What does this mean for educators, who now are charged almost single-handedly with making the problem go away? It means that it's time to ratchet up the work. The problem may be formidable and NCLB may in many ways be flawed, notes NEA President Reg Weaver, but NEA members must redouble their efforts to help struggling students beat the odds. "It's time to change the focus from defining the problem to doing something about it," says Weaver.

And so for more than a year, NEA's Standing Committee on Professional Standards and Practice, involving classroom teachers from all over the country, researched dozens of gap-closing strategies, and last summer the 2004 Representative Assembly endorsed the committee's report. Committee chairman David Lebow, a retired California teacher, says educators are "serious" about change and hopes the report can be used to spur the thinking of fresh approaches to teaching and engaging families and communities.

In the meantime, in regional conferences nationwide, local and state members will be asked to share more ideas—and  not just about the gaps between kids of color and whites, but between girls and boys; between gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered kids and their "straight" peers; between special ed and regular ed kids.

Down to Business

The good news: In classrooms across the country, NEA members are already putting their minds to the mission. In New Jersey, teachers are taking parents on shopping sprees to the local bookstore so their kids have something of their own to read at bedtime. In Southern California, students and staff members are giving up Saturday sleep-ins to cram more time into the classroom. And, near Tampa, guidance counselor Pearl Ershery boasts about a new mentoring program that provides students with some one-on-one academic attention.

If teachers were in charge, they say they'd do even more: shrink classes and hire more teaching assistants, develop year-round schools, provide laptop computers to low-income kids, and help parents help their children. In Shona Trumbly's ideal world, teachers would spend less time "teaching to a test" and more time "engaging students in wanting to learn," says the New Jersey media specialist.

That's the kind of thinking that'll eventually get the job done, Weaver says. But it'll take all hands on deck—pressuring officials to ante up funds, working closely with parents, and most importantly, better understanding the students.

Much to Learn

Four years ago Harvard University professor Ronald Ferguson worked on a survey of 40,000 middle and high school students and compared answers from white, Black, and Hispanic students. In many ways, the kids were remarkably similar—all groups reported the same interest in school and all spent about the same time on homework, proving untrue any suspicions that minority students are less motivated to succeed.

But where their answers differed, Ferguson found insight for teachers working to close the gap.

One big difference: Nearly twice as many Black and Hispanic students said they didn't understand their lessons. Ferguson says  teachers need to be aware that their kids may not "get it" and try to figure out ways to help them all.

Another big difference: Nearly half of Blacks said they worked hard in school because their teachers encouraged them, compared with 30 percent of whites. But Black students also reported that "demanding" teachers had an adverse effect. Both answers tell teachers how they can be more effective, says Ferguson.

Start with an encouragement: "You can do this!" followed by "I'm here for you," and "Your success matters to me!" he suggests. If kids feel you have low expectations for them—and sometimes all this gab about gaps does just that—they will likely sink to meet them.

Been There Before

The tide can be turned—and history proves it, Ferguson points out. Between 1970 and 1990, almost two-thirds of the gap between whites and Blacks disappeared. But progress stopped more than a decade ago, in large part, some experts say, because of the re-segregation in many schools and the abandonment of federal anti-poverty programs.

And, current scores show hard days ahead.

In 2003, 75 percent of white fourth-graders showed competency in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), compared with 44 percent of Hispanic fourth-graders and 40 percent of Blacks. 

But race isn't the only issue. If their parents have time-shares and nannies, kids are much more likely to score better than their poor peers. Last year's NAEP scores showed just 45 percent of fourth-graders eligible for free or reduced-price lunch were competent readers, compared with 76 percent of their wealthier classmates.

Then there are the other gaps: girls are better readers than boys, but girls often trail boys in secondary math and science. Special education students, even with testing accommodations, often are outscored by regular classmates. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered kids often suffer academically when they feel unsafe or unwelcome in school.

Income Matters

Malone's Maryland prekindergarten classroom, some 4-year-olds don't recognize a single letter. Poor parents come to her overwhelmed by their struggle to make ends meet. In its report, the NEA committee pointed to a lack of parent and community support as factors that contribute to the gap. "We all share the responsibility to ensure that every student is successful," says Stephanie Fanjul, director of NEA Student Achievement. "It isn't just the schools. But schools do have lots of influence, and we're ready to do our share."

