III

III

III. A substantial Academic Achievement Gap exists in our South Orange-Maplewood Schools.

Looking at the ESPA/NJASK scores: 91% of our White students passed, but only 85% of our Hispanic students passed, and 72% of our African American passed. That is a 7% discrepancy between Hispanic and White students, and a 19% discrepancy between African American and White students.

Looking at GEPA scores: 97% of our White students passed, but only 82% of our Hispanic students passed and only 65% of our African American students passed. That is a 15% discrepancy between Hispanic and White students, and a 32% discrepancy between African American and White students.

Looking at our HSPA scores: 96% of our White students passed, but only 81% of our African American students passed, for a discrepancy of 15%.

Looking at Special Education Statistics: ESPA--only 40% passed GEPA--only 38% passed HSPA --only 57% passed. Most of our special ed students are in special education due to reading difficulties. If we had a different reading program, would we have fewer students in special ed? The special education teacher who served on our Program Review committee ventured to say that we probably would have fewer students in special ed.

Let’s look at NJASK Grade 4 Language Arts 2003 scores more closely:

District Wide Partially Proficient ______ Proficient Advanced Proficient

African American 27.7% 67.3% 5.0%

White 8.6% 79.5% 11.9%

Discrepancy: 19.1% 12.2% 6.9 %

Overall, nearly 30% of our African American children failed. Nearly 9% of our White children failed. Both statistics are too high. The achievement gap is staggering. However, if we put both failing African Americans and failing White children together then we have 36.3% of our 4th grade students failing. Nearly 4 out of 10 or 2 out of 5 children are failing. Using this data and asking the question, How do we know our Language Arts program works?, a statistician would have to answer that the current language arts program is not working.

A closer look at individual schools and their results offer additional information for study.

Clinton Partially Proficient ______ Proficient Advanced Proficient

African American 32.7% 67.3% 0.0%

White 4.3% 82.6% 13.0%

Discrepancy: 28.4% 15.3% 13.0%

No African American students at Clinton were advanced proficient. Over 30% of the African American children failed; higher than the district average. A total of 37% of the entire 4th grade failed. A large gap exists.

Jefferson Partially Proficient ______ Proficient Advanced Proficient

African American 25.5% 69.1% 5.5%

White 3.5% 82.5% 14.0%

Discrepancy: 22% 13.4% 8.5%

Over 25% of the African American children failed. Nearly 30% of the entire 4th grade failed. That is too high a failure rate.

Seth Boyden Partially Proficient ______ Proficient Advanced Proficient

African American 24.6% 71.9% 3.5%

White 5.6% 88.9% 5.6%

Discrepancy: 19.0% 17% 2.1%

Nearly 25% of the African American children failed. 30.2% of the entire 4th grade failed.

So. Mountain Partially Proficient ______ Proficient Advanced Proficient

African American 16.0% 60.0% 24.0%

White 8.7% 90.4% 10.9%

Discrepancy: 7.3% 30.4% 13.1%

Here we see less of an achievement gap. South Mountain has the smallest number of failing students: 24.7%. Yet that is still too high. One out of four failing is still not acceptable. Let’s look at the achievement gap: South Mountain has the smallest academic achievement gap in the partial proficient range. This school has the smallest number of African American children failing and the highest number of African American children succeeding at the highest level. Ironically, it also has the smallest number of African American children in the middle or proficient range. South Mountain’s African American students surpass White students in the advanced proficient range, yet South Mountain also has the highest percentage of White students at the advanced proficient range. Questions: What is South Mountain doing that the others schools are not, to produce the high number of African American advanced proficient students? What factors or variables make the statistics different than the other schools in the district?

Tuscan Partially Proficient ____ __ Proficient Advanced Proficient

African American 38.7% 61.3% 0.0%

White 19.5% 68.3% 12.2%

Discrepancy: 19.2% 7% 12.2%

No African American children in advanced proficient range. Nearly 40% of our African American children failed. Nearly 20% of the White students failed. Tuscan has the highest percentage of African American and White failures: 58.2%. That is more than half of the 4th grade population--6 out of 10 children.

Questions:

How is it that two of our elementary schools have no African American children in advanced proficient?

Why is there such a small percentage of African Americans in the advanced proficient category in the other schools?

Why are there so many children in the partially proficient category?

We have a high rate of 27.7% of our students district wide failing the Language Arts section of the NJASK, with one school having 58.2% of its 4th grade population failing.

With such diverse statistics, yet all schools “using” the same program and curriculum, why do we yield such diverse scores?

If we believe that it is not about race, not about socioeconomic status, and believe that ALL children can indeed learn and succeed, then might it be the program and the curriculum that is the variable?

Again--how does our reading program affect student achievement? How does our Language Arts program affect the achievement gap? Another point needs to be made: a recent article in The New York Times noted the tremendous use of tutors in affluent communities. It was found that such dependence upon tutors insures student success and keeps “premier” communities premier. How does that factor affect our community? The practice of private tutorage may be a factor affecting our scores.