Putting Research Into Practice: Identifying Explicit and Effective Strategies for Reducing Achievement Gaps for Austin ISD African-American Students and the Task Force for the Education and  Quality of Life Study for African Americans

Annotated Bibliography on the Achievement Gap for African American Students

This bibliography has been compiled not only to inform educators, parents, and community members about the achievement gap, but also to address issues that influence student achievement. The motifs of the books and articles range from relationships, Afro centric pedagogy, educational equity, cultural competencies for teachers, over identification of students of color in special education, to the philosophical organization of districts and schools for children of color and children of poverty.

Chubb, E. J. & Loveless, T. (2002). Bridging the Achievement Gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institutional Press.

The achievement gap between white students and African American and Hispanic students has been debated by scholars and lamented by policymakers since it was first documented in 1966.

The average black or Hispanic secondary school student currently achieves at about the same level as the average white student in the lowest quartile of white achievement. Black and Hispanic students are much less likely than white students to graduate from high school, acquire a college or advanced degree, or earn a middle-class living. They are also much more likely than whites to suffer social problems that often accompany low income.

While educators have gained an understanding of the causes and effects of the education achievement gap, they have been less successful in finding ways to eliminate it—until now.

This book provides, for the first time in one place, evidence that the achievement gap can be bridged. A variety of schools and school reforms are boosting the achievement of black and Hispanic students to levels nearing those of whites.

Bridging the Achievement Gap brings together the findings of renowned education scholars who show how various states, school districts, and individual schools have lifted the achievement levels of poor and minority students. The most promising strategies include focusing on core academic skills, reducing class size, enrolling students in more challenging courses, administering annual achievement assessment tests, creating schools with a culture of competition and success, and offering vouchers in big-city school districts.

While implementing new educational programs on a large scale is fraught with difficulties, these successful reform efforts offer what could be the start of widespread effective solutions for bridging the achievement gap.

Cormier, N., Cormier, D. B., & Madsen, J. (2005). African American Superintendents in High Performing Urban School Districts Who Created an Organizational Identity Orientation Structure That has been Successful in Narrowing the Achievement Gap. Paper presented at the annual conference of the University Council of Education Administration, Nashville.

There has been a gap in the scores on achievement test between students of color and White students.  This gap was closing rapidly in the 70’s and 80’s; however, the gap is widening in most school districts throughout the country (Mollison, 2000).  This study examined the impact that three African American superintendents had in closing the achievement gap between students of color and White students in three diverse school districts.

Cose, E. (1993). The Rage of a Privileged Class: Why are middle-class blacks angry? Why should America care? New York, NY: HarperPerennial.

There is a huge black middle class, many of whom are well educated, competent, and prosperous. Yet despite their great achievements, says Cose, they are frustrated and even enraged. He cites one survey after another to portray the subtle forms of prejudice that black professionals must endure: a black woman may be hired in public relations, say, but then whites will see the position as weak and nonintellectual, a job designed for blacks. A black male lawyer hired to fill a quota may file brilliant briefs, but he'll be held back from a partnership because affirmative action may get you in the door, but it quickly becomes a millstone. Cose considers every aspect of prejudice affecting blacks--the resentments of underclass blacks toward successful ones, complexion-based discrimination of blacks against blacks, white assumptions that all blacks are criminals because of media portraits of street thugs, white perceptions that blacks aren't good managers--even, with his extraordinary fairness, the frustrations of white males, many of whom feel that black advances come because they are discriminated against. Although Cose feels affirmative action has been helpful, he is ambivalent about it as a course for the future, instead favoring workplace models based on honest assessments of diversity; in some ways, though without the same faith in the ultimate justice of market forces, he carries forward the arguments of Stephen Carter's Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991). In any event, Cose has written an exceptionally reflective book, and serialization in Newsweek should assure demand.

Denbo & L.M. Beaulieu. (2002). Improving Schools for African American Students: A Reader for Educational Leaders. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, LTD.

Improving Schools for African American Students is designed to provide educational leaders with a better understanding of how to recognize the diversity of strengths that Black students bring with them to school and how to use these strengths to improve achievement. The articles contained in this book discuss generic education issues such as policy reform, the importance of high quality teaching, and the improvement of schools from the perspective of the academic achievement of African American students. Part I explores institutional racism in the context of America’s public schools and provides suggestions for educational leaders to eliminate harmful policies and practices within educational institutions and settings. Part II discusses the kinds of institutional and instructional changes that are needed to support successful schooling of African American children and youth. Part III focuses on the challenges presented to African American students by the current high stakes testing environment that surrounds standards, assessment, and accountability. A review of the literature on schools that have succeeded in improving achievement for African American students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels with districts moving towards narrowing the achievement gap is included. This text examines a wide variety of policies, programs, practices, and research that will provide valuable insight. The emphasis throughout the book is on the ability of educators to successfully restructure their schools, offer high quality teaching and learning standards for African American students and to make the kinds of changes that will result in high achievement for all students.

