Mind the Gap

The student achievement gap is back, or to be more precise, it never left. Minority students still struggle with lower test scores in math and reading – but our research suggests they're struggling with a lot more than tests.

A new federal report finds that reading and math scores are improving for black students across the country, but so are those of white students, so the total "achievement gap" persists. Plus, the widest achievement gaps are now in northern and Midwestern states like Connecticut and Wisconsin.

The achievement gap has been one of the most persistent and troubling problems in education, and attempting to close it was a major focus of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Although the gap is usually talked about in terms of test scores, Public Agenda's Reality Check surveys suggest that there's more going on here.

Black and Hispanic students are much, much more likely to report disruptions and distractions in their schools than white students. About 3 in 10 black youngsters say they attend schools with considerable turmoil:

• 30 percent of black students report that teachers spend more time trying to keep order than teaching, compared to only 14 percent of white students
  
  
• 30 percent of black students say their school has very serious problems with drug and alcohol abuse, compared to 17 percent of whites
  
  
• 32 percent report very serious problems with fighting and weapons, compared to 12 percent of whites
  
  
• 33 percent of black students say their school is not consistent in enforcing discipline and behavior rules, compared to 19 percent of white students

No wonder, then, that test scores are lower for black students; look at the kinds of problems they report facing at school that have nothing to do with academics. In the research, these students practically yearn for safe, orderly places to learn. Instead, they're sent to places that, in the corporate world, would be considered a "hostile work environment." And students have much less recourse.

Minority parents yearn for more orderly schools, too. Minority parents are also twice as likely as white parents to say fighting and weapons are very serious issues and are more likely to question whether local school district superintendents do enough to ensure that schools are safe and orderly.

But problems can be turned into advantages, and maybe there's an opportunity here. If significant numbers of minority parents are dissatisfied with their schools, that's a significant number who, potentially, could be enlisted in efforts to fix them. Public engagement can bring citizens and leaders together to solve a problem [and it has been used to address this issue, with Public Agenda's assistance - - here's one example], but first people have to care. This research shows significant numbers do care, and that's one big hurdle that's been jumped already.