Achievement Gap
Ceci
Blanchett
“Various agencies of the U.S. government, in an effort to impede the buildup of a cumulative gap between the nation’s most advantaged and disadvantaged children, have created targeted interventions that are designed and implemented with the goal of reducing disparities between these two groups.” (2005, p. 150).
“It turns out, however, that when these gap-narrowing interventions are universalized— given not only to the group of children who most need assistance but also to the more advantaged group (regardless of whether the latter is identified as White, rich, high ability, etc.), a surprising and unanticipated consequence sometimes occurs: The preintervention gap between the disadvantaged group and the advantaged group is actually widened as a consequence of making the intervention universally available.” (2005, p. 150).
“In it, when the intervention is targeted (i.e., made available only to the disadvantaged group), the disadvantaged children usually gain significantly—sometimes closing the gap entirely or at least a major portion of it” (2005, p. 151).
“For example, a reading program aimed at teaching sound– symbol correspondences could be made available to all children, including those who already had this skill.” (2005, p. 151).
Part 1: A Taxonomy of Gap Widening
“When interventions are made available to advantaged and disadvantaged groups, two alternative explanations seem to be responsible for the gap-widening effect when it occurs” (2005, p. 153).
“Looking across rather than within age groups, one sees that a similar gap widening occurs as older children increase their advantage over their younger counterparts when they are offered the same intervention given to younger children.” (2005, p. 153).
“They reported that although the intervention improved the vocabulary of all children, analyses of pre- and posttest vocabulary measures revealed significant interactions between testing conditions and children’s ability.” (2005, p. 153).
“Barriers to utilization of such programs included time and scheduling factors, perceptions about children’s risk levels and intervention benefits, assessment and privacy issues, and family member influences.” (2005, p. 154).
Broader Examples
Student Loans and Work Study
“For example, according to an analysis of federal data on over 4,000 universities by The New York Times (Winter, 2004), universities that are members of the Ivy League receive 5 to 12 times the median amount of federal financial aid per applicant that is given to the rest of the nation’s colleges to run their low-interest loan programs.” (2005, p. 154).
“A dramatic example of the rich getting richer as a consequence of universal access to federal financial aid can be seen in the way that wealthy universities have garnered federal resources well in excess of those given to less wealthy universities.” (2005, p. 154).
SeSame Street
“Early analyses of Sesame Street by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) appeared to show that increased viewing of the show did, in fact, promote improved intellectual development mainly of poor children, thereby narrowing the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged children” (2005, p. 155).
The Advanced Placement Program
“AP classes can be considered a nontargeted cognitive intervention because among its stated purposes are to enhance all students’ prospects for admissions to selected colleges, allow all students to earn college credit before matriculating in college (hence it is also a financial aid intervention), and give schools an incentive to upgrade their pre-AP-level courses so that students who take these courses are academically ready for the AP curriculum” (2005, p. 155).
Technology
“The availability, distribution, utilization, and impact of technology are forms of nontargeted intervention when they have been earmarked to aid the academic performance of all children.” (2005, p. 155).
Medicine
“The profit-driven nature of many medical interventions virtually guarantees that any preexisting gaps between the rich and the poor will be widened as new medical procedures and interventions are discovered that, at least initially, are only available to those whose insurance covers them or who can independently pay for these procedures.” (2005, p. 155).
“Thus, interventions in the biological/medical domain pose questions similar to those we have been raising about cognitive, social, and economic programs—namely, if interventions are made universally available, then in some instances they will amplify preexisting disparities because higher functioning groups will utilize them to a greater extent.” (2005, p. 156).
Part 2: Some Salient Considerations
“So far, we have shown that it is not uncommon for universally available interventions to actually widen preexisting gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged groups as a result of greater utilization or greater performance benefits, and we have suggested that if many currently targeted interventions (i.e., those that have been means tested for lower performing students) were similarly made universally available, they, too, would contribute to gap widening because higher functioning students would make disproportionate performance gains or utilize them more fully.” (2005, p. 156).
“The purpose of the examples we have provided was to present a problem that policymakers and academics may not be aware of and to present a possibility that this problem, albeit fraught with controversy, is one they should be aware of.” (2005, p. 156).
“No such assumptions are made about the potential effects of cognitive, economic, and social interventions, as data indicate that such programs often widen preexisting gaps.” (2005, p. 156).
“One can imagine from an ethical position a case being made that every student has an intrinsic right to have access to any intervention that is known to improve performance.” (2005, p. 157).
Part 3: Is There a Guiding Political Philosophy to Help Address This Issue?
“Finally, we ask whether America has a consensual political philosophy to help guide the discussion of interventions described here, particularly when resources must be parsed to favor either the haves or have-nots.” (2005, p. 159).
‘From its beginnings, America has been of two “minds” about the role of individual differences and the inevitability of their expression. In his acclaimed history of the events surrounding the U.S. Declaration of Independence, McCullough (2001) documented through the letters of the framers of the Constitution that serious disagreement existed on this issue.” (2005, p. 159).
Conclusion
“Undoubtedly, there is a mix of interventions, some targeted and some universal, that produces the best overall cost– benefit ratio for a nation on political, economic, and moral grounds.” (2005, p. 159).
“To some extent this is an empirical question, but the point of this article is to foster a national dialogue on the heretofore undiscussed social, political, ethical, and economic aspects of this issue” (2005, p. 159).
“America has no national policy that (a) explicitly frames intervention programs in terms of consensual political philosophy that is mindful of both the need to elevate the top students and the need to redress past injustice, (b) acknowledges the types of outcomes that we have described here, and (c) considers what mix of interventions will best achieve national interests and values.” (2005, p. 159).