Delpit, L. (1996). Others people’s children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: NY. The New Press.

By the year 2000, nearly 40 percent of the children in America's classrooms will be African American, Hispanic, Asian American, or Native American, yet most of those children's teachers will be white. In a radical and piercing analysis of what is going on in American classrooms today, MacArthur Award-winning author Lisa Delpit suggests that many of the academic problems attributed to children of color are actually the result of miscommunication as schools and "other people's children" struggle with the imbalance of power and the dynamics of inequality plaguing our system. Winner of Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Book Award, the American Education Studies Association Critics' Choice Award, and one of Teacher Magazine's Great Books of 1995.

Delpit, L. & Dowdy, K. J. (2002). The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. New York, NY: The New Press.

These 13 essays by teachers offer firsthand perspectives on the provocative issue of dialects in the classroom a controversy sparked by the notorious Ebonics debates of the 1990s. Delpit (Other People's Children) and Dowdy, education professors at Georgia State University, have gathered both new and previously published pieces by distinguished educators like Herbert Kohl, Jules Henry and Victoria Purcell-Gates. The collection opens with personal essays by two teachers Dowdy, schooled in Trinidad, and Ernie Smith, from South Central Los Angeles who describe their own struggles to come to terms with the formal language of school and the nonvalidated language of home. Other essays move into the classroom, looking at how different teachers address questions of dialect and how students experience their instruction. The classrooms described range from kindergarten to high school to teacher training. While most of the essays focus on African-American language, there's also a piece by Michael Stubbs on students with working-class English or Scottish vernaculars in the U.K. and an article by Purcell-Gates that follows a poor white Appalachian boy in the public school system. Although these lucid, accessible pieces speak most directly to teachers and would-be teachers (including specific suggestions for instruction), the issues are broad enough to attract more general readers, especially parents concerned about questions of power and control in public schools.

Edmonds, R.R. (1979). Effective schools for the urban poor. Educational Leadership, 37(1), 15-18, 20-24.

Edmonds' work arose as a counter to research that absolved schools of responsibility for student achievement. This article called for equity, a commitment to bring the skills of poor children up to mastery of basic skills. Edmonds framed these concerns as political--addressing the equitable distribution of goods within a society. He believes in the educability of all children, with the school's treatment of children as a critical factor in students' academic success.

Factors within the purview of schools that could lead to academic success for poor children were enumerated:

Strong administrative leadership, a climate of expectation that children would succeed, orderly school atmosphere, primary emphasis on student acquisition of basic skills, school energy and resources focused on basic skills, and frequent monitoring of pupil progress.

Education Alliance. (2002). The Diversity Kit: An Introductory Resource for Social Change in Education. Providence, RI: Brown University.

The Diversity Kit: An Introductory Resource for Social Change in Education addresses this challenge. It invites educators at all levels, policymakers, and communities to examine their beliefs, perceptions, behaviors, and educational practices with respect to diversity in education. The kit consists of three sections: Human Development, Culture, and Language. Each of these contains a variety of activities, vignettes, syntheses of the most current and relevant research, and suggestions for further exploration, including Web sites, videos, and print sources. The interactive content of The Diversity Kit can be used as starting point for discussions in classrooms, teachers' lounges, schools, state and district offices of education, colleges of education, and communities at large. It is an exemplary vehicle for bridging research and practice.

English, W. F. (2002). On the Intractability of the Achievement Gap in Urban Schools and the Discursive Practice of Continuing Racial Discrimination. Education and Urban Society. 34 (3), 298-311.

Achievement gaps between minority and white students may never be resolved because they are an artifact of a measurement process that uses flawed tests to assess student progress. IQ and achievement testing have always shown that socioeconomic status (SES) is critical in explaining test score variance. SES is part of the concept of cultural capital, which significantly predicts student success.

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Madison Avenue, NY: Herder and Herder.

