NEA: NEA Today January 2005

Readers' strategies for bridging the achievement gap

During the month of January, NEA Today readers shared their tried-and-true tips, techniques, or programs for tackling the achievement gap. Here's the transcript of our online discussion.

The Play's the Thing

We have a 35 percent gap between the African American and white students in our school.

I believe that the most powerful thing I can do in my classroom is encourage independent reading. We have a classroom library of over 400 scripts that students check out. They are required to read six plays per semester. Students complete play reports, which require them to summarize the play and then make decisions about favorite characters, design options, and potential audiences for each play. Once every three weeks, we sit in a circle and share something about the plays we've read.

I don't require any student to read a particular play, but I've made sure that there are plenty of plays by African American playwrights in our class library. When African American students begin to read plays by August Wilson, Ntozake Shange, Pearl Cleage, Lorraine Hansberry, Charles Smith, etc., amazing things start to happen.

I recently did an analysis of my students' grades over the past four years, and I found that there is a 15 percent gap between the African American and white students. But that is 20 percent lower than the school average. I'm not content, but I am encouraged.

-- Grade 9-12 theatre arts teacher

Is P.E. the Key?

A teacher friend of mine recently told me that her 7th grade daughter was doing so much better in school this year than in the past. She attributes it to the fact that her daughter has Physical Education class every day!

Are there any studies regarding this?

-- PreK-6th grade physical education teacher

Looping Success

I'm currently "researching" the benefits of looping in the early years. This is my first time doing it.

A couple of years ago, one teacher in each grade level (there are five per grade) chose to teach a "Foundations" class, which consisted of no more than 16-18 (depending on grade level) children that we considered at-risk, based on previous grades' test scores and general performance, teacher recommendations, our knowledge of the family, Title I/Reading Recovery performance, etc. The class did not necessarily include special needs children (unless we thought they "fit" with the group) or major behavior problems.

Each of us focused on language arts and math, integrating social studies and science standards as much as possible. The students' test scores as a whole went up. I taught the K Foundations class and loved it. We've since changed principals, but I'm hoping that our new principal will give me the go-ahead to loop back down to K and take a Foundations class, then loop up to 1st with them.

-- K/1 looping teacher

Write On!

Write On is an innovative staff development project that emphasizes the use of technology to deliver curriculum and improve composition skills in grades 3, 4, and 5. Participating teachers created electronic teaching resources which are available to anyone either online or by download from the Write On website. A full year of composition instruction resources are available.

-- Grade 3-5 teacher

Needs Help in Kansas

I'm looking for ideas for remedial math programs for students who do not reach the proficiency level on KS state math assessments.

-- 3rd grade math teacher

Make Class Content Relevant

In my classroom I attempt to make learning as relevant to the students' lives as possible. I teach at a school that is 98 percent Latina/o, so whenever possible we read stories and poems by Latino/a writers who relate to young teens (Gary Soto, Francisco Jimenez, Sandra Cisneros). We write about issues which affect the students directly, such as the dress code, types of music, home problems. It is enlightening to see how much "better" students read and write when the subjects are what interest them.

-- 8th grade language arts teacher

Good Things in Small Packages

Small groups, small groups and more small groups! I've always had great success lifting my students' achievement by dividing them up in small homogeneous groups. You need to create as much one-on-one time with your students, and, with growing class size, the best solution I have found is using small groups. The low-achieving kids can't hide, and you get to understand each child's needs very quickly. Every two weeks I reassess all students and make changes to any of the groups.