A Historical Analysis of Brown’s Relationship to and Effect on Special Education
“The Brown v. the Board of Education decision transformed American public education, not just for African American students, as some would have us believe” (2009, p. 372).
“Although few would have predicted that the Brown v. the Board of Education case would have any implications for special education and students with disabilities in particular, this decision laid the foundation for challenging the constitutionality of excluding children with disabilities from public schooling opportunities” (2009, p. 373).
“The decision in the Brown v. the Board of Education case laid the foundation for litigation to challenge the constitutionality of “separate but equal” as it related to public schooling opportunities for students with disabilities” (2009, p. 373).
“The rulings in these cases established separate schools for students with disabilities as unconstitutional and paved the way for the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, currently known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act” (2009, p. 374).
The Original Intent of Special Education in Theory and Practice
“In theory, special education was conceived to provide support and training for students who were perceived as a challenge for the general education system, including African American students, students with disabilities, and African American students with disabilities” (2009, p. 375).
“As special education theory evolved and resulted in actual educational practice, it became very clear that many students with disabilities were being educated in segregated self-contained settings with little to no exposure or access to their nondisabled peers” (2009, p. 375).
“The calls for accountability in general education have been amplified due in part to the assertion in the report from the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education that “children placed in special education were general education students first” (2009, p. 376).
The Reality of Special Education in Practice for African American Students
Among the concerns most frequently cited by researchers are (a) the persistent problem of disproportionate representation of African American students in special education, (b) the trend of placing African American students with disabilities into segregated instead of inclusive or general education settings, (c) the lack of culturally responsive interventions and instructional practices in both general and special education classrooms, and (d) the significant shortage of fully credentialed special education teachers including teachers of color.” (2009, p. 377).
“Although students served under IDEA are representative of all racial/ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, African American and other students of color are disproportionately represented and at risk for being labeled in the highincidence disability categories of mild mental retardation, specific learning disabilities, and emotional/behavioral disabilities categories.” (2009, p. 377).
“Currently, more than 6 million children enjoy a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment with a number of legal and procedural safeguards including due process, parental involvement, and individualized education plans” (2009, p. 378).
“It is surprising that even though IDEA has made it possible for students with disabilities to be educated in general education classroom settings, African American students are still more likely than any other group of students to be segregated and not placed in general education classrooms to the extent of their peers labeled as having disabilities.” (2009, p. 378).
From Brown to the Legal Resegregation of African American Students Through Special Education Placement
“Shortly after the courts ordered schools to desegregate and begin enforcing desegregation plans in the years following the Brown decision, it became apparent that significant percentages of African American children and Mexican American students in New York and California, respectively, were being labeled as mildly mentally retarded and placed in segregated classrooms” (2009, pp. 379-380).
“In their work with poor inner-city students in New York, Dunn noted that African American students’ representation in programs for students identified as having mild mental retardation exceeded rates that would be expected given their relative size in the general population of school-aged children” (2009, p. 380).
“The work of these researchers and others helped to end the use of intelligence tests as the sole basis for determining special education eligibility and played a role in securing some of the safeguards guaranteed by IDEA.” (2009, p. 380).
“In fact, research has illustrated that schools attended primarily by African American and/or Latino students are often schools that are deemed high poverty and have high turnover of the teaching and instructional staff, a high number of uncertified or provisionally licensed teachers, limited access to technology, few educational specialists (e.g., math and reading specialists) and resources (e.g., accelerated curriculum for all students), limited extracurricular opportunities, and dilapidated physical environments” (2009, pp. 380-381).
Who Are the Real Beneficiaries of Failed Urban Schools and Resegregation?
“Although the literature is replete with examples of “failed urban school districts” and “failed urban schools,” along with examples of students portrayed as “lazy” and poor parents of color as parents who “don’t care,” the dialogue rarely shifts to who are the real beneficiaries of the American educational system’s failure to equitably educate children in urban settings.” (2009, pp. 181-182).
“A lot of the blame for the current state of urban education has been placed on failed urban school districts, and although I believe that some of it is justified, I caution us to remember that urban school districts and systems do not operate in a vacuum and are in fact often a microcosm of the larger American society” (2009, p. 382).
‘Middle-class parents, a disproportionate percentage of whom are White, are not the only beneficiaries of the educational inequities experienced by poor children and families in urban schools; many others also benefit.” (2009, p. 384).
“Universities benefit because these districts provide fertile ground for research, there are large amounts of grant monies available to conduct such research in these areas, and these institutions have teacher/administrator certification responsibilities with a lack of accountability for the failure of their products.” (2009, pp. 394-395).
What Does It Mean to “Go for Broke” for all Children in Urban Schools?
“Going for broke” means doing whatever it takes to shine the brightest lights on educational inequities experienced by poor children, African American and other children of color, children identified with disabilities, and children affected by the intersection of all of these issues.” (2009, p. 395).
“It is now time for the American society and educational system working in concert to go for broke in the service of these marginalized children and families by both breaking down barriers that have caused and continue to maintain educational equities and truly refusing to accept “two parallel systems—one privileged, adequate, successful, and largely White, and the other disadvantaged in countless ways, disabled, starving, failing, and predominately African American” (2009, p. 396).
“In conclusion, going for broke as an American society and educational system to address educational inequities is simply providing an equitable high-quality education to all children regardless of race, social class, disability, or the intersection of all of these circumstances.” (2009, p. 396).