Closing the Gap Requires More Time Learning

In the last several posts, I've been talking about Brooke East Boston, the unusual charter school, that has vaulted itself to the top of Massachusetts in math, and nearly so in reading.  In a past post, I linked to a video of a grade 1 math lesson, to make the point, that transforming education requires deep thinking about transformational teaching.   

Today I want to make another point about what we call "closing the gap" these days.   Closing the gap for most students is going to require more time learning along with better teaching, more engaging curriculum, and higher expectations about what children can learn.   I've been diving into MCA and NAEP results, and I think they cry out:  we need lots more time learning!   Brooke East has a much longer instructional day and a much longer instructional year.  I think that the students may tolerate that day, because the teaching engages them:  the work is interesting, challenging, and rewarding to the students.  

How big is the gap that we have to transcend?  Minnesota white 10th graders have an average NAEP math score of 302, which places them amongst the top three states for that category.  In comparison, Minnesota black 10^th graders have an average NAEP math score of 259.    That score is insignificantly different from the average NAEP math scores of white 4^th graders--256. Let's put a fine point on that:   in Minnesota, the average black 10th grader's score on the math NAEP is just barely over the average white 4th grade math student.   How are we going to make up that difference if we don't do something radically different.

Don't tell me that the black 4th graders can't do way better.  If you believe that, back up to my previous post and click on the link to the first grade math lesson at Brooke East Boston.   If Minnesota really wants to teach these youngsters math at a high level ,we can do it, but we're going to have to change.    Charter schools aren't the answer:  the answer is changing how we teach and how we deliver instruction, in whatever school is doing the job, charter or not. 

There is a span of 50 points between proficiency in 4^th and 8^th grade NAEP scores.   That is, a student who is proficient in 4^th grade needs to gain 12.5 points each year to maintain proficiency  in 8^th grade.   However, the average black 4^th grader’s NAEP score is 222.  To reach proficiency, the student who is at 222 points would have to make up 27 points just to get to 4th grade proficiency, and gain another 12.5 points per year.  That is almost 20 points a year.  

If we let kids get that far behind in 4th grade, the black math student with an average NAEP score of 222, must somehow grow in math, year after year, each year, at almost double the rate of growth managed by a proficient white student.  How is that going to happen? 

Mathematics is a knowledge pyramid that requires mastery of earlier learned material in order for students to progress.  When students are behind, they will get further behind, unless significant additional resources are provided, and most districts lack the funding  to provide this to students who need it.  And most teachers have not been taught how to do it in teaching school.  The only viable solution to this is to provide lots more learning time and radically different teaching approaches with outstanding curriculum.  

It would help to add some of that learning time in pre-school.  But that learning time will only help close the math gap if the people who run the school do more that baby sitting and social emotional learning.   Then,  it would help if we had a longer school day, with more math and better teaching in the early grades.   Or, we could add a couple month of accelerated learning in the summer, so that the kids who are behind have half a chance of catching up.  That's what Brooke does:  Longer school day in the regular school year, lots more time doing mathematics and doing it smarter, and a couple extra months added to the school year.

We can't do that in Minnesota, can we?  We want to "close the gap" as long as we don't upset anyone's vacation, as long as we don't spend more money, and as long as we don't have to change how we teach.   Our current solution is to post scores and see if we can humiliate schools into doing something fabulous, without changing a thing, and that's not doing the job, is it? 

Special Education, Part 3