What does knowledge contained within the "banking" form of education have to do with the reality of the oppressed? Freire's discussion of this concept brought to mind a passage in Robert Kaplan's book The Ends of The Earth in which he discusses a school in India where people were taught things pertinent to their lives, such as sustainable agriculture and literacy; things that help them shape their own reality and find their places within that reality (Freire, 75.) What is reality and who determines it? Freire argues that reality is an always changing, transitory process with dialogue and critical thinking at its heart. Reality is not motionless, static, compartmentalized or predictable. Teachers make it seem as though it is. In light of this, what is the appropriate education for the oppressed or for anyone?

Freire, P. & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Freire and Macedo invite us to reexamine the literacy crisis.  In their words, "Literacy is not the reading and writing words in and of themselves, as if the reading and writing of words did not imply another reading, anterior to and simultaneous with the first -- the reading of reality itself."  They analyze the connection between literacy and politics according to whether it produces existing social relations, or introduces a new set of cultural practices that promote democratic and emancipatory change.  By expanding our definition of what it means to read, and describing actual techniques used by Freire in his literacy campaigns, the authors point the way, no only to worldwide literacy, but to real social transformation.

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Geneva Gay has been working for many years on matters of multicultural education and in this book draws together interesting case studies against a sound theoretical background. The first of eight chapters sets the tone for the rest of the book. In it Gay introduces us to a personalized dilemma: Why is it that students of color who are so successful in so many contexts outside school are so unsuccessful at school? She then provides five assertions that undergird the remaining chapters, which answer the question and suggest ways to deal with what she calls the "achievement dilemma." The assertions are that

• culture counts,
• conventional reform is inadequate,
• intention without action is insufficient,
• strength and vitality reside in cultural diversity, and
• test scores and grades are symptoms, not causes, of the achievement dilemma.

She concludes with a call for culturally responsive teaching to unleash "the higher learning potentials of ethnically diverse students simultaneously cultivating their academic and psychosocial abilities." We also need to develop all students’ relational competencies if we are to "avoid intergroup strife and individuals are to live the best-quality lives possible" (p. 20).

Glickman, C. (2004).   Letters To The Next President, What We Can Do About the Real Crisis in Public Education.  New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Taxpayers, legislators, policy makers and, as the title suggests, even presidential candidates will appreciate this thoughtful collection of letters from a diverse group of parents, students, teachers, public figures and elected officials, education scholars and reformers. The essays offer straightforward suggestions for fixing our schools and are a refreshing antidote to the spin from government and media sources whose messages often "obscure the real crisis in our schools." "We must focus on the difficult questions," says Glickman (Holding Sacred Ground, etc.), a highly regarded education scholar, referring to the achievement gap between those who are well served by education and those who have been historically underserved. And, he says, we must reverse the decline of an educated population if we hope to preserve democracy. But, Glickman maintains, the answer isn't through what he sees as ideologically driven standardized testing regimes, privatization or any of the other methods that he believes threaten the very existence of public education. Glickman and his contributors suggest practical ways to create world-class schools. Although the ideas vary, all require energy and activism from everyday citizens and, most importantly, real leadership. The essays, written by actor Cosby, educational philosopher Maxine Greene, Sen. John Glenn, parents and even a student in the South Bronx, ask "the next president and all of us to fight for the soul of a democracy through public education."

Goldstein, S.L. (1999). The Relational Zone: The Role of Caring Relationships in the Co-Construction of the Mind. American Educational Research Journal. 36, (3), 647-673.

Describes the affective, volitional face of the zone of proximal development. Suggests that the interpersonal character of the zone of proximal development closely resembles a caring encounter. Shows links between caring and the notion of the con-construction of knowledge.

Gordon, W. E. (1999). Education & Justice: A View from the Back of the Bus. New York and London: Teachers College Press.

Education & Justice: A View from the Back of the Bus, is a collection of essays and articles written by Edmund W. Gordon and associates from the late 1960s through the 1990s. Each chapter, despite its age, remains as relevant as when originally published because of America's ongoing struggle to reconcile the relationship between social justice and education, with social justice being defined as a moral issue of equitable educational opportunity regardless of gender, race or class. Preceding each of the three book sections, Gordon reflects upon the nature of nagging educational conflicts.

Haberman, M. (1991). The Pedagogy of Poverty Versus Good Teaching. Phi Delta Kappan. 73, (4), 290-294.

The author compares the teaching methods typically practiced in urban classrooms - what he calls a "pedagogy of poverty" - to those advocated for by math reformers. While reform math proponents argue for the teaching of critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity, urban teaching in contrast consists of directive teacher acts, less complex tasks, and lower expectations for students. The article concludes with twelve behaviors (evidenced by what students are doing) signifying good teaching. Included in this list are: students being involved with issues they see as relevant to their lives; students learning major concepts and big ideas as opposed to isolated facts; students helping to plan what they will do; students working in heterogeneous groups; and students re-doing or perfecting their work.

