MALLIE ELIZABETH IMBLER: Education Equity: Solutions Aimed at Closing the Achievement Gap in the Mississippi Public. This dissertation seeks to explore solutions aimed at closing the achievement gap in Mississippi public schools. I plan to explore the following: a) Why is the achievement gap part of policy debates in Mississippi and how have individual school districts and policymakers responded to the gap?
How Real is the Gap?: A Statistical Analysis Data Source
Because of the predictive power of early math scores, I first analyzed the mean scale scores of 4th graders across the country and in Mississippi specifically. In the mean scale scores of both national students and the mean of MS students, the line trend of both groups mirrors the other with a gap between the two. Therefore, MS students perform on average just below that of the national average.
The socioeconomic achievement gap among 4th grade math students tells a different story than the racial achievement gap when comparing national and MS scores. In all student groups in the 8th grade math data set, the difference is greater than for 4th grade math students. Although the overall average scores are much higher at the 8th grade level, the difference is greater.
Both white, black, and Hispanic students generally do better at the 8th grade level both nationally and in MS, but the gap is wider than the 4th grade group among both white and black students and white and Hispanic students. The socioeconomic achievement gap among 8th grade math students in MS is exactly the same as that of national and MS 4th grade math students. The final data set provided for 8th grade math students is parental education levels and their correlation with NAEP scores which is not provided for 4th grade students.
Across all student groups and grade levels, there has been a positive upward trend in achievement levels, although the achievement gap has narrowed only between the overall national and MS scores of grades 4 and 8 and between all racial groups in 4th and 8th grade.
The View of Policymakers. A Proposal Forward Introduction
Access to High Quality Pre-K
This means that those students who do not attend high-quality preschools have the potential to lag behind their peers when they enter kindergarten, meaning the achievement gap begins before students enter the public school system. Across all of my interviews, each stated the importance of not only access to Pre-K, but access to high-quality Pre-K. He said, "the dollars you invest in Pre-K, you don't have to spend on remediation or catch-up kids for the next 14 years."
Goins said that "the achievement gap starts before school and is based on socioeconomics and the home environment." In his Clinton district, they admit that while “65% of students. Currently, only 43% of students in the state attend some form of Pre-K; however, only 36.39% of students achieve passing scores on the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment. So the problem is not just creating Pre-K programs, but creating high-quality Pre-K programs.
The Center for American Progress found that access to and "participation in a high-quality preschool education program can improve children's development, reduce achievement gaps at kindergarten entry, and even have long-term benefits for children's schooling" (Friedman-Krauss, Bar. - nett, Nores 2016). For Mississippi students, access to high-quality Pre-K will allow children historically disadvantaged by race or socioeconomic status to enter kindergarten at the same level as their peers.
Individualized Support for Students
Furthermore, it allows children to reach benchmarks that were previously unattainable due to a predisposition to lower levels of success due to their socioeconomic status and/or race. Former Superintendent Tim Martin stated, "In my opinion, the way to close these gaps is not to focus specifically on the gap, but to make sure you have high standards and high expectations. You don't want to (close the gap) by getting white students to score less; you want your minority students to rise and score at the same level.
It didn't close in a year; it is student by student, family by family working together to stay successful.” Current Superintendent Goins also stated that “Clinton is trying to make gains for all students and does not look at race or gender.” Instead, "they focus on each individual student who may need additional support to be successful." At Clinton, individual student data is continuously monitored and if a student is not making progress, he or she receives intensive care as early as kindergarten. interventions. Goins stated that “if you give a child the extra support they need to be successful, great things will happen.” For Clinton, this amounted to a reduction in the achievement gap between each subgroup as they tackled the root cause of the problem for each child.
Because children who start in the district are often caught up by the time they enter primary school. However, with a low poverty rate and the 6th highest income rate in the state, similar to other places in Mississippi, Clinton has the ability to provide these resources to students.
Equitable Funding Formula
He stated that the teachers will carefully analyze the data and develop interventions to combat the deficiencies observed in the students. The time would be reorganized for students in the non-professional category.” For Aberdeen, “a considerable amount of time during the school day was devoted to reading”. In addition, “the district's student promotion and retention policy was restructured to give principals more authority to make student retention decisions. In [his] last few years in Aberdeen, elementary school class sizes (PreK-3) were reduced and more adjuncts were hired.” By the time Curlee left the district, it was in the top 10 in third-grade achievement and there were only a few schools with a 100% pass rate.
For districts like Tupelo, the tax base is so good that they can make up the gaps in school funding.” In rural areas, however, “they survive on state funding and there's no tax base to replace that funding. This must be taken into account.” Johnson acknowledges that redistributing funding does not mean taking it away from some students, but agrees that low-income students, low-achieving students, and vice versa, those in gifted programs deserve the funding they need, no matter what is this level. to be successful. I argue that this approach makes sense especially for non-urban districts.
Coming from the Tupelo Public School District, I agree that we have the resources to make up for what state funding does not cover, but other districts are not afforded that ability. I argue that it makes sense to redistribute funds to those districts that will give them the ability to provide targeted interventions for students who are already within the public school system and are not meeting performance standards.
High-Quality Teacher Attraction and Retention
From the point of view of Krystal Cormack, who worked with Teach for America, she agrees that while organizations like TFA have had a positive impact on reducing the teacher shortage in the country, “we need to explore ways to encourage young people to stay here for our country and serve while also actively recruiting other potential teachers to join us in the work of serving all children.” However, he also acknowledges that “we must ensure the effectiveness of individuals in front of our children every day because they make the biggest difference in closing the gap.” This requires a focus on the quality of teachers already in Mississippi school districts. He stated, "If students were to do better on state assessments and do better in classrooms, teachers should become better at their 'craft'." For Aberdeen County, this meant that more time was spent on professional development 'in house'. In Tupelo County, higher funding levels have meant sending teachers to ME, FL, CA and TX to learn about topics like advanced placement and the effects of poverty in education.
Johnson also recognized that when it comes to “access to high-quality schools,” it usually ends in a war over high-quality charter schools and district schools, but we need both. Currently, there are only five charter schools in Mississippi and three more are in the approval process. I agree that I think there are solutions that will work to bring all students in the state up to proficiency level, but I do not believe the achievement gap will ever go away until the root causes are addressed. As the quantitative data shows, the racial achievement gap in our state is closing, but the socioeconomic gap is not.
She argues that the achievement gap is not actually an achievement gap, but an opportunity gap. Therefore, I believe that my proposal will make progress in improving the achievement levels of both underachieving and overachieving students in the state, but no education policy will ever be able to solve the problem of poverty, as I believe, based on my quantitative and qualitative research , is the number one inhibitor of student success in the state of Mississippi.
Conclusion
This graph allowed me to see the trends in the achievement gap over time, from the implementation of No Child Left Behind or from the first available data for each subgroup, whichever comes first. Retrieved from https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ESSA - Ends federal Common Core mandate.pdf. Retrieved from https://www.wjtv.com/news/state/secretary-of-education-betsy-devos-approves-every-student-succeeds-act-for-missis-.
Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com education/debate-on-school-choice-continues.html Friedman-Krauss, A., Barnett, W., & Nores, M. Retrieved from http://news-worldbulletin .org An At-Risk Nation Demanded Education Reforms 35 Years Ago, Here's How It's-Screwed-Up Since then/. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multitime-dia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-summary.html.
Horace Mann – Twelfth Annual Report to the Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Retrieved from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/education/e- mentary-and-secondary-education-act-of-1965/.
