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| Low test results are more about economics than race
June 28,2005
By K.J. Williams, Sun Journal
The achievement gap in student test scores in North Carolina's public schools between white students and blacks is more about economic status than anything else, said an expert in education.
At East Carolina University, the College of Education has been addressing this achievement gap for years, said Vivian Martin Covington, director of teacher education.
She called the achievement gap between whites and minorities a national issue, with the minority population in question changing by region.
Locally, she said that population is largely comprised of black students.
"It appears in some cases to be race but most of the time it's a poverty issue," Covington said. "Students from low-income (families) tend to have less opportunities and so we see that there's an achievement gap."
The more parents have to work, the less time they may have to spend helping their children with homework or taking them to the library, she said, adding that these are the activities that are proven to given children a good academic start.
"Some of the things that we try to work on at the university is to make sure that our teacher education candidates can relate to all students," Covington said. "You can't teach the way you learned to everyone. You have to learn to reach different people. People have different experiences."
Education students are taught to adjust their teaching methods to reach a diverse student population, whether they're addressing differences in gender, race, or pertaining to disabilities or sexual orientation.
"It's in our accreditation standards and we've been doing it for awhile. However, we need to do it better," Covington said. "We would hope that the students that we're putting out will be able to help those public school systems close that achievement gap."
She noted that the state Department of Public Instruction studies this issue in its Closing the Achievement Gap division. That division has identified school districts in the state that have made strides at closing the gap.
"They've done studies of schools with high minority populations and schools with high poverty populations, and they've tried to see what strategies are in place there that allows them to close the achievement gap," Covington said.
"There are schools out there in the nation that are gap closers," she said. "We really need to look at what those schools are doing." |
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