Hilliard, G. A. (1997). SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind. Gainesville, FL: Makare Publishing.

SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind is a key. It is a roadmap. It is a call to destiny…. With SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind, Dr. Hilliard…helps us to comprehend why education is so critical to African liberation and advancement. Within his opening thoughts, Asa inextricably links the mind (spirit), with culture and education. He notes that to reawaken the African mind, one must ensure that the goal of education, and the socialization process must be to understand and live up to African cultural principles, values and virtues.

E. Jacob & C. Jordan (1993). Minority education: Anthropological perspectives. New York, NY: Ablex.

This volume brings the perspectives of educational anthropology to the consideration of the education of ethnic and linguistic minority students and to the challenges often associated with that enterprise. Built around a core of chapters originally published in the Anthropology and Education Quarterly, which presented two major anthropological perspectives on school success and failure for minority students, focuses on the cultural difference approach and the discontinuity approach. Each is represented by a theoretical chapter and two case studies. Chapters contrast anthropological and nonanthropological perspectives on minority education, outlining key concepts and methods in educational anthropology for readers who may be unfamiliar with the field. A later section offers recent modifications or additions to the two major perspectives. These chapters examine the role of parents and community in minority education, call attention to the cultural groupings that an form in response to the school context itself, focus attention on children as active decision-makers in school, and question the validity of the whole conceptualization of school success and failure. Concluding chapters on applying anthropological perspectives to policy and practice.

Jencks, C. & Phillips, M. (1998).  The Black-White Test Score Gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Ever since affirmative action was adopted as a wide-ranging policy in education and employment, controversy has surrounded it. Opinions have flown thick and fast, but there has been little hard evidence to support either side. The prosaically named Black-White Test Score Gap, a collection of essays on the subject, attempts to rectify this situation. As one authority after another weighs in, it becomes increasingly clear that the causes of African Americans' inferior scores on standardized tests have less to do with nature and everything to do with nurture (or lack of it). Not surprisingly, conditions such as poverty and lack of opportunity at the beginning of a child's life seems to have terribly detrimental effects on test scores and thus the chance to go to school or find a well-paying job later on. Editors Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips have done a good job of selecting both the topics and the contributors for this often contentious, always fascinating study of affirmative action.

Krysan, M. & Lewis, E. A. (2004). The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

The legal institutions of overt racism in the United States have been eliminated, but social surveys and investigations of social institutions confirm the continuing significance of race and the enduring presence of negative racial attitudes. This shift from codified and explicit racism to more subtle forms comes at a time when the very boundaries of race and ethnicity are being reshaped by immigration and a rising recognition that old systems of racial classification inadequately capture a diverse America. In "The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity," editors Maria Krysan and Amanda Lewis bring together leading scholars of racial dynamics to study the evolution of America’s racial problem and its consequences for race relations in the future.

Kunjufu, J. (2005). Keeping Black Boys out of Special Education. Chicago, IL. African American Images.

This critical analysis looks at the disproportionate number of African American males in special education. Arguing that the problem is race and gender driven, questions covered include Why does Europe send more females to special education? Why does America lead the world in giving children Ritalin? Is there a relationship between sugar, Ritalin, and cocaine? and Is there a relationship between special education and prison? More than 100 strategies to help teachers and parents keep black boys in the regular classroom, such as revising teacher expectations, increasing parental involvement, changing teaching styles from a left-brain abstract approach to a right-brain hands-on approach, redoing the curriculum, understanding the impact of mass media, and fostering healthy eating habits.

Kunjufu, J. (2002). Black Students. Middle Class Teachers. Chicago, IL. African American Images.

