Comments on: A Call for Questions – Decatur School Board Candidates Forum

By: Deanne

Deanne — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:25:35 +0000

Last call, Y’all!

Thanks for all the good questions! (And the silliness! :0)

By: New Scott

New Scott — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:13:51 +0000

Excellent! Very well-said. In my mind, closing the “achievement gap” should just be trying to help lower-performing students succeed and improve, regardless of race or any other divisory category.

By: cubalibre

cubalibre — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:07:59 +0000

+1M

By: tiptoe

tiptoe — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:58:37 +0000

The achievement gap needs to be redefined in terms of socioeconomic status. There are plenty of black students in our schools who are performing just fine. There are plenty of black or minority students who do NOT live in public housing. And there are plenty of white students who do not have college-educated parents. There are plenty of kids of every color who have learning disabilities that prevent them from achieving because they don’t fit into CSD’s mold.

We’ve got to stop labeling our children’s achievements based on race. I can’t believe we’re still doing that. THAT is the problem with this goal.

By: At Home in Decatur

At Home in Decatur — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:44:10 +0000

I think that CSD has great intentions and is overall on the right track but has expressed the goal in an awkward and inaccurate way. If white student performance were to plummet, CSD would achieve its goal of closing the achievement gap, but not really accomplish what they want. If on the other hand, the goal is stated as all students reaching their true academic potential, then we might see modest gains in white student performance but a much greater gain among black students, resulting in a reduction of the achievement gap that mirrors CSD’s true intentions.

I think CSD very much cares about improving the performance of minority students but has some budgetary and administrative hurdles. IMHO, to make even more of a difference–and the recent SAT scores highlight that there’s still quite a gap–it needs to keep class sizes small at the elementary level, keep parapro support high there, and increase the number of students referred early for educational interventions and give them IEPs. But because of budget issues, CSD has been forced to move in the opposite direction of increasing class size. Some of the administrators act more like gatekeepers than promoters of IEPs. This may be penny wise and pound foolish.