But the problem is sometimes exacerbated in schools. High-poverty schools are more likely to have less-experienced teachers, and even teachers say some colleagues may have too-low expectations: We need a system where "there isn't a 'those kids' attitude," advises Pam Tangen, a Minnesota high school teacher.

Deciding The Game Plan

So what strategies hold promise? NEA Today looked at five communities where NEA members are trying to shrink the divide with innovation—around parent involvement; early childhood education; smaller class sizes and more intimate schools; incentives to lure experienced teachers to needy schools; and professional development to help educators become more culturally sensitive to the needs of their diverse student body. They are in no way magic bullets, but the results so far are encouraging and could well inspire.

As Weaver notes, "We alone can't close the achievement gap. But with parents and policy makers and students working together…yeah, we can do it."

Parent Involvement

'¡Llámeme!'

Photo by Rachelle Omenson

Call me, says a family facilitator from a New Jersey elementary school. Surprisingly, parents do.

"What did I miss last night?" Hermalinda Ribera asks anxiously, as she stands in the black asphalt yard of the Lincoln School Annex in New Brunswick, New Jersey, watching as her 6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter skip to class.

Más información, she hears.

Nearly 70 other parents at this tiny school—just 190 kindergartners through third-graders—joined their full-time family liaison at their first monthly meeting of the school year. They heard about math and literacy nights (pajamas encouraged!), homework help sessions for both kids and adults, and the new Universidad de los Padres.

"You can always come here," family liaison Marlon Osuna assures Ribera.

It's an invitation that parents take seriously at the Lincoln School Annex, where the entire staff embarked last year on a five-year project to close the achievement gap that frustrates its mostly Hispanic student body. The Academy Project, jointly run by the New Jersey Education Association and the local board of education, relies on a few research-based reforms: smaller classes, more professional development, and a new resolve to involve parents.

Let's face it, Osuna told the packed gymnasium on family night, teachers have the children for just eight hours a day. "You are the most important people," he told them.

And he's not talking about bake sales.

Home Life

But research also shows that superficial attendance at holiday pageants isn't the kind of "involvement" that makes a difference. Parents need to reinforce what's taught at school with home activities like reading before bed or checking homework, and they also should stay informed of decisions at the school about curriculum and management.

With that in mind, Osuna and his colleagues want parents to be full-time partners—but that's not an easy task. Surrounded by sagging three-story houses, subdivided into tiny apartments with Mexican flags on front porches, the Annex serves many new immigrants. While many children know little English and attend bilingual classes, some parents know even less, make little money, lack health insurance, and in many cases, because they're not here legally, don't want to call attention to themselves.

It's not easy to make these parents feel comfortable in any government building—even a small school with a smiling staff. But it helps that Osuna, who is originally from Nicaragua, has lived in the community for more than a decade. Plus, he's persistent and empathetic, says Principal Mary Jane McDonald.

"Llámeme," he tells parents—Call me!

Before anything else, Osuna and his colleagues take care of their families' basic needs. Students can't learn when their teeth ache or they can't read their teacher's scrawl across the blackboard, notes nurse Marilyn Crawford, who often starts her mornings with a few parents at her door—as frequently seeking help for their own fevers and pains as for their children's.

The Basics First

At Lincoln School Annex, involving parents means stocking home freezers, negotiating with landlords and welfare officers, and arranging for doctor visits. (Osuna, who passes out his seven cell phone digits like a love-hungry teenager, will even chauffeur families to the hospital clinic.)

Parents appreciate that their children are learning English—except for one thing: Some say they can't keep up. So now, involving parents means offering English-language classes—morning and night—so they can read their children's books. It means buying calculators so that some parents, who arrived here from Mexico or Guatemala with less schooling than their 9-year-olds, can play "addition bingo" and check math homework.

It even means installing a new washer and dryer in the school's basement and inviting parents to do a load of wash while they volunteer in classrooms.

"You have to believe that parents are doing the best they can, and parents have to know you believe that. Then together, we can make a difference," says Susanne Clark, who serves as liaison between the school board and the union on this joint effort.