This compelling look at the relationship between the majority of African American students and their teachers provides answers and solutions to the hard-hitting questions facing education in today's black and mixed-race communities. Are teachers prepared by their college education departments to teach African American children? Are schools designed for middle-class children and, if so, what are the implications for the 50 percent of African Americans who live below the poverty line? Is the major issue between teachers and students class or racial difference? Why do some of the lowest test scores come from classrooms where black educators are teaching black students? How can parents negotiate with schools to prevent having their children placed in special education programs? Also included are teaching techniques and a list of exemplary schools that are successfully educating African Americans.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1997). The Dreamkeepers. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Although statistics paint a harsh picture of the education of African American children, Ladson-Billings (curriculum and instruction, Univ. of Wisconsin) integrates scholarly research with stories of eight successful teachers in a predominantly African American school district to illustrate that the "dream" of all teachers and parents-academic success for all children-is alive and can be emulated. The presentation of examples from "intellectually rigorous and challenging classrooms" emphasizes the cultural and social aspects of the issues in education as a whole. The author's own experiences as a student and teacher of teachers support the need to make the problems of African American children a central issue in any debate on the American educational system.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2001). Crossing over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Today's teacher certification programs make an honest effort to prepare teachers for multicultural classrooms, but Ladson-Billings (The Dreamkeepers) argues that most programs don't do enough to foster "culturally relevant pedagogy." In this ethnographic study, she describes Teach for Diversity (TFD), an experimental graduate program at the University of Wisconsin, which recruited participants whose ethnic backgrounds or experiences had given them a solid commitment to social justice and equality. She follows one group of TFD participants during their practicum at an inner-city school. While the challenges the new teachers overcome, as well as the author's memories of her own initiation into teaching three decades ago, make for compelling reading, most of the book is centered around the structure, development, and underlying philosophy of the program. Though hardly groundbreaking, this study offers practical advice for both new teachers and administrators and would be an excellent choice for supplementary reading in multicultural education programs.

Lewis, E. A. (2003). Race in the School Yard: Negotiating the Colorline in Classrooms and Communities. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.

Race in the Schoolyard adds a new dimension to the literature on race and schooling. It examines how race is understood, produced, reproduced and contested by students, teachers and parents. It provides rich description and profound analysis of the dynamics of race in elementary schools. Its explanations of how race is constructed and dealt with at schools incorporate the examination of micro processes such as teacher practices and macro processes such as residential segregation. It makes a strong statement about how racial categorization is imbued in everyday life at school and even in the most minute or "insignificant" details of school. The book shows how racial categorization leads to behavior toward others that influence their educational opportunities.

Lipman, P. (2004). High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform. New York and London: RoutledgeFalmer.

What are the implications of education accountability reforms, particularly in urban schools, in a political, economic, and cultural context of intensifying globalization and increasing social inequality and marginalization along lines of race and class? High Stakes Education provides a cogent and critical examination of such questions, investigating concretely the political economy of neoliberal education reforms and the cultural politics of race. Using Chicago--a standard bearer for high stakes testing and centralized regulation of schools--as a case study, noted scholar Pauline Lipman argues there is a strategic relationship between these policies and processes of economic restructuring, racialized social control, and globalization.

McKenzie, K. & Scheurich, J.J. (2004).  Equity Traps: A construct for departments of educational administration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40(5), 601-632.

The concept of equity traps evolved from a qualitative study that revealed the conscious and unconscious thinking patterns and behaviors that trap teachers, administrators, and others, preventing them from creating schools that are equitable, particularly for students of color. Although the results of this original study exposed these equity traps, merely exposing the traps is not sufficient. Hence, the purpose of this article is to offer a useful, pragmatic construct to professors in educational administration departments to help them prepare their principal candidates to be able not only to identify these equity traps but also to understand them and be able to implement strategies to avoid or eliminate these traps. Therefore, the authors clearly define the four equity traps—the deficit view, racial erasure, employment and avoidance of the gaze, and paralogic beliefs and behaviors—and offer practical, successful strategies to avoid or free educators from these traps.

Noguera, P. (2004). City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

On balance, City Schools is committed to showing how poverty, low social status, racial stereotypes, and other inequities not only affect children's needs and the resources available in their communities, but also translate into low political and social clout. Noguera illustrates how this means some parents have the ability to control the quality of their children's education and some don't. Whether due to stereotypes about which families care about education, to the ability to choose a private school when you are dissatisfied with your public school, to the privilege to hire a lawyer in a dispute regarding your child, or to the power to press the district to keep your school from getting shut down — more affluent families use what Noguera refers to as "social capital" to have greater control over their local schools. Noguera asserts the need to find ways to ensure that all families are able to hold schools accountable for responsive, quality, teaching. According to City Schools, addressing the social context involves remaking relationships of accountability to empower currently marginalized families and communities.

