Local proficiency differences
These outcome data paint a stark picture of the current situation.
Putting our local differences into the national context
· CHCCS has very low levels of segregation across schools. Among similar low-segregation districts, it has one of the very highest “achievement” gaps. This suggests that some important dynamics are occurring within schools
· It’s worth noting that other college towns are the closest in these ways
· for the CHCCS level of socioeconomic differences, CHCCS has the second highest “achievement” gap
Different systems, different outcomes…
Desegregated Schools With Segregated Education, by Darity and Jolla
Drs. Darity and Jolla document the success of Southwest Elementary in Durham in the early 2000s. The achievement gap was greatly reduced by efforts to universalize the high quality instruction that is often reserved for children identified as academically and intellectually gifted.
The Stories We Tell: Math, Race, Bias, and Opportunity
In the book, The Stories We Tell: Math, Race, Bias, and Opportunity, Patricia Marshall, Lee Stiff and I document our years of work on issues of equity and construct a framing of mathematical opportunities that accounts for mathematics and racial bias. In other words, we explain how Early Identification of ‘talent’ is connected to School Opportunity, Tracking of students, and Racial Inequity in schools. The belief that students need to be ‘identified’ as ‘talented’ at a young age is a cornerstone belief that creates the foundation for legalized segregation in our schools. We ask the reader to rupture that belief. Examining this belief that some students ‘deserve’ advanced placements at a young age because of their ‘talent’ allows us to investigate the mechanisms that are foundational to the modern day cycle of separate but equal.
This book builds on the themes from the Opportunity Gap video I posted a few years ago. From there we published an article in the Kappan magazine, and, now, a book.
If you are interested in purchasing the book, please take advantage of the special 20% off discount code! Visit www.rowman.com and use discount code RLEGEN20.
Thanks for considering it. I am hoping it will be read in school book clubs, by equity officers, in college settings, and by people interested in re-thinking cultural ideas about intelligence, talent, oppression, and opportunity. We will see. It is not too long, but we think it packs a pretty good punch.
