Issue Brief #1: The Achievement Gap

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The “achievement gap”—the persistent and significant disparity between the academic achievement of low-income and minority children and their white, middle-class peers—is the most pressing education issue facing the United States today and arguably the biggest social and economic problem of any kind facing Connecticut.

The achievement gap shows up on nearly every measure of academic achievement, such as state and local tests, the SAT, graduation rates, and rates of college matriculation, but is most clearly seen in the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. Mandated by Congress and overseen by the U.S. Department of Education, NAEP was created in 1969 and is commonly referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card.” Administered every two years to fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders in math and reading, and at six-year intervals in other subjects, NAEP provides a common yardstick that allows for side-by-side comparisons of the academic achievement of students from different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, and between students from different states.¹

Though the achievement gap has narrowed slightly over the past decade,² the 2005 NAEP results reveal that this disparity continues to be a distressing reality of American education. For example, on the 2005 fourth grade math test, while 47 percent of white students scored at or above the “proficient” level, just 13 percent of African Americans did the same, a 34-point gap. Compared on the basis of “grade level” skills and knowledge, the NAEP tests reveal that, on average, fourth grade African American students in the United States are 2.6 years behind white students in math and 2.9 years behind in reading. Similar gaps were found for Latinos as compared to whites, and poorer students as compared to non-poor students.³ In most categories, these gaps between groups widen the longer students are in school.⁴

How Is Connecticut Doing?

While every state has an achievement gap, Connecticut is one of the worst offenders. The 2005 NAEP results reveal that the Constitution State’s achievement gap at all levels, in all subjects, for all disadvantaged groups, is among the largest in the nation. In the fourth grade, for example, the difference in academic achievement between poor and non-poor students in Connecticut is 3.3 grade levels on the reading test, the largest of all 50 states, and the gap on the math test is second only to Illinois. In the eighth grade, Connecticut had the largest gap between poor and non-poor students on the math test (a 3.7 grade level gap) and was tied with Pennsylvania for the largest gap on the reading test (a 2.9 grade level gap).⁵

On the fourth grade math test, Connecticut’s African American students were found to be 3.0 grade levels behind white students. By eighth grade, this gap had climbed to 4.4 grade levels, meaning that the average African American eighth grader performed math on the level of a white student half-way through the third grade. The gap between Connecticut’s Latino and white students on the eighth grade math test is slightly smaller (3.9 grade levels), but still large enough to make it the worst in the nation. In fact, in no grade or subject area is Connecticut’s socio-economic, racial or ethnic achievement gap better than sixth worst in the nation. Most surprisingly, this is true despite the fact that Connecticut’s overall student performance drops dramatically from the fourth to eighth grade, from among the best in the nation to the middle of the pack.⁶

Taking the Gap Seriously

Understanding why the achievement gap persists, across the nation and in Connecticut, is difficult, since the reasons for the gap are complex. Some have argued that the achievement gap reflects larger social disparities in health, wealth, access to social services, parental education and involvement, and a host of other factors. Proponents of this view argue that holding schools responsible for social and economic problems over which they have no control is unfair and counterproductive.⁷ Others, while agreeing that social and economic ills affect student achievement, argue that high standards, clear academic expectations, and accountability measures aimed at motivating students, schools, districts, and states can help to shrink the achievement gap.⁸ Still others reject the standardized testing used to document the achievement gap, claiming that such testing is inherently biased along racial and socio-economic lines and fails to capture the significant progress being made in our schools.⁹

The popular currency of the last argument has declined in recent years under mounting evidence that the educational deficits documented by these standardized tests have clear real-world consequences. Take reading skills: the inability to read at a proficient level as measured by standardized tests has been strongly connected to higher levels of unemployment, poverty, and crime. In fact, 43 percent of Americans with the lowest literacy skills are poor, while 70 percent of prisoners fall into the lowest two levels of reading proficiency.¹⁰ Further, 47 percent of entering college freshman—even at selective campuses—now require at least one remedial education course.¹¹ Literacy also profoundly affects work prospects: Seventy-five percent of today’s jobs—even manufacturing and service industry jobs—require at least a ninth-grade reading level.¹²

In a competitive global economy, the gaps measured by the NAEP and other standardized tests translate into an unaffordable loss for the students involved, for their communities and for the nation. As the state with the largest achievement gap between rich and poor students in the nation, the costs for Connecticut are high. For instance, Connecticut is 50th out of 50 states in long-term job growth; has the second highest juvenile incarceration rate for Hispanic males and the third-highest for African American males; experienced the largest increase in income inequality in the nation since 1988; and, in 2007, for the first time ever, will spent more on its prisons than on its public higher education system.¹³

Where to Start

Decades of repeated reform efforts have driven home a simple lesson: The first step in closing the achievement gap is clearing away the excuses.

Myth #1: Connecticut’s gap is caused by the exceptionally high achievement of its affluent suburban students.

