The Achievement Gap Starts Before Kindergarten

"By age three, the children of professional parents
had vocabularies of about 1,100 words,
and the children of parents on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words.
And the children's IQs correlated closely to their vocabularies.
The average IQ among the professional children was 117,
and the welfare children had an average IQ of 79."
-- Paul Tough, in his book Whatever It Takes

A landmark study in 1995 by Todd Risley and Betty Hart found that the number of words a child hears from their caregiver by the age of 3 correlates very closely with their level of achievement during their school years. A new study just came out by Anne Fernald. She found that differences in comprehension were apparent as early as 18 months of age between children raised in low income, low vocabulary families and children raised in wealthier, high vocabulary families. (Both studies also found that lower income families often used less vocabulary. So it wasn't just that they sought out low income families that also used more basic vocabulary. They found that the two just came together in most cases.) So to affectively tackle the achievement gap problem that is apparent as soon as students enter kindergarten, changes need to be made before that point.

What should that look like in the Poudre School District? We already have some early childhood education. Is getting children into school at younger and younger ages the answer? Or should we target teens in high school, many of whom are the parents of tomorrow? If they learn now that the larger a child's vocabulary the better they'll do in school, will that inspire them to talk more to the kids they have in years to come? It certainly wouldn't be a quick fix for our low income schools, but it could have an affect a decade from now. 

Serve the Children Better, Give Them the Resources They Need

Diane Ravitch was interviewed this morning on NPR's Morning Edition. Formerly a supporter of charter schools, standardized testing, and No Child Left Behind, she recently reviewed the data and found that these programs she had advocated for simply weren't working. You can hear the 5 minute clip, or read the transcript, in this brief interview highlighting her new book, Reign of Error.

Here are a couple of highlights from the interview:

"The reason we call them bad is because they're serving disproportionate numbers of children with disabilities, because the charter schools don't want them. They have disproportionate numbers of children who don't read or speak English because they're foreign born. And the charter schools don't want them either. So we're getting the public schools overloaded with low performing children and then calling them failing schools. And that's wrong. Are there bad schools? If there are bad schools then the people whose feet should be held to the fire are the superintendents, the administrators, the people who run that system. It's their job to identify the schools that are really bad schools and to change them. And then give that school the small class sizes it needs, the guidance counselors it needs, the extra resources it needs so that it can serve the children better."

"American public education is a huge success. Test scores have never been higher than they are today for white children, black children, hispanic children and Asian children. High school graduation rates have never been higher than they are today for all of those groups. Our schools are not failing. They're very successful. Where there are low test scores, where there are higher drop out rates than the national average is where there is concentrated poverty. Now we cannot, obviously, wipe poverty out over night, but there are many things we can do to make school a stronger equalizer than it is today. One of those would be to have reduced class sizes in the schools that serve the children of poverty. Another would be to have universal pre-kindergarten. We should have a strong arts program in every one of these schools because children have to have a reason to come to school other than just to be tested. … The kids we're trying to help the most are getting the least." 

Become a Volunteer

One of the district's goals for the past several years has been to close the achievement gap among its students. Towards that end, although every school gets a set amount of money per pupil in the school, a small additional allotment is given per pupil for those considered at risk. Students who traditionally have struggled more include students with learning disabilities, students coming from low income households, and students for whom English is not their primary language. The additional money that schools receive is often used to pay for additional paraprofessional support, an extra counselor, a staff worker that tries to improve attendance issues, and other types of support professionals whose goal is to help those struggling students catch up with their peers within the district.

But if you compare the additional support one at risk child receives with that money to the additional support an average student in the district receives through other means, you'll start to notice some discrepancies. A hypothetical comparison can help to make this plain.

Let's imagine the daily life of the average Poudre School District student. They're woken up in the morning by either their parent or an alarm clock. They eat breakfast and head for the bus. They have a similar day at school as any other kid, although if they're in a school on the south end of town, they're much more likely to be in a classroom with a lot of volunteer support (which means they not only get more one on one time, but they're also learning from a teacher who is more relaxed because she has more assistance from parents and community members). When the student gets home, they might have a snack, and often there's a parent around encouraging the student to work on homework. That parent is also available to help answer questions about the homework and add additional examples as needed until the child understands what needs to be done to complete the assignment. After a nourishing dinner and some relaxing time with family, the child is directed by the parent to go to sleep so that the student will be well rested for the following day at school.

Now let's imagine the daily life of the average at risk PSD student. The family might not be able to afford an alarm clock or the parent(s) in the house simply haven't seen the need to purchase one. Because the parent works two jobs, or is depressed because he or she is out of work, or is passed out from the evening before, there's no one around to wake the student and make sure the child makes it to the bus in time. The child might still get to school, but will be tardy and will have missed educational time. It's likely that they also didn't get breakfast and they missed the "Free or Reduced Lunch" breakfast that they could have gotten if they were on time. They have a similar day at school as any other kid, although the teacher is often overwhelmed with the needs of the students in the classroom, has very little volunteer support, and has the added burden of undiagnosed students with learning disorders that disrupt the classroom and require more time spent on discipline that you might see in other classrooms in the district. When the student gets home, they might have a snack of chips or a candy bar. Because the parent(s) is depressed or working multiple jobs, no one encourages the student to do homework, nor is there any help with that homework if it's needed. After fending for themself for dinner, the student watches TV and goofs around to late at night when they finally realize they're tired and put themself to bed.

