Practical measures are needed to reduce district’s achievement gap

Policy Code: 4001 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) “affirms the principle that every student, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, gender, cultural or economic background, sexual orientation, or disability, should be given an equal educational opportunity for educational development.”

However, one group feels this district policy is not being fulfilled in the case of minority students: the Campaign for Racial Equity in Our Schools protested in front of Lincoln Center on October 28, calling for a curriculum that is race-conscious and the implementation of mandatory competency training for staff that would focus on racial and cultural themes.

The group is continuing a long-standing effort in CHCCS to close the achievement gap between white and minority students, which has led to a “crisis situation,” group co-founder Stephanie Perry said.

The group protested that black students receive suspensions at eight times the rate of white students, and less than half of them passed end-of-course and end-of-grade tests in the 2014- 2015 school year.

Talking points at the protest included discrepancies between whites and minorities in percentages of students passing end-of-course exams and enrolling in gifted programming, as well as the higher rate at which black students are suspended compared to whites.

Superintendent Tom Forcella responded to the protesters by referencing Project ADVANCE, an initiative that focuses speci cally on compensation for teachers’ work.

In recent years, the district has hit schools with a steady barrage of initiatives, plans and other efforts to close the achievement gap.

The outlines of the programs, including Project ADVANCE, are littered with superlatives that blur the line between the plan and implementation.

According to the district website, ADVANCE is “a strategic compensation plan for teachers and support staff that ties profes- sional learning to salaries.”

But how can the student population, the most important part of the effort, work towards a goal that is specically designated “for teachers”?

Perhaps, instead, the district should invest more in existing measures that have already made improvements and would continue to do so if reworked and given more support.

Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) is an organization that works to close the achievement gap and prepare minority students for college and other post-high school opportunities. AVID is active in 44 states, including North Carolina, and impacts over 800,000 students.

Of AVID’s 36,481 seniors in 2013-2014, 99 percent graduated high school on time. By expanding the program to more underprivileged students, and, with the help of simple programs such as student-teacher tutoring, AVID could be made an even more effective tool to close the achievement gap.

In order to represent students of all backgrounds and allow every student an equal chance to get an education, the board must simplify and let the students do the work.