Adriana Herrera, the mother of a second-grader, has been taking English classes for more than a year and attends every family event. This year, she's enrolling in GED classes—"I want to finish school, not for me, but for her," she says. "I want something better for my children."

Last year, the school tapped a $5,000 NEA Urban Grant, local business partners, and community volunteers to run evening programs. The tiny school sent three full buses to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City—including dozens of parents who had never reached inside a "touch tank" and stroked a live sea creature.

This year, it turned to Rutgers University and Dow Chemical to help staff a new Parent University, organized by teacher Barbara Collister. Parent Leticia Vivas is taking an evening computer class through the program, hoping that new skills can bring her a better job than delivering bagels, she says.

None of this is easy. Osuna, Clark, Collister, and their colleagues work long hours—sometimes from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. "People keep asking me, 'Why are you doing this? It's so much time and effort,'" Collister says. "But I know it's going to be worth it for the families."

More ways to hook parents:

Don't waste a minute: At Pleasant View Elementary in Lansing, Michigan, even the lazy summer is still a time for learning. For two weeks of "Caterpillar Club" time, teachers help students catch up with reading and math, while parents attend classes to work on parenting skills and learning games, says teacher Debbie Dashner.

Get out there: At Eisenhower Elementary in Hopkins, Minnesota, parents aren't expected to come back to school for evening meetings. Instead, teachers hold meetings at the large apartment complex where many parents live, says teacher Tom Johnson. The school even provides child care.

Irresistible: Who turns down free stuff? At her Jersey City school, teachers take parents, who might not have children's books at home, on school-sponsored shopping trips to Barnes & Noble, says teacher Tina Thorp. Free food can also help attract parents. At Kathleen Thomason-Jackson's school in Fulton County, Georgia, teachers offer a "lunch and learn" program.

Early education

Catching Up

By the age of 4, some children already have fallen behind. An early education program can help get them ready to learn.

Four-year-old Selena has a crazy snake of a name. Its tail wriggles wildly across the bottom of her self-portrait, leaving little room for the E, L, E, and so on. But, with fierce concentration and a pink eraser, Selena proudly tames her S.

"Mrs. Malone! Mrs. Malone! Look!" she calls.

Every day, in Daria Malone's prekindergarten class at Maryvale Elementary in Rockville, Maryland, the 4-year-olds walk bravely into the wild world of reading. During one recent writing workshop, Malone started off with a little surprise—a magic box. Inside, a round mirror winked at the children, reflecting the day's assignment. Draw a self-portrait and then draw your name under it, just like you've been practicing, Malone directed.

At this point, just a few months into their first year of school, a handful actually can write their names. Black-haired Jillian flies through her line of I's and L's. Others show they recognize and know quite a few letters. X is easy! But others still struggle to identify pictures of household items—like a zipper—and a few can't even hold their scissors.

As in all prekindergarten classrooms in Montgomery County, every student in here is poor—"My family has a phone!" one boasts. And poverty does make a difference: poor kids are less likely to have family support at home, more likely to be hungry at home, more likely to be exposed to lead poisoning. 

In 2001, just 48 percent of preschool kids living below the federal poverty line were read to every day, compared with 61 percent of others.

Typically, many of these students enter kindergarten without the skills of their wealthier classmates—and it's a disparity some will have a hard time overcoming.

Off to a Good Start

Photo by Scott Suchman

Across the country, educators are hoping to do something about that.  In Montgomery County, as part of a four-year-old initiative, school officials expanded kindergarten in the poorest schools from half-day to full-day and, subsequently, also added half-day prekindergarten.

The same effort is taking place across the country. According to a study by the Trust for Early Education, 15 states increased their preschool funding by $205 million for the fiscal year 2005, admitting an additional 60,000 3- and 4-year-olds. That's a 17 percent jump since 2001.

Still, there are other states—nearly a dozen—without state-funded preschool. The reason? It's expensive, if done right. In Florida, voters amended their state constitution to make "high-quality" prekindergarten available to all—but last year, state lawmakers balked at the $600 million price tag to use certified teachers and offered up high school graduates instead.

