The Achievement Gap

Key ideas:

• Students come to school with an Achievement Gap, predicted by income.
• Students who are behind before school starts are more likely to miss a lot of school.
• Research shows that students progress at a similar rate during the school year, but the gap widens over summer.

Solving the "Achievement Gap" is not just about schools, testing, and accountability.  There are community- and national responsibilities to ensuring that all kids show up at school, and leave school prepared to succeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAvSYKvzdJ8&feature=youtu.be

Unclear "Focus"

Sandburg, along with several other schools in Madison was labeled a "Focus" school in the Spring of 2012. This is from the DPI's website: "Wisconsin identified 10 percent of Title I schools statewide which would benefit from additional training, professional development, and resources designed to improve student outcomes for a portion of their student population.". The most glaring of the many problems with this business is that we were identified because of a reading gap between English Language Learners and native English speakers. Not only is this a national (and natural, in many cases) trend, but we are actually on the progressive front-end of language education by promoting Dual-Language Immersion. And as the DLI program expands, and more students are learning in Spanish, but state- and federal mandates require testing to be in English ONLY, it could appear that our performance is slipping. It is my sincere hope that we can move beyond the cycle of school- and teacher-bashing and, as a nation, have a real - and messy - conversation about what we value (like bilingualism), what works in schools, and what is a reasonable approach (like testing students in the language they are being taught in). http://dpi.wi.gov/focus/index.html

How do American students compare?

This article, in response to Michelle Rhee's recent ad, helps paint a more accurate - and positive - picture of how American kids compare on international tests: http://www.good.is/post/michelle-rhee-s-new-olympic-themed-ad-ridiculing-public-education-misses-the-mark/