We hear about it all the time. It’s growing. There is a noticeable disparity within marginalized populations. Educational inequity perpetuates its growth. The achievement gap. Those far beyond the realms of the education world recognize this educational buzzword. Parents are often concerned about the achievement gap. Communities hear of it and worry how it is impacting the scores in their neighborhood schools, and subsequently affecting the status of their neighborhoods. It has become such a poignant topic of discourse that many have developed opinions around its causes and who is to blame. But what about critical discussion around solutions? Have we ventured towards feasible solutions that genuinely endure to close the achievement gap, or are we affixing a Band-Aid that will ultimately fall off to reveal yet another scar on the face of education?
A harsh reality we must confront is the effect of standardized testing upon our teaching. Many of us feel the pressure to get our students to perform on these tests to support our school’s overall rating score, to help us present stronger data to the educational hierarchy, and to make the paper presentation of our educational system appear stronger. My doctoral research concluded that many educators feel as though the creative side of teaching has gone by the wayside in favor of test prep. Teachers covet time to creatively explore with students, but feel as though it is frowned upon because it does not involve paired texts, annotating, and text-dependent questioning. I get it. I recognize the pressure to help our students perform so that they feel successful and we feel as though we are meeting expectations. I also understand that students deserve to be prepared for any test they are expected to take. It would be unfair of us to teach them through one method, and then expect them to take a test that does not align with the way they were taught. Students deserve to understand how the test works and what is expected of them. We as educators strive to help our students feel successful. We do not want them to struggle through a test and feel as though they are failures, which many of us have witnessed and experienced the heart-wrenching pain of watching our students’ morale deplete. We want what is best for our students; that is inherent in our choice to become educators.
Speaking with a myriad of teachers over the years has shown me that teachers have the heart and creative spark to catalyze learning within our students. So many teachers dread the thought of test prep and long for the days of creative pedagogical freedom. The days when teaching not only fulfilled us as educators, but also provided a creative outlet through which we uncovered new ways to engage our students. Some of us are still fortunate enough to work in an environment that encourages such instructional fortitude. However, many of us, especially those of us who work within undeserved communities, have succumbed to the pressure of getting our scores up. We come from the communities in which the achievement gap continues to widen, helplessly glaring at us with little hope of recovery. Here is where we feel pressured to find quick solutions to help our students simultaneously achieve and improve test scores. Here is where we must be most cognizant of how we approach teaching. If we are not careful, we are merely placing a Band-Aid upon a gaping wound.
Closing the achievement gap is not something that can be accomplished through one year’s worth of teaching. Perhaps we can accelerate the learning of a few students, but to effectively close the achievement gap at its widest increments, we need to examine the structural practices in place in education and allot the time to meaningfully work with students, change our practices, and close the gap. This will take time. That is something often overlooked by educational leadership, which often expects new pedagogical models to effect drastic change immediately, only to be disheartened when the change is not fast enough, resulting in a new educational paradigm the following year. There is not time for students and teachers to understand a new model with efficacy, and therefore not enough time for change to become transparent. I understand the urgency around the need for such change, as we do not want to leave any students falling through the cracks. However, we must be patient and work together to ensure year after year students are getting the support they need to ensure authentic progress. Too often we find ourselves focusing on short-term, Band-Aid solutions to get dependent learners to score higher on standardized tests. This only creates further dependency.
Many students whom fall within the achievement gap have not developed into independent learners; they do not have the skills and critical thinking proficiencies to engage in creative problem solving on their own. They are dependent upon the shortcuts, testing taking strategies, and tips provided by teachers to help them feel more successful on the test. This contributes to intellectual apartheid, thus only expanding the achievement gap. The way to close the achievement gap is to help transition students from dependent learners to independent learners by building their intellective capacity so they can begin to fill their own learning gaps with proper support from educators. How do we build students’ intellective capacity? Culturally responsive pedagogy plays a key role in this paradigm. We will explore this further in the subsequent post.
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