It's a big investment, but Montgomery County's experience shows it pays. In a 2003 study, district researchers compared test scores from second-graders in poor schools with early education programs to historic scores at the same schools, as well as test scores from wealthier schools. They found their poor second-graders did much better compared to years past, and that their rate of improvement was significantly faster than their wealthier peers.

Even without the proof of percentiles, it's clear to Malone that her hours do make a difference. There's the one boy who came to her without recognizing a single letter—not even the giant golden M that marks a favorite fast-food restaurant for 4-year-olds. He left knowing nine—still too few, but better. Meanwhile, some of his pals were ready to read.

During their day, Malone's students romp between classroom stations—two sit at computers where they giggle over software showing "bees boarding buses," while another pair checks out books at Malone's lending library. Doe-eyed Derico chooses Big Bird Plays Baseball to read with his Dad.

They later sit on the rug for a rhyming math lesson—"Three little puppies, as playful as can be, see them jumping—one, two, three!"—and a color song that sounds an awful lot like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Much of the day is spent on traditional kindergarten activities, the kinds of things that 5-year-olds did before the high-

pressure days of standardized tests demanded that they read. "I'm packing them full with academics—but they have no idea that it's packed full," Malone says.

Then, when they leave, "They're ready to learn."

Teacher Quality

It's a Bargain

A new Seattle contract will improve teaching at high-poverty schools.

In Seattle's inner city schools, as elsewhere across the country, turnover is fierce and teaching experience often short. Why? In a nutshell, most teachers find it harder to work there.

But educators are not sitting on their hands. In surveys leading up to their last contract negotiations, union members voted 2-to-1 to make closing the achievement gap a priority. They then produced a raft of ideas the bargaining committee took to the table.

The result was something quite revolutionary: a joint administration-union committee has been charged to design incentives for teachers willing to commit three years to a high-poverty school. Seattle Education Association President Wendy Kimball says the incentives will likely be around $10,000 over the three years, funded by local foundations. This novel contract also provides that if there are layoffs due to budget cuts, teachers at these schools will be spared for one year.

Bargaining committee member Anitra Pinchback, a thirdgrade teacher at Seattle's K–8 African-American Academy, says the new contract holds great promise, as it could help build the critical stability often missing in the teaching corps of low-income schools like hers. "We have to build strong relations with each student and with the families," she says. "They need familiar faces in the school." Low-income schools, she notes, tend to have more new teachers who are vulnerable when layoffs go by seniority.

She also believes the incentives will bring highly qualified teachers to schools like hers. "To affect the achievement gap," says Pinchback, "the number one thing is capable instructors. We need the best instructors to teach our neediest students."

The contract also promises financial help and flexible work schedules for paraeducators who want to become teachers. Paras, Kimball notes, usually live near the school, understand the neighborhood, and are less likely to leave.

First-grade teacher Joyce McDonald is a former para who long has been vocal on this issue. To finish college and get her teaching certificate, she had to work full-time during the day while studying full-time at night. The hardest part was her internship, because she couldn't work for pay at the same time. She and her husband nearly lost their house. Now in her third year of teaching, McDonald says, "I feel like I've gone through the metamorphosis of a butterfly." 

It won't be so hard in the future.

Small Schools

Small Is Beautiful

Big high schools are going to pieces to connect with their students.

It's 4:15 p.m., 45 minutes past the end of the day at the Life Academy of Health and Bioscience in Oakland, California, and teachers are walking the hall nudging students to go home. More than a third of the school's 250 students—all minority, nearly all low-income—are still hanging around, studying, talking, laughing.

Getting students to leave was never a problem at 2,000-student Fremont High School, from which Life Academy split off four years ago. And it's a problem science teacher Steven Miller is happy to have. "The kids can tell the staff knows them and likes them," he says. At jam-packed Fremont, many of them had the feeling that "'Nobody knows and nobody cares.'"

Oakland is a major focus of the burgeoning movement that's reversing a multi-decade trend toward big comprehensive high schools. Now, smaller is better, and the prevailing wisdom is that it's especially better for low-income and minority students. Experts say that's because they are less likely to come to school with the skills and attitudes it takes to succeed, and therefore are more likely to need close, personal relationships with the staff.

To a surprising degree, the movement is driven by private money, especially the Gates Foundation, which has funneled more than $670 million into 1,600 new small schools.