The difference between the achievement levels in these two students is quite likely to be starkly different. One student is receiving additional support all day long. The other struggles to get additional support, even while at school.

There's not a whole lot that can be done about a student's home life (unless the home is unsafe). But there's a lot that could be done to change the student's experience at school. All it takes is for the community to identify high needs schools, then inundate the schools with volunteer support. If enough people get involved, then the weight doesn't fall heavily upon any one person. Volunteer shifts can be as little as one hour all year, to a couple hours every week. Work can be as simple as making copies for a teacher, or as rewarding as taking aside a student who is struggling with reading to help them sound out syllables.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to make a huge difference in a classroom. Sometimes just walking around, checking a student's work, and praising them for a job well done can motivate a kid to work harder the rest of the day. It let's them know that they're on the right track and that someone cares. You don't have to know algebra or pre-calc to make a huge difference in a kids' math scores. Many of the district's at risk students enter kindergarten without a basic sense of numeracy. In other words, just sitting with them and teaching them how to count to 100 can be a huge advance in their learning. And the more support these students get in elementary school, the more likely they'll be rock stars in middle and high school.

If you would like to volunteer with the Poudre School District, here's the process you need to follow:

1. Register with Share It! Click on the "click to register" button under the "Individual Parent or Community Volunteer" banner on the right side of the page. The school will need to do a background check on you which they'll redo every few years. It's a means of being sure that students remain safe.

2. When you give information about volunteer opportunities that you'd be interested in, select a specific school to get updates on. Volunteering in just one schools means that you'll get to know the staff and the students better and will become more a part of their community. This will have benefits not only for the staff and students, but for yourself as well as you gain a school family.

3. You should start receiving updates both for district wide needs and for needs associated specifically with the school you signed up with. Select opportunities that look good to you and follow up with them. If you write to a teacher or volunteer coordinator and don't hear back, keep pestering them. They're probably very busy, but that doesn't mean they don't want your help!

4. If you have a skill that you'd like to share, but you don't see any notices for help that seem to match, go in to the school and talk to the principal or a secretary and see if there's a way you could offer your services. Sometimes you have to push a little bit. Again, this isn't because your help isn't wanted, it's because sometimes teachers and staff are so maxed that things fall through the cracks. Don't give up if you don't immediately get the response you were hoping for.

If at any point you need help with the volunteer sign up process, talk to Cyndi Gile, the Volunteer Coordinator for the district.

What is S.A.N.E.?

S.A.N.E.

stands for School Advocates for the North End. We are a group of parents who have seen some areas of inequity and want to help close the education gap for at risk and minority students. We have chosen to focus on four schools in particular - Putnam Elementary, Irish Elementary, Lincoln Middle School, and Poudre High School - both because these schools have high numbers of at risk and minority students and because the elementary schools both feed into Lincoln and Lincoln feeds into Poudre, so we have the opportunity to help students from K-12.

SANE grew out of advocacy groups that formed to prevent the closure of Lincoln, Putnam and Irish. We felt that these schools meet a particular need in our community and they meet it well, though they can always use more support both from the school district and the community. Towards that end, we formed this group to advocate for these schools. Specific areas of concern include:

Positive Feedback from the District: We need help in spreading positive stories about our four schools both because there’s a lot of good stuff happening in them that the community should know about and to mitigate some of the damage the district caused by putting these schools on a closure list. We also believe that the district staff, as well as teachers and personnel in other schools, should at the very least refrain from making negative comments about these four schools.

Closing the Achievement Gap: This requires resources: volunteers, money, access to programs, etc. Members in our group are actively involved in Parent/Teacher Organizations and School Accountability Committees with the goal of seeking out root causes, brainstorming on possible means of addressing those issues, and then supporting the school in making the changes it needs to close the gap. When we feel it is necessary, we also advocate for the school before the district in order to procure additional outside support to reach achievement objectives.

Budgeting: We want to advocate for needs based vs. student based budgeting. We feel that this will more adequately balance support needs for students within the district.

Communication: We see a need for improved communication between PSD and our north end parents, including parents that do not speak English.

School of Choice Mitigation: We have seen inequities in how schools have been able to woo students to their schools. Those that have, have the resources to woo the best and brightest. Those that have not are left with the unwoo-d. We want a better sense of what is and isn’t allowed and we would like some oversight of this to be sure that principals and staff aren’t overstepping their boundaries.

Improving Representation: We want the north side to be equally represented in committees in the school district. Current inequities may stem back to our previously mentioned issue of communication.

Leveling the Playing Field:  There are factors that are negatively affecting our schools that could be removed so that the focus can be put squarely upon closing the achievement gap. We hope to identify these factors and help to remove them.