Public schools will seek to close achievement gaps in 3rd grade reading and mathematics by 2025, under a bill signed into law this week by Gov. Gina Raimondo.
The measure provides no specifics on how to close those gaps, but directs the state board overseeing K-12 education adopt it as a goal.
The law calls for closing the 3rd grade achievement gaps by 50 percent in 2020 and in their entirety by 2025.
The measure also calls for a statewide plan to close “all achievement and opportunity gaps” from preschool through college, and the development of recruitment strategies to increase minority students in teacher preparation programs.
Barbara Cottam, the chair of the state Board of Education, said her board shares all of those goals.
“Closing achievement gaps is a key element in our system for school accountability and responsibility,” Cottam wrote in a statement for Rhode Island Public Radio. “As to diversity, our current Strategic Plan (“2020 Vision for Education”) sets as one of its key outcomes ‘increased diversity of the educator workforce,’ and to attain this outcome the R.I. Department of Education has developed and put into action the Rhode Island Educator Equity Plan.”
But is 2025 is a realistic deadline to meet the goal of closing achievement gaps for all student groups in 3rd grade? Based on the most recent round of PARCC testing, that may be a tall order.
Here’s an example:
In 2015, 48 percent of the state’s white 3rd graders met or exceeded expectations in literacy, compared to just 18 percent of Hispanic students and 22 percent of black or African-American students. Just 21 percent of low-income students met that bar, and the rate was as low as 10 percent for students with special education plans.
Clearly, it’s going to take a lot of hard work and some targeted programs to make those gaps disappear, let alone in less than a decade.
Previous efforts to improve public school performance have done little or nothing to shrink achievement gaps. That includes the federal “No Child Left Behind Act,” which called for all students to reach grade level by 2014. The goal had to be scrapped because schools across the country were unable to get there. And even as individual schools improved their test scores, gaps persisted for minority and low-income students.
“Certainly its a priority of ours to try to close the achievement gap for all of our students,” said Frank Flynn, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, which represents most of the state’s urban teachers.
Flynn said he hopes the new law will focus attention on the need for new strategies and programs to achieve the goal, noting that lawmakers have already passed and funded a move to full-day Kindergartens. The state has also been increasing access to pre-school classrooms.
“We want to make sure that we target the resources necessary for every student, no matter where they come from,” said Flynn. “You shouldn’t be successful based on the zip code that you come from, but that oftentimes is the case. We want to make sure that students in less affluent schools have the same access to quality educational programming as students in more affluent communities.”
