As Colorado politicians get serious about the fall campaigns, it’s time for them and voters to focus on Colorado’s persistent achievement gap.
Last week’s release of new CSAP scores shows a bit of encouraging news, but the gaps remain large. And, even where the gap is narrowing, progress is so slow that it will be decades before our African-American and Latino students catch up.
This crucial issue has long been marked by mediocre results, which cry out for bold leadership and ideas.
The gap between Colorado’s advantaged and disadvantaged students is wide and persistent. A new analysis by the University of Colorado’s Center for Education Policy Analysis in Denver, the Colorado Children’s Campaign and the Donnell- Kay Foundation reveals that disadvantaged students lag about two grade levels behind their peers and are more likely to drop out of school. Thousands of students are being left behind.
The gap shows few signs of closing. The gap between white and Latino students is greater now than it was in the early 1990s in grade 4 reading, grade 4 math and grade 8 math. And CSAP results tell us that between 2002 and 2005, the white-Latino achievement gap grew in every grade, in reading, in writing and in math.
The gap here in Colorado is wider than the gap nationwide, and too few of our students of color are achieving excellence. For example, only 12 of the 2,952 African-American students who took the 10th grade math CSAP scored at the advanced level in 2005 – less than half of one-percent.
While the overall picture of the achievement gap is discouraging, there are some bright spots that may help us better understand the problem and possible solutions.
Although Colorado has one of the country’s most educated populations, our schools are failing to supply the next generation of an educated, diverse workforce. This “Colorado Paradox” has serious implications for our future economic stability.
As Colorado becomes even more diverse over the next ten years, both the challenges and opportunities facing our educational system will grow. If the achievement gap remains wide, an increasing number of children will graduate from high school unprepared to partake in Colorado’s economic future – even more will not graduate at all.
The achievement gap is not a new issue in Colorado. Seven years ago, a governor’s task force was established to deal with this problem. Unfortunately, few major improvements have been made.
There are no easy answers, and closing this gap will require multiple policy changes, sustained leadership, and a sense of urgency about what could be this state’s biggest problem.
The new achievement gap report highlights a handful of strategies that have shown some promise. None alone are the “silver bullet,” but collectively and creatively implemented, they can work. They include investing early in preschool programs, increasing integration of students from different economic groups, maintaining focused accountability, intervening appropriately in failing schools, directing district resources to where they are most needed and creating new schools and thoughtfully expanding choices that better serve all children. But most important are leadership and a sense of urgency at the state, district, and school (and family) levels.
Let’s make sure that our candidates for office tell us how they will address this critical problem.
Alex Medler is policy director and Andrew Brodsky is director of research and evaluation for the Colorado Children’s Campaign. Paul Teske is a professor and director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado, Denver.
