of placement: instructional, social, and
institutional (opportunity structure)
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Explaining the Achievement Gap:
In-School Factors
 School/Organizational Factors
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Students' individual resources also directly affect
their effort and opportunities to learn
Opportunities to learn may be compromised by
selection of courses, minority status, etc.
Adult Learning in Schools
 Designed to effect change in performance; to assist
teachers with becoming more connected to their
practice; and to support them in generating knowledge
about their work with students
Belief Systems
 Words reflect an opinion and a worldview (Bakhtin,
1981)
 Beliefs are commonsense understandings and
explanations by which people make sense of their
surroundings (Gathright, 2002)
Research Site: Clearfield High
 1,850 students: 87% white, 8% Asian American, 3% Black, 1%
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Latino, and 1% Pacific Islander and American Indian
140 teachers: 129 white, 5 black, 4 Asian and 2 Hispanic
Record of academic excellence: 1180 SAT (100% participation),
30 AP courses, 180 AP Scholars, 60 National Merit students,
94% enrollment in college, 1150 AP tests (93% score of 3>)
Four course levels with varied weighting (quality points)
Philosophy of access, options, and choice
More than 100 student-initiated and student-run clubs
Research Site: Clearfield High
 Disproportionate number of black students struggle
academically, enroll less challenging courses, do not
participate in extra-curricular activities
 Black students are part of small working class
communities
Academic Achievement Group
 Consisted of a variety high school educators
 Formed after several parent and educator meetings
regarding student underachievement
 Emerged from encouragement and positive interest in
talking with others
Academic Achievement Group
 Meetings
Forum where educators could share observations,
explore research, discuss frustrations, and raise
questions
 Context in which knowledge could be shared,
constructed, and challenged
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Overview of Themes
 Nurturing and Resisting Black “Culture”
 Black Isolation and Teacher Relationships
 Whiteness and the Construction of Achievement
 Permanence of Achievement
 Interrupting and Maintaining Black Course-Taking Patterns
 Justifying the Status Quo
 Deficits, Defiance and Other Blames
 Racial and Economic Disparities
 Community Distrust
 Social Justice and Colorblindness: Struggles to Make Race Salient
Overview of Findings
 Educators’ conversations reflected that notion that achievement
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connected to race and class
Educators primarily attributed low achievement to students and their
families
Educators’ conversations shifted between a black deficit perspective
and a social justice perspective
Educators struggled to maintain a social justice stance because of
demands within the school
Educators resorted to traditional assumptions about race, class and
achievement
Belief systems and language can function as barriers to change
(Kumashiro, 2003)
Educator assumptions about race,
class and achievement
 Assumption 1:
Students are not created equal
 Assumption 2:
 Students do not enter school with the same social
and cultural resources
 Assumption 3:
 Educators believed that they did not actively
contribute to black underachievement
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Educator assumptions about race,
class and achievement
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Students have the same opportunities. The
opportunity structure within the school is fair and
impartial.
 Assumption 5:
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The academic picture at Clearfield, no matter how
racially segregated, is natural and inevitable.
Educator assumptions about race,
class and achievement
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Blacks and low-income students have a culture of
underachievement that explains their failure.
 Assumption 7:
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Educators felt that holding higher expectations of all
students compromised their integrity and set
students up for failure and disappointment
Summary and Conclusions
 The educator group as a form of inquiry ultimately did
not create necessary conditions for change
 While educators participated in conversation about
problems, they were unable to look deeply or
introspectively
 Most educators in the group did not have an experience
in which their beliefs and personal histories increasingly
became subjects of inquiry
Summary and Conclusions
 Despite the potential for a social justice orientation to
the inquiry into achievement and ultimately black
student failure, inquiry did not automatically serve as a
lever for initiating reform
 The solutions did not reestablish the school as a
radically different place for helping, teaching and
learning, nor did they include improvement in educatorrelated work
Ideas to Explore: Learn
 Student Attitudes and Behaviors
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High performing black students experience pressure when
they fear failure in light of negative racial stereotypes.
When blacks perceive inconsistencies in the opportunity
structure, they are likely to underachieve (Mickelson, 1990).
Impact of peer group on adolescent behavior
Black males experience substantial alienation from the
educational process; racial identity plays a greater role in
furthering academic achievement for black females than for
black males (Cockley, 2001; Dawson-Threat, 1997)
Ideas to Explore: Learn
 Student Connectivity to School
 Examine the ways in which black students experience the
social environment of schools and classrooms (Northwest
Regional Educational Laboratory, 2002)
 Extracurricular participation in high school is a way for
students to extend learning as well as connect to others and
the school environment outside the regular school day
Ideas to Explore: Learn
 Student Connectivity to School
 Quality of students' relationship with influential adults is an
important predictor of school success
 Educators can be role models and effective sources of
support for some students
 Positive social relationships could create powerful
incentives for students
What can we do?
 Examine patterns of student engagement
 Look at course-taking behavior
 Be watchful of inviting and uninviting teachers
 Be an advocate
 Place students in higher level courses and offer support
 Be aware of how students experience school and classroom
 Ensure students are not over-identified for special education
 Extend the benefit of the doubt to students
 Challenge practices of lowered expectations and gate-keeping
 Start your own honest conversations and be a critical friend