THE ‘EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT GAP’

THOUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Bill Schechter

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make

words mean so many different things.” (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

It’s time to go down the rabbit hole of the “Educational Achievement Gap.”

We all know the phrase, but do we all mean the same thing by it? Charter advocate Michelle Rhee’s claim on a recent radio show that Charters have made progress in closing the gap went unchallenged.

It is not surprising that the on-air discussion quickly moved on to issues of class, race, funding, choice, transparency, and access. Mentioning the gap often serves as a springboard to the major ed reform debates. Indeed the phrase “Educational-Achievement-Gap” almost fuses into a single word as it speeds through our neurons. It’s time to pause, slow things down, and deconstruct.

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The noun root of the first word is “Education.” it’s almost always accompanied by the unsupported assumption that we all agree on what “education” means. The etymology of the word itself suggests something broad: “to bring up (children), rear, bring out, lead forth.”

However, advocates of Charters, standardized testing and data collection prefer a narrower definition. The purpose of education, they believe, is to master information mandated by state frameworks. A half-century ago, as a Bronx high school student, I was exposed to just such an approach in preparing for the dreaded state Regents Exams. This annual ritual was accompanied by the purchase of Barron’s “cram” books. A poor math student, I was astounded to learn I had finished in the 98th percentile for Geometry and Trig. I was actually a math genius! Friends, I regret to say I remember nothing. Even sadder, no lasting interest in the subject was inspired.

In 1861, William Johnson Cory, a revered Eton School “Master” proposed a very different view of education:

You go to school… and you are not engaged so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain… But you go to a great school, not for knowledge so much as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual posture, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts … for mental courage and mental soberness. Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge.”

More than a hundred years later, a Lincoln-Sudbury senior, Cecily Morgan, attempted her own answer in a school essay contest entitled, “What does it mean to be educated?” In part, she wrote:

Education = a search for more questions… In 8th grade looking through a microscope for the first time, turning the knob until suddenly into brilliant sharp focus- a cell of plant stem- a moment of sharp focused wonder…The feeling when I finished writing the unwritten ‘Caddy’s Book’ from The Sound and the Fury, and knowing it was good and ‘right,’ because I only gradually returned to myself from that second character of my imagination. Transient moments when I felt myself grow with a spontaneous realization of truth.

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“That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: "because

they lessen from day to day.”

“Achievement” is the second word in the triad. But how can we know when someone actually does “achieve”? Advocates of the Charter/standardized test approach confidently respond: test scores (with computerized tables that can compare one student’s “achievement” to another’s carried out to the hundredth place. Data, we are reminded, doesn’t lie).

But wait, this rabbit hole looks familiar to anyone acquainted with the SATs. Those three letters once stood for “Scholastic Aptitude Test,’ because the College Board claimed its test could predict a student’s performance in college. When it was shown that the test could be prepped, the College Board was sued and these three letters came to stand for nothing more than a product fewer and fewer applicants are now required to take. Today, most colleges want a fuller assessment of a student’s potential to achieve. They want letters of recommendation, essays, transcripts, a record of activities and experiences, as well as creative projects. They understand that SAT scores often reflect only a family’s ability to secure expensive test prep tutoring.

As a high school history teacher, I found exams useful as partial measures of student achievement. But I also needed to evaluate regular homework, essays, term papers, and discussion and debate participation. Even on exams, I wanted to see students go beyond factual regurgitation and demonstrate how they assess conflicting interpretations; conceptually link various events; advance or weigh evidence; connect history to current events–in short, I wanted to see them think. Most charters place test prep front and center.

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“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds like uncommon nonsense.”

Our last word is “Gap.” Whether between black/white, urban/suburban, or poor/affluent students, an academic gap does exist. However, it could be more accurately named “the test score gap” given how unthinkingly we use the term. Because “achievement” has been reduced to scores on one or two imperfect assessment instruments, we keep trying to close the gap through more test prep. If our understanding of achievement went beyond multiple-choice tests, we would use a more comprehensive approach based on a deeper understanding of what education involves. Is this all semantics? Not really. Charter school students–even those with comparable MCAS scores–will be unable to compete with suburban peers who have spent more time reading, writing, and thinking critically.

And now we come to the meta-gap that explains all others. Test scores in the U.S. mainly reflect class and zip code, and, tragically, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialized country.

The unwavering mission of hedge fund philanthropists who advocate and help finance Charters is to demonstrate that it’s possible to close the Educational Achievement Gap without closing the Income Gap that forms the bedrock foundation of their wealth. They are intent on doing this through a three-card monte dealer’s sleight of hand: diminishing what education could be in favor of a test-based substitute emphasizing relentless prepping.

It’s hard to follow a good dealer’s hands, but in the blink of an eye, Education has becomes a test. Achievement has become a score. And the Gap has become a distraction from the even larger one hidden in the dealer’s palm that he prefers we not notice.

Parents, what kind of education do you want for your children?

“Which way you ought to go depends on where you want to get to...”

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Bill Schechter was a history teacher at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional H.S, for 35 years, a volunteer tutor at Boston Arts Academy, and a practicum supervisor for Tufts and UMass.