Last October, the Los Angeles school district announced that every one of its high schools will be split into small schools. L.A. educators might want to spend some time in Oakland, where they will see inspiring examples but also some pitfalls.

How Life Began

Photo by Sean Connelley

Life Academy was conceived by an enthusiastic band of Fremont teachers along with parents and students five years ago. At first, they planned to stay in the Fremont building, but when space became available nearby, they jumped at it. Many small school advocates believe that having a space to call your own is very important—some say essential—to success.

When school opened, says science teacher Preston Thomas, "the student culture changed almost instantaneously." Attendance jumped from 75 to 95 percent—and the kids now like to stay late.

The move transformed student-teacher relations. "When there's a problem," says Miller, "we don't use confrontation tactics common in a large school, where you struggle for control. Here, you step into the hall and say, 'What's happening?'" Peer mediation now solves almost all conflicts among students.

And educators work together differently. "We're a team," says Miller. "I can tell the social studies teacher, 'You're not including health in your lessons on World War I. How can we fix this?'"

The graduation rate and the percentage of students going on to college have gone up dramatically, as has happened at many other successful small schools—a reflection, educators say, of more positive student attitudes.

Raising test scores proved harder—and that, too, has happened at other small schools. But last year, the scores went up. Life Academy was the only Oakland high school to make Adequate Yearly Progress. "We have not abandoned good teaching to 'teach to the test,'" says Thomas. "Quite the opposite. We have worked to improve our teaching through professional development and reflection on our practice."

The Downside

Small schools do have drawbacks. Teachers often face multiple class preps, and students have a narrower range of courses.

At Castlemont, a big, poor high school that was cut into seven small "academies," teachers are working crazy hours trying to get things right, reports math teacher Jack Gerson. He wonders how long their commitment will last. "Who's going to work 100 hours a week? Not someone with experience and family responsibilities," Gerson says. It doesn't help that the district is enduring a state takeover, slashed budgets, and shrinking staff as they try to make big changes.

But even some of the angriest critics believe small schools can help shrink the achievement gap. "It's a good idea—if there are enough resources and faculty connectedness," says Gerson.

"Last year, this place was a madhouse. We had hundreds of students out of class at all times, banging on doors, screaming, jumping kids. That's gone. It's much calmer. You can teach."

Cultural competency

Respecting Diversity

A teaching approach designed to help meet students where they are.

When English teacher Linda Christensen looked at the essay in front of her, she knew she was facing a challenge. In four short sentences, a ninth-grade boy we will call LaJuane had made eight capitalization and spelling errors.

But that wasn't her biggest concern. Writing about his passion for football, LaJuane had given only a hint of emotion: "I Realy Injoy the sport. I like Hiting and running…" 

So Christensen restrained her red pen, and set out first to free his voice. "Show me what you like about football," she wrote. "How do you feel when you're on the field?" 

His next draft: "When the halmut toches my Head my body turns Like doctor Jeckel and Mr. Hide.…My blood starts racing my hart pumping. Like a great machine of power…" and on for two pages of powerful imagery.

Christensen, now the high school literacy specialist in Portland, Oregon, is a leader in the effort to reconcile a fundamental conflict: that while America is a nation of many cultures, languages, and language variations, one language is all but essential for economic success. And so she goes on the hustings around Portland, helping kids bridge the communication gap without minimizing their life experiences.

Photo by Craig Michelldyer

She knows that the barriers are complex. Students trying to realize their own versions of the American dream can find themselves held back by stereotypes their teachers have absorbed, by cultural miscues, and by their parents' attitudes toward schools, which may have been formed by their own unhappy experiences. To Christensen, and to others trying to narrow the achievement gap, the crucial first step is to understand and respect their students' cultures, home lives, and languages.

Working with LaJuane, Christensen showed him that she believed he could be a powerful writer by praising what she liked and asking for more. But that wasn't enough. Christensen also had to help LaJuane learn standard English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. She made a list of the types of errors he was making, and began working with him on capitalization because it was easiest. Rather than covering his paper with red marks, she taught him the rules and had him find his own mistakes. Once he mastered capitals, she went on to other errors.

