Helping All Students Learn: Identifying School Districts Across the U.S. that are Significantly Narrowing Achievement GapsSchools, Public Schools, School Districts - SchoolMatters

"Introduction

In far too many classrooms across America, the academic performance of black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students is more likely to lag behind that of their white or more well-off classmates.

It is no mystery that these longstanding achievement gaps exist; they have been well documented by researchers for decades, and their closure is one of the most persistent challenges in American education. In fact, narrowing and ultimately closing achievement gaps on states' reading and math tests is one of the explicit goals of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, and the impetus behind many school improvement efforts across the nation.

Yet the challenge of narrowing achievement gaps is a more complex undertaking than is often realized. For example, where racial achievement gaps are concerned, it is not enough to simply decrease the difference in the average proficiency rates between white and minority students, because the gap can narrow as the result of one group's falling or static test scores. This is illustrated when a higher-performing group's scores decline, while a lower-performing group's scores remain stable. The result: a narrowed gap without any improvement in achievement. Therefore, a narrowing achievement gap is most significant when the average proficiency rates of both groups being compared increase ."