We’ve blogged several times about Roland Fryer‘s research on education and the black-white achievement gap. Now Fryer thinks he has identified one system that successfully closes the gap. His new working paper, with co-author Will Dobbie, analyzes both the high-quality charter schools and the comprehensive community programs of the Harlem Children’s Zone (which was chronicled in Paul Tough‘s excellent book Whatever It Takes), with hopeful results: “Harlem Children’s Zone is enormously effective at increasing the achievement of the poorest minority children. Taken at face value, the effects in middle school are enough to reverse the black-white achievement gap in mathematics and reduce it in English Language Arts. The effects in elementary school close the racial achievement gap in both subjects.” Fryer and Dobbie attribute the program’s success to the high-quality schools or the combination of high-quality schools and community programs but find that community investments alone cannot close the gap. “The HCZ model demonstrates,” the authors conclude, “that the right cocktail of investments can be successful.” [%comments]
Closing the Gap
TAGS: achievement gap, Education
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I have been following professor Fryer’s work for sometime. I am always impressed with his scientific method approach to the education gap. I would love to have him as a mentor someday for my graduate school studies.
How much of the achievement gap is psychological? I heard of a study where people were tested around a laboratory putt-putt course. When they were told it was a test of geometric understanding and strategy, there was an performance gap between blacks and whites. When they were told it was a test of innate athletic skill and hand-eye coordination, the performance gap was REVERSED.
I had been a skeptic about the America’s ability to close the achievement gaps (both minority and income). However, I have been very encouraged about recent developments in education reform.
I recently went to a panel discussion regarding the Denver Public School districts and was surprise to hear about the effectiveness of the program. One of the charter schools (which consists of more than 80% minority and 90% free/reduced lunch) outperformed a selective talented and gifted school in the Colorado performance tests!
It was not done without a lot of hard work but there were a few key features of the programs working. The first is autonomy. The charter schools are free to hire, set curriculum, set policy, and spend as they see fit. What this allows them to do is to provide an environment to hire and retain the best teachers (teachers are non-union but receive a higher salary and professional development). They have longer school days, have Saturday and summer school days, and have after school tutoring program.
The second feature is culture. These schools engage families by having them “buy-in” to the school program and support the schools and children in achieving academic success. In many ways I see the the school becoming the driving influence for academic success instead of the family. In some cultures there are high expectations for academic success where others place a low value and this is often out of the hand of a school. When a school develops a culture of high expectations and integrates it with other aspects of a students life then everyone can experience an equality of academic opportunity.
Autonomy and culture are key and school districts are too monolithic and bureaucratic to implement these simply because of the ‘federalism’ of a district.
The bar has been raised. Let’s give the children the best we have and leave pride aside.
I am always skeptical when journalists discuss the “achievement gap”. I am never clear whether it describes the average score on achievement tests or the percentage of students that score above a certain level on achievement tests.
Having said that, the gains are impressive.
I know I’m wasting my time to say this again, but here goes. In any grouping in which one side has control over enrollment and one side does not, the side that has control will always win in any competition.
One of the highest correlates of school success is parental involvement in schooling, namely is it important to your parents that you do well in school. By definition children in charter schools, or non-public schools, have parents involved in their education. (they have to apply and incur costs ie. no transportation or free lunch programs) There are children in public schools who have parents who are involved in their education, but there also are many whose parents are uninvolved. Comparing students in charter, and other selective enrollment institutions, with public schools is like comparing apples and oranges.
Jim – read the study. HCZ students are admitted by lottery. In their study, the treatment group is composed of students who won the lottery and the control group is composed of students who entered the lottery and did not win seats (this controls against the common criticism that even when charters admit via lottery — as many do — you need to account for the fact that their parents are sufficiently motivated and engaged to pursue charter enrollment).
As a former teacher, I believe that much of the success of selective schools (however students are selected) is that ALL the students in the school have families who care about education and are motivated to succeed. As Debra points out above, the HCZ student compared “lottery winners” to “lottery losers” in an effort to control for the difference between students who applied for the selective schools and those who did not apply.
However, the result of “losing” the lottery is that the child continues to attend school with many other students who did not apply to the lottery. I don’t have any special knowledge of the HCZ schools but, in general, selective schools can maintain higher standards, and can “counsel out” or expel children who do not meet these standards.
Thus, students at private or charter schools are often surrounded almost exclusively by other students who care (or at least have parents who care) about education. As a former teacher, I can attest to the fact that a few misbehaving or unmotivated students can make learning very difficult for the remaining students (and can create peer pressure against scholastic achievement). As Jim noted above, the ability for any school to have control over its enrollment is a major boost to its ability to succeed.
Correction: In the second sentence of my post (above) the phrase “HCZ student” should have been “HCZ study.”