Some have claimed that Connecticut’s problems stem from the relatively high achievement of the top academic performers in the state. Whether or not that would ever be an acceptable excuse for leaving Connecticut’s poor and minority students behind, the data do not bear the argument out. For example, Connecticut has the nation’s largest gap between eighth-grade white and Latino students in math not because its white students score so high (whites in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas score higher), but instead because its Latino students have the second-lowest scores in the nation. In fact, by the eighth grade Connecticut’s Latinos are one and one half grade levels behind Latino students in states like Texas, Virginia and South Carolina.¹⁴ Similarly, Connecticut has the largest gap between eighth-grade poor and non-poor students in math and reading not because of the high-achievement of its affluent students (who scored three-quarters of a grade level behind their counterparts in Massachusetts in both subjects), but instead because its poor students were 39th in reading and 44th in math compared to poor students in other states.¹⁵

Myth #2: You have to solve poverty and every other social problem in order to close the achievement gap.

Many students are undeniably affected by poverty, crime, and other social problems outside the control of our schools. But the evidence suggests that schools can make a significant difference in elevating classroom achievement regardless of students’ backgrounds. Nationally, NAEP scores have risen slowly over the past decade while the achievement gap has narrowed, suggesting that the gap is not immune to efforts to shrink it and that the standards and accountability provisions states have put in place in recent years may be having positive effects.¹⁶

Here in Connecticut, there are a number of homegrown success stories of public schools that produced significant gains in the academic achievement of poor and minority students through higher expectations, innovative teaching practices, and robust accountability measures. New Haven’s Amistad Academy—a middle school whose students are 98 percent African American or Latino—achieved the largest performance gains between the 6th and 8th grade in the state. Its students are accepted by lottery with no other admission criteria and enter in the fifth grade two to three grade levels behind. These same students leave in the eighth grade with scores that rival those of Greenwich’s public school students.17 Hartford’s Dwight Elementary, with a 95 percent low-income student body, more than doubled the percentage of students within goal range on state achievement tests between 2000 and 2004. By reorganizing itself around a vision of excellence it became the highest scoring elementary school in the city, after being rated one of the lowest scoring just four years earlier.18

The Bottom Line

Connecticut does not tolerate inequality in its laws or political institutions. It shouldn’t tolerate inequality in its schools, either. The achievement gap can be shrunk and ultimately eliminated, and the first step is believing that in the right school environment, with the right mix of expectations and incentives, every child—in every one of our communities—can achieve academic success.

Endnotes

1. NAEP reports student performance in two different ways: through a “scale score,” a number on a 500-point scale that measures absolute achievement, and by three “achievement levels”—basic, proficient, and advanced—that measure achievement relative to a student’s mastery of skills appropriate to his grade. For examples of the skills and knowledge demonstrated by students performing at these levels, click here and here.

2. “NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance in Reading and Mathematics,” National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here. “Primary Progress, Secondary Challenge: A State-by- State Look at Student Achievement Data,” by Daria Hall and Shana Kennedy, The Education Trust, February 2006, available here.

3. Grade 4 Mathematics by Race/Ethnicity, 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here, and Grade 4 Mathematics by Socioeconomic Status, 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here.

4. Grade 8 Mathematics by Race/Ethnicity, 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here.

5. ConnCAN analysis of data from 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here.

6. ConnCAN analysis of data from 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here.

7. For an example, see Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap, by Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute, 2004, available here.

8. For an example, see Common Sense School Reform, by Frederick Hess, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

9. For an example, see The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards,” by Alfi e Kohn, Mariner Books, 2000.

10. The State of Literacy in America, by Stephen Reder, National Institute for Literacy, 1998.

11. Remedial Education at Higher Education Institutions In Fall 1995, NCES Report 97-584. National Center on Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, October 1996.

12. The State of Literacy in America, by Stephen Reder, National Institute for Literacy, 1998.

13. “Pulling Apart: A State-by-State Analysis of Income Trends,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, January 2000. “2004 Development Report Card for the States,” Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), 2004. “Juveniles in Corrections, Juvenile Offenders and Victims,” National Report Series, Office of Justice Programs, June 2004, available here. ConnCAN analysis of FY 2006-2007 Governor’s Midterm Budget, available here.

14. ConnCAN analysis of data from 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here.

15. ConnCAN analysis of data from 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, available here.

16. For examples, see There Are No Shortcuts, by Rafe Esquith, Random House, 2004, and “KIPP Principal Talks About Hard Work, Success, and Challenges,” Education World, March 2001, available here.

17. School demographic data from “Strategic School Profiles,” Connecticut State Department of Education, available here. Performance data from Connecticut Mastery Tests, available here. For example, on the 2004 CMT 8th grade writing test, 87 percent of Amistad students scored within goal range compared to 78 percent of students in Greenwich public schools.

18. For example, the average percentage of Dwight 4th graders scoring within goal range on the CMT reading, writing and math tests increased from 19 percent in 2000 to 50 percent in 2004. Performance data from Connecticut Mastery Tests, available here.