The Achievement Gap

I agree with the fact that the concept of No Child Left Behind is excellent, but the way it is being executed needs to be reformed. As stated in the article, its goal is to close the achievement gap and their methods in achieving this goal are through standardized testing and the hiring of qualified teachers. As we have learned thus far, standardized testing is not an efficient way to execute learning. In the Au article, Bill Bigelow described it as being a memory phenomenon and named it a “Memory Olympics.” It simply tests the students for their ability to memorize the material as opposed to actually learning and retaining information. The execution of NCLB contradicts Multiculturalism because it insists on one set of answers.
http://vimeo.com/5281023
What was interesting to me about this video/article was that the Gering School district took it upon themselves to close the achievement gap that existed in their schools. They evaluated the education system of their district and attempted to reform the way it was implemented. Through the evaluation and research, the district observed the academic gap between their White students compared to Hispanic students and free and reduced lunch students to the non free and reduced lunch students. They believe that they had good, hard working teachers, but acknowledged the fact that they were not being provided with the right tools and training to properly enforce teaching. The instructional group aspect of their new teaching system was a bit confusing to me. I wasn’t sure if the children were aware that they were being placed in groups according to their ability and that certain groups were significant to others. If that is the case, I do not agree with it because it seems that it would create even more insecurities about their academic ability. If the students are aware of the criterion of their group, it may affect their performance due doubts of their academic ability for being in an inferior group. It also puts pressure on students to perform well, and we all experienced firsthand (during class) that being pressured has a major impact on one’s performance. Also in the Anderson and Kharem readings, we explored the empirical evidence that supports the stereotype threat model and how it has a major negative impact. I thought the results of the verbal experiment were very interesting in exemplifying this negative impact. The group that was pressured and told that the test was a diagnostic of their intellectual ability performed worse than those who were told that they were being tested to examine problem solving. This experiment suggests that their perception of what is being tested is a major factor in underachievement.