Payne, K. R. (1995). Frameworks for Understanding Poverty. Highlands, Texas: Aha! Process, Inc.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty teaches the hidden rules of economic class and spreads the message that, despite the obstacles poverty can create in all types of interaction, there are specific strategies for overcoming them. Through case studies, personal stories and observations that produce some aha! moments, Payne clearly strikes a chord in her readers., and provides a hopeful message. Dr. Ruby Payne, speaker, author and CEO of aha! Process, a training/publishing company, has more than 30 years of experience in public education and staff development. Payne is best known for her work on "hidden rules of economic class" and their affect on learning. She says, "I never want to hear again, that poor children can't learn!”

T. Perry, C. Steele, & A. Hilliard. (2003).  Young Gifted and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students. Boston, MA.: Beacon Press Books.

Three black educators join forces to focus on improving the educational experiences of African American children in schools. Perry argues that the historic African American philosophy of learning is based on the concept of "freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom" and supports that view with narratives drawn from the autobiographical writings of Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Jocelyn Elders, and others. She asserts that communities and educators must approach schooling for black children with strategies to counteract the widely held ideology that black children are not as intelligent as other children, which, she argues, has been "institutionalized in polices and practices" of our public school. Claude Steele presents an essay on his widely published research into the threat of stereotyping as a deterrent to learning, which supports Perry's case. Asa Hilliard offers examples of programs in which black students excel and identifies the characteristics of teachers that make them successful. The idea that black children should be offered an educational approach designed to counter a potentially limiting self-identity that was socially constructed is as controversial as the current opinions about affirmative action. The perspectives of these authors are important additions to the ongoing discourse.

Ragland, M.A., Asera, R., & Johnson, J.F. (1999). Urgency, responsibility, efficacy: Preliminary findings of a study of high-performing Texas school district. Austin, TX: Charles A. Dana Center.

An on-going study of the performance of high-poverty schools in Texas is revealing entire school districts where such schools are achieving high academic results. Instead of isolated pockets of excellence, a few large and medium-sized districts have been identified in which a cluster of high-poverty schools is achieving at the top levels of the state's accountability system. During 1997-98, 10 Texas districts were studied in which between one-third and all of the high-poverty schools achieved a "recognized" or "exemplary" rating in the accountability system, based on standardized test scores, student attendance, and school dropout rates. Five of the districts studied were in south Texas near the Mexican border and had high overall rates of poverty and limited English proficiency. Interviews and observations in the 10 districts showed that success-breeding environments were created through the careful, diligent, and passionate efforts of superintendents, school boards, and central office leaders. First, superintendents and other district leaders created in their communities a sense of urgency for the improvement of academic achievement. Secondly, district leaders created an environment in which improving academic instruction became a responsibility shared by everyone at every school. Finally, district leaders recognized that high expectations needed high quality support and changed the role of the central office to focus on creating various support structures.

Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

It seems to be a common-sense argument that, if teachers know how to teach reading, or math, or any other subject, and if schools emphasize the importance of these tasks and permit no distractions, children should be able to learn regardless of their family income or skin color. But this perspective is misleading and dangerous. It ignores how social class characteristics in a stratified society like ours influence learning in school. For nearly half a century, the association between social and economic disadvantage and the student achievement gap has been well known to economists, sociologists, and educators. Most, however, have avoided the obvious implication of this understanding, that raising the achievement of lower-class children requires that public policy address the social and economic conditions of these children’s lives, not just school reform.

Skrla, L., & Scheurich, J. J. (2001). Displacing deficit thinking in school district leadership. Education and Urban Society, 33(3), 235-259.

Discusses the effect of deficit thinking on the academic achievement of minority and low-income students. Highlights five ways that high-stakes accountability helped displace deficit thinking of school superintendents in Texas school districts. Data come from a multiyear study that demonstrated sustained, substantially improved academic achievement for children of color and impoverished children in those districts.

Scheurich J.J. & Skrla, L. (2003). Leadership for Equity and Excellence, Creating High-Achievement Classrooms, Schools, and Districts. California: Corwin Press, INC.

Leadership for Equity and Excellence encourages school leaders and teachers to develop creative strategies for student advancement using tools such as accountability, equity audits, and proactive redundancy. Scheurich and Skrla demonstrate how deeply held beliefs manifest as biases, preventing educators from unlocking their students’ potential. The authors also examine the U.S. education achievement gap, and suggest several concepts for overcoming this gap, such as:

Eliminating "can’t" from your vocabulary,  Using creativity, perseverance, and persistence, Envisioning educators as civil rights workers, Moving beyond harmful, but entrenched, biases, Understanding the cultures and backgrounds of each student.

Children of color excelling in school . . . children from low-income homes thriving academically . . . classrooms, communities, and even a nation of people becoming truly equal—this is the living dream of today’s educators.

