Report: Most city middle schools abate learning gap
By Leah Nelson, Norwalk Hour, September 27, 2006

NORWALK — Four out of five city middle schools outperformed the state average in progressing towards closing the achievement gap, according to school "report cards" issued Tuesday by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, or ConnCAN.

Seventh graders at Side by Side, Nathan Hale, Ponus Ridge and Roton middle schools all made greater-than-state-average performance gains between 2004 — when they were tested as sixth graders — and 2005.

West Rocks Middle School underperformed the state average by five points, the report says.

ConnCAN also reported that across the state, the gap in impoverished schools is growing.

"What we found, which was actually surprising to us, is that kids in more impoverished schools tend to go backwards," said Marc Magee, research director at ConnCAN.

The average statewide performance gain between sixth and seventh grades was zero, with neither progress nor backsliding. In some wealthier districts, the report shows a closing gap.

In Connecticut, students who are black, Hispanic or who qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches are consistently underperforming on tests, said Magee. These subgroups' scores have been singled out time and again by Department of Education and ConnCAN as valuable indicators of Connecticut's progress in closing the gap.

A common factor among many of the impoverished districts in which this trend is present, said Magee, are relatively high percentages of students belonging to these subgroups.

Magee speculated about why older students fail more. Principally, he said, it appears that the farther behind they are, the harder it is for them to meet the standards expected of children their age.

An 8-year-old child who comes into third grade with underdeveloped reading skills, for example, will likely have a much easier time meeting his peers' level than a 12-year-old seventh-grader who arrives at school not knowing the difference between a state and a country, for example, because the skills and knowledge missing are so much broader.

Earlier intervention makes for better success rates, he said, because students have less catching up to do.

Teachers who try to "motorboat" through curricula to quickly bring failing students up-to-date set themselves up for disappointment, Magee said. "If you move really quickly, there's almost no chance anyone will learn it."

Rather, schools should work with students on an individual or small-group basis to address and overcome their specific deficits, he said.

But he also noted that despite its proven record of helping students improve skill sets and test scores, individualized learning that takes time away from regular lessons is not a perfect solution, because even as they catch up on major gaps, students who are out of class miss the content their peers are being taught.

Formulating a system that works smoothly without ever contradicting itself is "probably our biggest public policy challenge as a state," said Magee. "We know that individual schools can make a lot of change, and we have to hope that districts can too."

ConnCAN is a nonprofit organization with the mission of closing Connecticut's achievement gap. It advocates specifically for the creation of magnet and charter schools, but selectively supports a variety of other methods shown to positively affect the gap.

"We know the status quo isn't going to get us where (we) need to be, (and) we think that if we come together as a state, we can do this," said Magee. "If all schools were making positive gains, then we would close the achievement gap. The schools that are succeeding are the ones we have a lot to learn from."