Christensen's system is to keep a list of each student's standard English errors on her computer and print them out for students so they can check their own writing.

"Some teachers tell me that takes too much work," she says. "My answer is, it's an investment. You spend an enormous amount of wasted energy if you correct every error yourself, and it doesn't teach your students to change."

LaJuane's punctuation mistakes were random, but for many minority students, grammar mistakes in standard English follow definite patterns: They are using the rules from their first languages, which may be Vietnamese or the version of English known as African-American Vernacular English or Ebonics.

Just as standard English speakers generally aren't conscious of their language's rules, neither are children with other home languages, and it's hard to change what you're not aware of, says Christensen. She says teachers need to learn the rules of their students' first languages, so they can teach them how those rules differ from standard English. For example, in African-American Vernacular English, the third person singular has no "s": "He say."

Once students understand the differences, says Christensen, "we talk about when you want to use standard English and when you use your home language. They generate the list themselves. They figure out that audience dictates the language you use. But they have to come to it. That works much better than for me to say, 'This is wrong.'" 

Send for NEA's Human and Civil Rights Department's new guide on closing the achievement gap. CARE: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gap offers research-based activities to engage poor and/or culturally and linguistically diverse students by building on their culture, unidentified abilities, resilience, and untapped effort. For more information, contact NEA Human and Civil Rights at 202-822-7700 or hcrinfo@nea.org.

Linda Christensen explains more about her approach at www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/18_01/18_01.shtml.

Web Exclusive!

Bridging the Achievement Gap in Florida, California, and Michigan

I know you!

Last year, Pearl Ershery, a guidance counselor at Mulrennan Middle School near Tampa, met a student who looked destined to spend her teen years in 8th grade. The girl, a foster child, already had repeated the grade once and struggled desperately to answer questions on the reading test required for promotion in Florida.

But Ershery didn't let her struggle alone. As part of a schoolwide mentoring program, every Mulrennan educator took on a low-achieving student last year and helped them with reading.

"A little gain is better than none," Ershery said. "Hopefully, they'll eventually close the gap even more."

Mentorship programs work by creating close relationships between students and teachers. The kids often are motivated by the special attention, and the adult can provide specific instruction based on their individual needs, Ershery said. This year, Ershery is working with five special education students -- mostly on comprehension skills and vocabulary. Hopefully, they'll do as well as their predecessor. She passed the state's reading test on her second try and happily graduated to high school.

Finding the missing piece

If X equals all the stuff that Deborah Gore's second-graders should learn this year and Y equals all that they've mastered already, then Gore knows exactly how to solve X minus Y.

Gore and her colleagues at Redwood Elementary in Fontana, California, east of Los Angeles, are using reams of testing data to help their poor and Hispanic students master their lessons, she said. Early in the year, all the kids took a test to provide baseline data -- what they did and didn't know -- and then Gore's principal matched that information to the specific skills and standards that California second-graders are expected to master.

"He actually brings us all together in a meeting and shares with us what the data shows. We look at that and find out where the students need help and then what we can do in the classroom to help them," Gore explained. In her school, vocabulary remains a hot issue - so it's one that her colleagues strategize and talk about during common planning periods. "We're not setting anything aside, but we're hitting those standards hard."

Three hours a day = An extra two months!

Kids at Riddle Middle School in Lansing, Michigan, get to school an hour early for tutorials and homework help, and then they stay another two hours after school for more assistance, plus a little fun with sports and sewing and other activities.

"These programs are just essential for a good comprehensive school - they give them time to get prepared for the day and then extra reinforcement after school," said former Riddle teacher Jeff Champion. Plus, he adds, "The students are not outside in the elements, but inside in a safe environment, still engaged and still learning."

It seems like common sense: More time spent in the classroom should add up to more learning. It's certainly the reason so many schools are experimenting with extended days, Saturday sessions, and even year-round schedules, which eliminate the traditional summer vacation in favor of shorter, redistributed breaks.

NEA encourages teachers to increase the amount of time that kids spend on task (no easy thing, especially as the appetite for mandated testing grows), but research on year-round schools specifically is mixed. A recent Duke University study did find students on traditional schedules were more likely to forget their lessons over the summer, especially kids from low-income families.

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