MPR's Tom Weber reported this morning that black students in Minnesota and across the U.S. are scoring better in both math and reading than they were before, but it's not enough better to close the national achievement gap between black and white students. Check out the feature audio, and then add your comments here.
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Like healthcare and taxes, issues regarding education are simply inescapable in our society! But it seems like we can never really fix education, for a number of reasons, admittedly most hearkening back to money and budgeting. We could open more schools, hire more teachers, provide students with more materials...
What's your opinion? What do we need to do to close the achievement gap? Are we on the right track? Will we ever achieve educational equality?
This is an open discussion, so you're welcome to link to your related Gather articles or other online resources. Your comments & articles may be quoted on http://minnesota.publicradio.org/your_voice/ or on mpr.org.
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Comments: 4
1) Get rid of the prison/factory model schools since they work against education.
2) Teach reading using the McGuffey Reader series. If frontier women could teach their children to read in less than an hour a week of instruction and produce good readers over 99% of the time then the schools should succeed in having 99% of the children reading above grade level (as currently set) by 5th grade.
3) Separate the teaching function from the grading function. Have one set of people measure the progress of each student and have a different set of people to the teaching.
4) Provide lots of support and encouragement for home schooling which works best.
Reward success.
We don't reward success anymore.
Not to sound old, but when I was in high school, the honor roll was a real honor. Only about a dozen or so students ever made it.
Today, the "honor roll" for most high schools is just about every kid that gets a passing grade. Because we don't want people to feel left out.
When there are school competitions, everyone gets an "attendence" or "participation" award. BS. Only reward exceptional work.
The problem is we don't reward success. We reward showing up. We have lowered the standard based on being inclusive, instead of holding a high standard that students would want to live up to.
Larry - Can you explain more your point about separating teaching from grading responsibilities? Why?
Julie - "Reward success." Good point. Countless people complain about grade inflation these days. But if this is the case and good grades are easy to come by, why is there still an achievement gap?
What do others make of these comments? Will rewarding success close the achievement gap?
Check out these other avenues of MPR's coverage of this issue:
Objects in Mirror
Idea Generator
2. Not calling a successful black person "white" if they become successful in the "white world".
3. Demanding that fathers stay active in their childrens lives.
4. You can speak your language at home(ebonics, Hmong, Spanish,Somali) but you have to communicate in clear English if you are to make it in almost any field.
5. Get rid of the "no snitching" thing and and actually work with the police to solve crime and gang problems.
Teachers and the "system" can only do so much, they must pull themselves up. More dollars and more programs aren't the answer.