Scheurich J.J. & Skrla, L. (2004). Educational Equity and Accountability, Paradigms, Policies, and Politics. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Skrla, Scheurich, and their colleagues offer a powerful analysis of the role that accountability systems can and actually have played in improving student performance and closing minority achievement gaps. The courage and balance they show by including chapters by some of their own harshest critics are especially noteworthy. Much of their research was conducted at a time when the climate of academic opinion among those for whom equity is a top priority sharply opposed the idea that accountability could promote rather than undermine the pursuit of more equitable education for students from poor and minority backgrounds. This work deserves the attention of scholars and practitioners all across the country. The scholarship collected here is designed to move beyond the prevailing dualism and to push the discourse about accountability, testing, and educational equity in public schools usefully forward.

Skrla, L., Scheurich, J.J., Garcia, J., & Nolly, G. (2004). Equity Audits: A Practical Leadership Tool for Developing Equitable and Excellent Schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40(1), 133-161.

Persistent achievement gaps by race and class in U.S. public schools are educationally and ethically deplorable and, thus, need to be eliminated. Based on their research on schools and districts that haven arrowed these gaps, the authors have developed a simplified reconceptualization of equity auditing, a concept with a respected history in civil rights, in curriculum auditing, and in some state accountability systems. This reconceptualized equity auditing is a leadership tool that can be used to uncover, understand, and change inequities that are internal to schools and districts in three areas—teacher quality, educational programs, and student achievement.

Springfield Public Schools African American Achievement Task Force (2005). Report to the Superintendent. Springfield: MO.

A local task force has been studying the achievement gap between African American students and White students in Springfield Public Schools. Tuesday night the school board got a look at the findings.

There are no clear causes for the underperformance of African Americans in the classroom. And while the achievement gap in Springfield between minority and non-minority students is not as great as in other districts across the state, it is unacceptable in the quest for academic excellence of all students.

The lack of gains by African Americans in the Communication Arts portion of the 2004 MAP test was among the factors that prompted Superintendent Jack Ernst to call for a study this year on the local achievement gap.

Forty-seven people representing the district, parents, local universities and other groups met five times between October and January.

Contributing factors to the achievement gap include:

• Low expectations.
• Negative stereotypes or soft bigotry.
• Early childhood deficits.
• Lack of student engagement.
• Poverty.
• Lack of parental and community involvement.

Steele, M. C. & Arsonson, A. J. (1995). Stereotype Threat does not Live Alone. American Psychologist, 59(1), 47-48.

An experiment from C. M. Steele and J. Aronson (see record 1996-12938-001) spread over 8 years of media reports, journal articles, and textbooks could mislead teachers, students, researchers, policymakers, and parents into believing that the African American-White test-score gap is entirely caused by stereotype and not at all by group differences in opportunities and test-related knowledge, and that this belief could undermine efforts to improve African American students' academic skills.

Tatum, D. B. (1997). “Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” New York, NY: Basic Books.

Anyone who's been to a high school or college has noted how students of the same race seem to stick together. Beverly Daniel Tatum has noticed it too, and she doesn't think it's so bad. As she explains in this provocative, though not-altogether-convincing book, these students are in the process of establishing and affirming their racial identity. As Tatum sees it, blacks must secure a racial identity free of negative stereotypes. The challenge to whites, on which she expounds, is to give up the privilege that their skin color affords and to work actively to combat injustice in society.

Thompson, L. G. (2004). Through Ebony Eyes: What Teachers Need to Know But Are Afraid to Ask About African American Students. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, educator Thompson finds the public schools system continues, "to grapple with issues pertaining to race and ethnicity." Prompted by this observation and concerns about the achievement gap between black and white students, Thompson set out to help prospective and current teachers "increase their efficacy with African-American students," particularly those in urban areas. Thompson (African American Teens Discuss Their Schooling Experiences; etc.) doggedly tackles the multiple theories educators have proposed to explain the achievement gap. Among them are the "low teacher expectation" theory, in which students are confronted by teachers who think little of their chances for success, and the "acting white" theory, in which some black students "infer that they have to reject their home culture to succeed academically." While Thompson supports these theories, she comes down harshly on the "parents-are-at-fault theory," insisting "most African-American parents do care about their children's education." The author explores the observation that "poor children and children of color... are more likely than others to end up with under qualified and ineffective teachers." Although Thompson spends a considerable amount of time complaining and calling on research and statistics, she also shares triumphs and challenges from her own days as a student. She offers advice, stressing the importance of "reminding students of the big picture" and the value of their education, and advising teachers to use hypothetical questions to spark discussion and showcase students' talent, acts that are important for boosting esteem in all children, regardless of color.

