MacInnes focused on districts affected by the Abbott vs. Burke series of court rulings that allocated extra funding to high-poverty districts in an effort to close the achievement gap. Also on the panel were Pablo Muñoz, superintendent of the Elizabeth, New Jersey school district which received Abbott funding and Sara Mead, an education policy expert.
The discussion began with MacInnes basic thesis that while New Jersey hadn’t sorted out all that needed to done to improve achievement among students in high poverty districts, the process of putting the Abbott funding to use had helped them work out several key ideas. MacInnes emphasized that any education policy that doesn’t focus on the fundamental transaction between teacher and student – the moment of learning – is going to come up short. He also was quick to point out that while the Abbott funding provided the resources needed to embark on systemic reform, money is not the root of success. In fact there wasn’t a correlation between how much a district spent per pupil and how well those kids did on assessments.
The root of the New Jersey reforms became, through trial and error, about basic literacy and a focus on early childhood education and reaching children very early in their school careers. The guiding principle that was eventually adopted was that literacy was key to all forms of learning, and that past the third grade, once a kid fell behind more than a grade level in reading, it was almost impossible for him or her to catch up. When Superintendent Muñoz talked about his specific districts, the differences between the kids who received quality early childhood education and participated in intensive literacy programs and those who did not was astounding – as much as 20 point difference on grade level reading tests in elementary school.
It was a fascinating discussion and you can find the link to read more about the study here.
The Center for American Progress hosted the Century Foundation for a discussion about closing the achievement gap for children from high-poverty school districts. Central to the discussion was the recently released book, In Plain Sight: Simple, Difficult Lessons from New Jersey’s Expensive Efforts to Close the Achievement Gap by Century Foundation fellow and former New Jersey legislator Gordon MacInnes.
MacInnes focused on districts affected by the Abbott vs. Burke series of court rulings that allocated extra funding to high-poverty districts in an effort to close the achievement gap. Also on the panel were Pablo Muñoz, superintendent of the Elizabeth, New Jersey school district which received Abbott funding and Sara Mead, an education policy expert.
The discussion began with MacInnes basic thesis that while New Jersey hadn’t sorted out all that needed to done to improve achievement among students in high poverty districts, the process of putting the Abbott funding to use had helped them work out several key ideas. MacInnes emphasized that any education policy that doesn’t focus on the fundamental transaction between teacher and student – the moment of learning – is going to come up short. He also was quick to point out that while the Abbott funding provided the resources needed to embark on systemic reform, money is not the root of success. In fact there wasn’t a correlation between how much a district spent per pupil and how well those kids did on assessments.
The root of the New Jersey reforms became, through trial and error, about basic literacy and a focus on early childhood education and reaching children very early in their school careers. The guiding principle that was eventually adopted was that literacy was key to all forms of learning, and that past the third grade, once a kid fell behind more than a grade level in reading, it was almost impossible for him or her to catch up. When Superintendent Muñoz talked about his specific districts, the differences between the kids who received quality early childhood education and participated in intensive literacy programs and those who did not was astounding – as much as 20 point difference on grade level reading tests in elementary school.
It was a fascinating discussion and you can find the link to read more about the study here.