Improving African American Student Outcomes: Understanding Educational Achievement and Strategies to Close Opportunity Gaps

As a professor of teacher education, every quarter I engage my graduate students in critical discussions about our country's history of, and persistent fight against, inequitable education. I teach a social foundations course, and we explore education in the United States as it currently exists and possibilities for improving schools in ways that will provide historically marginalized students access to quality education--an education to which they are entitled. I am fortunate to serve as a faculty member at an institution whose mission is rooted in developing leaders "for a more just and humane world. " That means my faculty colleagues and I teach to the expectation that our graduates will use the knowledge and skills gained in their education studies to work for justice and a more equitable world. Therefore, in our teacher education program, we spend a significant amount of time trying to understand and dismantle the systems and structures in schools that consistently deny African American, Latino, Native American, low-income students, and many other marginalized groups, access to quality education. The National Center for Educational Statistics (2013) defines the educational achievement gap simply--"the achievement gap occurs when one group of students outperforms another group, and the difference in average scores for the two groups is statistically significant" (p.210). The disparity in achievement is usually between white and non-white students and the difference can be seen in standardized test scores, grade point averages, graduation rates, and college admission data (National Research Council, 2004). Although the achievement gap by income and gender is also studied and well documented in the literature, the term "achievement gap" and accompanying data has almost become synonymous with what urban education scholar Tyrone Howard (2010) describes as "the discrepancy in educational outcomes between various student groups, namely, African American, Native American, certain Asian American, and Latino students on the low end of the performance scale, and primarily White and various Asian American students at the higher end of the performance scale" (Howard, 2010, p.10). Administered by the U.S. Department of Education since the 1960s, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows a clear and persistent discrepancy in educational achievement among student groups, with African American, Latino and American Indian student outcomes at the lowest levels of achievement. The NAEP assessment is the largest national, continuous educational assessment of student progress, and NAEP results have consistently shown a significant "gap" in the educational achievement of Black, Latino, and American Indian students compared to their White and Asian peers. Tables 1 & 2 show reading and math proficiency of 4th, 8th, and 12th grade students between 2005-2013. Among all 4th grade students in 2013, only 18% of Black students were proficient in reading while 46% of White students demonstrated proficiency. As students progress to higher grades, the gap remains persistent. At the 8th grade level, 17% of Black students demonstrated proficiency in reading compared to 46% of their White peers. The same discrepancy in reading outcomes is present at the end of high school. At the 12th grade level, only 16% of Black students demonstrated proficiency in reading while 47% of their White peers performed at the proficient level. These achievement gap trends also exist in mathematics outcomes (see Table 2). The percentage of Black students who perform at 'below basic' in reading and math achievement is significantly higher than their White student counterparts. In 2011, the percentage of Black 4th grade students who were 'below basic' in reading was 51% compared to 22% of White 4th grade students. In the same year, 41% of Black students in the 8th grade were 'below basic' in reading compared to 15% of White students. …