Sunday, March 17, 2002
The gap reaches across the tri-county area from cities into the suburbs.
By RON COLE
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
Walk into Lisa Jackson's kindergarten classroom in Campbell, and you'll see a blend of children you're not likely to see anywhere else in the Mahoning Valley.
Black, white, Hispanic, multiracial.
This blue-collar town on the banks of the Mahoning River is home to the most ethnically diverse school system in the region, boasting students from 25 nationalities.
They enter the schoolhouse daily with different backgrounds, different experiences, different academic and social needs.
But to Jackson, there's one thing they all have in common: They can excel.
"I don't care if they're purple or blue or polka-dot, we have high expectations," Jackson said last week. "It's all about the individual child."
Vital for success: Experts say having high expectations for all children, regardless of color, is a vital ingredient to narrowing the achievement gap between white and minority students.
In Ohio and the Mahoning Valley, the gap is more like a chasm.
Although 43.1 percent of white fourth-graders statewide passed all five parts of the state proficiency test last school year, only 11.5 percent of black pupils and 20.8 percent of Hispanic pupils passed, according to Ohio Department of Education records.
On the sixth-grade test, the passage rate was 49 percent for whites, 11.5 percent for blacks and 22.2 percent for Hispanics.
Wide gap: In Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties, the gap is equally wide.
In Campbell, for instance, 45.2 percent of white sixth-graders passed all parts of the test, compared with 12.9 percent of black pupils and 25 percent of Hispanics, state records show.
In Youngstown, 58 percent of white ninth-graders passed all parts, 18.5 percent of black students and 19 percent of Hispanic students.
The disparities don't end with inner-city schools.
Boardman was among only 71 school districts in Ohio that met all 27 performance standards on the most recent state report card. Yet its achievement gap is one of the widest in the Mahoning Valley: 66.2 percent of white sixth-graders passed all parts of the proficiency test, compared with 14.3 percent of blacks.
The gaps were nearly as wide in Howland and Liberty.
James Brown, director of housing and self-sufficiency with the Youngstown Area Urban League, said the differences are startling.
"It's like a three-alarm fire," he said. "We have to get someone to hose this down."
Data included: This month, the state released proficiency test results broken down by race, and for the first time included some of the data in school district report cards mailed to parents.
Patti Grey, Ohio Department of Education spokeswoman, said state officials hope the data spark debate and push school districts to focus on minority and low-income pupils.
"There is the belief from some that not all children can learn," she said. "Until we change that culture and truly believe it, nothing is going to change."
Warren Superintendent Betty English, however, said simply releasing the data without providing a remedy could lead to distorted conclusions.
"They've gathered a bunch of numbers and have thrown them out there and left them open for everyone to interpret," she said.
Dr. Randy Hoover, education professor at Youngstown State University, agreed.
"It creates a very severe illusion that black kids are slow and can't learn, and it's simply not supported by the research," he said.
Hoover said the gap is based on wealth, not race.
"Every bit of data we have says black kids and white kids learn the same; it's economics that separate them," he said.
"If you're a poor white kid in Meigs County, you're going to score like a poor black kid in Youngstown or Warren. That's just the reality."
Nothing new: The achievement gap is not new and not exclusive to Ohio. Nationally, black and Hispanic eighth-graders score more than three years behind white eighth-graders in math and science and more than two years behind in reading and writing, according to Education Trust, an advocacy group for minority and low-income pupils.
The organization recently identified more than 4,500 high-poverty and high-minority schools nationwide that are narrowing the gap and performing among the top schools in their states.
Jeanne Brennan, Education Trust spokeswoman, said teacher quality, a rigorous curriculum and high expectations for all pupils are keys to eliminating the disparities.
She complimented Ohio for at least putting the issue on the public agenda.
"It's not rocket science, but it is hard work," she said. "It takes a lot of guts for a state or a system to say that there's a huge gap and we've got to get in there and do what we need to close it."
Affecting suburbs: As minority populations shift out from the cities, more suburban schools also are starting to feel effects of the achievement gap, Brennan said.
Boardman, with 186 black students, and Howland, with 116, have among the widest achievement gaps in the Mahoning Valley, state records show.
"It's been a good change for our schools," Bob Hendrickson, Boardman director of instruction, said about the increasingly diverse student body.
"By the same token, it creates some challenges, too, that maybe we haven't faced in the past."
Skewed results? Hendrickson said the district's test results may be skewed because of the small number of black pupils. He and other school officials also pointed out that black pupils are outperforming white pupils on some specific sections of the proficiency tests.
Still, Boardman Superintendent Don Dailey said he doesn't know why the gap exists.
"A lot of it is the values that kids come to school with, and that's not a black and white issue," he said.
English, head of Warren schools, agreed. Many of the factors that determine a child's performance are outside the control of the schools, including strong parental support and a home environment that values education. But schools still can do a lot, she said.
"From the time a child enters school in the morning until they leave, we have to make sure that every single moment is meaningful," English said.
"We have to do things that are motivating, and we have to try and make sure that our instruction guarantees success."
That's what they hope to do in Campbell, where 52 percent of pupils are white, 29 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic and 6 percent multiracial.
Initiatives: The district has conducted several initiatives aimed at narrowing the achievement gap, including diversity training for teachers and pupils. The school system also has had student assemblies celebrating different cultures and has included ethnic music at school dances.
"If you come to school and you feel you belong, then automatically you are going to perform higher," said Kathleen Yeloushan, principal of kindergarten through eighth grade in Campbell.
"If you don't feel you belong, your chances of doing as well as you should are very low. If you don't deal with the social issues, you can't deal with the academic issues."
"You can't lower your expectations," said Cathy Suess, a fifth-grade teacher.
"If you limit them," said guidance counselor John Leitera, "you're limiting yourself."