Evie Hudak Colorado State Board of Education

a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District

CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP: WHAT CAN THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION DO?

The State Board of Education is and has always been strongly committed to closing the achievement gap. We hear the warnings that call it “a threat to the future of our society.” We agree that closing it is a “moral imperative.” The continued disparity in academic achievement between middle-class or affluent white children and poor, minority children looms especially large this year, when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education and began to see the ramifications of the No Child Left Behind Act. Throughout the four years that I have been a member of the SBE, there has been a great deal of focus on the issue, but little has been accomplished. Movement has been painfully slow, and solutions are not easily realized.

The SBE has taken some actions to close the achievement gap, as well as acting as a “bully pulpit” on the issue. Back in 1999 the SBE put into the Accreditation Rules the requirement for districts and schools “to identify and reduce consistent patterns of low academic achievement and discrepancies related to gender; socio-economic level; racial, ethnic, or cultural background; at-risk status; exceptional ability; disability; or limited English proficiency.” In the SBE’s Strategic Plan for 2003-2004, the first strategy to accomplish our goal “to maintain commitment to accountability reform and accreditation” is to “implement a framework to address closing the achievement gap.” The Colorado Department of Education’s work plan involves some tactics for doing this, such as serving as a network for local districts, providing equitable access to library resources throughout the state, and using Accreditation as a way to align the different accountability systems to concentrate on closing the gap.

But besides these things, our efforts have been focused mainly through a coalition of people that Commissioner Moloney put together in 2000. He organized an honorary steering committee for the Coalition to Close the Learning Gap, headed by Governor Owens and Attorney General Salazar. Through the Coalition, some public attention was drawn to the issue, and a broad spectrum of the community became involved to work on it. Out of the Coalition developed an Action Committee of people who were able to take the time to do the work of the Coalition. Although there was no funding for this effort, CDE provided staff to help the Action Committee hold regular meetings, do research, and create a plan. (One of the first things the committee did was to change the wording of the Coalition’s name from Learning Gap to Achievement Gap, to emphasize that the gap is not in children’s ability to learn, but in their achievement. The group then became known as CTAG.)

CTAG identified four areas to concentrate attention on: (1) data collection and accreditation, (2) quality teachers and professional development, (3) parent/family/community involvement, and (4) best practices and school climate. CTAG found the implementation of these to be challenging. The first item, which involves using data from CSAP results to identify schools and districts with a large disparity in achievement, is implemented through Accreditation; however, it is difficult for small districts to do much data analysis because of lack of staff and resources. The second one, improving teacher quality to close the achievement gap, would require creating new curricula and adding courses for teacher preparation and professional development in “cultural competence” and other skills for working with minority populations. For the third item, improving community involvement, CTAG was able to develop “non-traditional alliances” with groups around the state, and in all 8 regions of the state; however, there is no funding for CTAG members to travel outside the Denver metro area to work with these groups or for people to travel into Denver for CTAG meetings. The last item, reporting on best practices, requires a substantial amount of staff time to do research across the state and the country.

Thus, as CTAG tried to make improvements in these key areas, it became apparent that without funding, few substantive changes or additional programs could be implemented. After CTAG expressed this concern to the SBE, we put a request for $6 million for CTAG in our budget proposal for the 2002-2003 budget. When the next session of the General Assembly began, we arranged for the Coalition and the Governor to hold a press conference. Bill de la Cruz, member of the Boulder Valley Board of Education and Chair of CTAG, made an impassioned plea for legislative support for CTAG’s work. A bill was sponsored to fund CTAG, but it didn’t pass. One of the reasons given by legislators for opposing the bill was the lack of clarity about how the $6 million would be used.

By then, the middle of 2002, CTAG had been working for a couple of years with little to show for it. The No Child Left Behind Act had recently been passed by Congress, further emphasizing the importance of closing the achievement gap. CTAG analyzed NCLB and issued a paper showing how many of the provisions of NCLB fell into the four areas of CTAG’s emphasis. Although CDE distributed the document as widely as possible, there was still no outcry or widespread concern to fund CTAG. Unfortunately, at that time the state was developing a serious fiscal crisis.

The SBE decided to make CTAG an Advisory Committee, to formalize their existence and their relationship with the Board. Our hope was that they would find strategies that CDE could implement without additional funding. The SBE also continued its pressure on the Legislature to take action. What resulted from that advocacy was SB 03-254, a bill to create the Commission to Close the Achievement Gap. The bill included no funding for the Commission, other than “gifts, grants, and donations.” CDE was directed to provide staff to assist it. Its membership was designed to include a majority of people from the CTAG Advisory Committee. The Commission was charged mainly with studying ways to close the achievement gap and making recommendations to CDE. It was directed to issue its “first, preliminary” report to the Legislature by November 1, 2004, with its recommendations.

Although happy that the Legislature finally produced a formal recognition of CTAG and the importance of the issue, we found it frustrating that what the legislation created was mostly a replication of CTAG, of what it had already done, but without any definite funding. Bill de la Cruz, selected to chair the Commission, expressed this frustration when he met with the SBE this past May. He was exasperated that after working for 4 years, there still did not seem to be any significant progress. He said that “there is still significant discrimination against racial minorities,” and he urged us to take immediate action.

There is one action that the SBE can take, although it is not immediate. SB 03-254 requires us to define in rule what a “significant achievement gap” is and create a program to distribute strategies that help schools with a significant gap. However, the rule-making process takes many months. It begins with CDE staff drafting the rules. CDE staff has been slow to get this drafting done. They have been busy with the rules for the exemption of alternative schools from SAR ratings, rules for the new longitudinal growth ratings on the SARs, and rules and timelines for the conversion of consistently Unsatisfactory-rated schools to independent charter schools. They have been busy drafting amendments to the rules for the Capital Construction Assistance Program and the Capital Construction Expenditures Reserve, the Educator Licensure Act, the Colorado Basic Literacy Act, and the Administration of Colorado Cyberschools.

Being busy with these other things is no excuse. In the education world, many people use the phrase “no excuses” in regard to holding schools accountable for closing the achievement gap. But I doubt that the solution is having the SBE pass rules. At our Work Session in August, Jo O’Brien, who is in charge of the CDE unit on Learning and Results, reported to the SBE about a study she did of the best practices used by at-risk schools that showed significant increases in achievement. Each of these schools attributed their success to entirely different strategies.

From Jo O’Brien’s report, as well as the CTAG meetings I have attended, the speakers I have heard at conferences, and the many reports I have read on the topic of closing the achievement gap, I believe that the knowledge exists for all the ways that the gap can be closed. The problem is that the State Board of Education is not in a position either to determine or to mandate which strategies will work for which schools. What we can do, and I hope we will do, is to compile and distribute a list of the strategies and then provide the assistance to school districts to implement the ones they choose. And I hope we will do it soon.