Valencia, R. R. (1997).  The Evolution of Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice. London: The Falmer Press.

”Deficit thinking” refers to the notion that students (particularly those of low-income, racial/ethnic minority background) fail in school because such students and their families have internal defects (deficits) that thwart the learning process (for example: limited educability; unmotivated; inadequate family support). Deficit thinking, an endogenous theory, ”blames the victim” rather than examining how the schools are structured to prevent certain students from learning.

van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (1994). The Vygotsky reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Until quite recently, Vygotsky's work was known only to a small circle of Western psychologists, but he has rapidly emerged as one of the major theorists of the twentieth century. This new volume aims to provide students and scholars alike with a lively introduction to Vygotsky's work based on authoritative translations of the original sources. The volume covers the various areas in which Vygotsky worked, including education, psychology, paedology, psychiatry and defectology. Papers have been selected to give a representative overview of Vygotsky's multifaceted work during difficult periods. The volume also highlights little-known facets of his work, such as his anti-fascist and pro-socialist writings and provides the reader with a number of pieces that appear in English for the first time. The editors provide a brief introduction and notes for each translation to facilitate reading and place each piece in its historical context. As the volume requires no preparatory reading it can be used both as an introduction to the key ideas in Vygotsky's work, and as a companion to the theoretical and historical analysis presented in van der Veer and Vlasiner's Understanding Vygotsky.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

While the book is full of theory that might discourage someone from reading it, it has an absolutely fantastic practical implication worth the effort! The second half of this book, "Educational Implications" discusses the Zone of Proximal Development. Learning about this "Zone" plus the discussion regarding how children learn to read and write, tells those of us who really want to help children learn, ways to set-up an environment and activities to do it!!

Wertsch, J.V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of the mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

In a book of intellectual breadth, James Wertsch not only offers a synthesis and critique of all Vygotsky's major ideas, but also presents a program for using Vygotskian theory as a guide to contemporary research in the social sciences and humanities. He draws extensively on all Vygotsky's works, both in Russian and in English, as well as on his own studies in the Soviet Union with colleagues and students of Vygotsky.

Vygotsky's writings are an enormously rich source of ideas for those who seek an account of the mind as it relates to the social and physical world. Wertsch explores three central themes that run through Vygotsky's work: his insistence on using genetic, or developmental, analysis; his claim that higher mental functioning in the individual has social origins; and his beliefs about the role of tools and signs in human social and psychological activity Wertsch demonstrates how the notion of semiotic mediation is essential to understanding Vygotsky's unique contribution to the study of human consciousness.

In the last four chapters Wertsch extends Vygotsky's claims in light of recent research in linguistics, semiotics, and literary theory. The focus on semiotic phenomena, especially human language, enables him to integrate findings from the wide variety of disciplines with which Vygotsky was concerned Wertsch shows how Vygotsky's approach provides a principled way to link the various strands of human science that seem more isolated than ever today.

Watson, C. & Smitherman, G. (1996). Educating African American Males: Detroit’s Malcolm X Academy Solution. Chicago, IL: Third World Press.

Educating African American Males: Detroit's Malcolm X Academy Solution shows an African-centered educational program in action, documenting its success stories and new challenges. It is must reading for teachers, parents, and all those concerned about the future of our children and our community. For years, Detroit's Malcolm X Academy has been on the frontline of the struggle to reclaim our youth and our community. Their philosophy, curriculum, and pedagogy are African-based and proven effective.

L. Weis & M. Fine. (1993).  Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race, and Gender in United States Schools. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.

Beyond Silenced Voices is a compilation of articles focusing on institutionalized silencing in public schools. Divided into two parts, Weis and Fine’s collection begins with a series of studies that analyze the ways marginalized voices are systematically silenced according to race, gender, and class affiliations. These pieces are each concerned with the ways certain voices are silenced by both implicit and explicit institutional structures imbedded in the public school system, as well as the way in which these silences are sustained and naturalized by the institution. In the second part of the book, writers attempt to listen to these institutionally silenced voices by incorporating individual testimonials into the articles. It is only by hearing and centering these “once marginalized” voices, Fine and Weis argue in their Introduction, that we can move “‘beyond silenced voices’” and “understand and interrupt the perversions and pleasures of power, privilege, and marginalization in public schooling” (2).