Tag Archive: achievement gap


Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps

Filed Under: Education Reform, Race Equity by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
February 7, 2013

Today’s blog post is by Communities In Schools Associate Director of Talent Development, Patti Aldaz-Carrasco.

Site Coordinators at SCCP

Site Coordinators participating in the Site Coordinator Certification Program. Photo courtesy Patti Aldaz-Carrasco.

As our communities and schools continue to diversify and grow, so must our awareness and understanding of the structural racism barriers that continue to undermine school achievement for many of the students we serve. More than 70 percent of the students served by Communities In Schools are black or Hispanic. Regardless of the challenges within any social or political arena – whether the focus is education, health care, foster care or juvenile justice – black and Hispanic youth are significantly overrepresented.

In the spring of 2011, Communities In Schools launched the Site Coordinator Certification Program, (SCCP). The SCCP was created to increase the knowledge and professionalism of those individuals with the most direct impact on youth, the site coordinators. It is a learning path that provides substantive, relevant and useful information and resources.

One of the SCCP courses, Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Using the Communities In Schools Model, presents a structural framework for understanding how race impacts our students and their chance at success. This course is designed to build awareness and understanding of the structural racism barriers that continue to undermine school achievement for many students of color. It examines the barriers and introduces learners to the achievement gap. Videos and reading materials help learners understand the relationship between structural racism, the achievement gap and the mission of Communities In Schools.

The course also provides learners with an opportunity to engage one another in a discussion around the implications of this research on their day-to-day work. It identifies the risk and protective factors that have been proven to mitigate barriers and help move the needle on the achievement gap, as presented by Jennifer Durham, Ph.D., a Robert H.B. Baldwin Program Fellow, in her paper Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps (2007).

Communities In Schools is committed to expanding race equity training, and is working towards creating further opportunities for engagement on this critical topic. For now, the SCCP course is one way our network can actively promote the exchange of information, ideas and best practices in race equity.

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Stopping the “Summer Slide”

Filed Under: Families, Research by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
July 10, 2012

Communities In Schools of the Tecumseh Area, Mich. is teaching kids a life skill this summer by leading a bike safety program.

While it can drive parents crazy to have their kids home all day, students love summer break. No getting up early to catch the bus, no homework and no sitting in a classroom all day. Summer break means freedom from academic responsibility and lots of fun.

Unfortunately, all that time away from the classroom tends to have a negative impact on students once school starts up again in the fall. Known to teachers as the “summer slide,” students tend to forget a lot of what they learned while they’re away from school for so long. Instead of learning new material when they return to school in the fall, many students end up needing to spend the first few weeks of the school year reviewing and having to catch up. Studies from The Johns Hopkins Center for Summer Learning reveal that the average student falls two months behind in their reading skills during the long break.

The summer slide is a major contributing factor to the achievement gap affecting students living in poverty. According to The Johns Hopkins Center, students who live below the poverty line have less access to summer educational opportunities, and are therefore more likely to forget even more information than their more affluent peers.

Fortunately, there are ways we can all keep students learning over the summer. Across the Communities In Schools network, many of our affiliates offer programs that are both educational and take advantage of the fun this sunny season can offer. Whether it’s summer camp, kayaking trips, tending a community garden, swimming lessons or visits to college campuses, we make sure that our students are learning valuable life skills that they will need to succeed in school and in life.

If you’re looking for a way to prevent the summer slide and make sure your child keeps learning, organizations like Scholastic and The Southern Poverty Law Center offer some great free and low-cost ideas. Take advantage of your student’s open schedule to go to the zoo, museums or on a nature hike. Even something as simple as cooking together offers a great opportunity for a child to learn science, analytical reading and math!

Summer is a great time for students to read books that interest them without the stress of grades, testing and deadlines. Anindita Basu Sempere, executive director of TheWritingFaculty.com, advises parents, guardians and mentors to encourage children to take advantage of not having homework and foster a love of reading. She recently shared some tips on preventing the summer slide with The Washington Post.

For even more great ideas, we built a Pinterest board full of games and activities that promote summer engagement (including some great ones for rainy days). Feel free to repin them and share with friends!

For children, summer is supposed to be fun and carefree. But that doesn’t mean that learning needs to stop. By putting the brakes on the summer slide, we can start to close the achievement gap and make sure that every student starts school in the fall ready and excited to learn new material.

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What We’re Reading

Filed Under: Dropout Epidemic, Education Reform, What We're Reading by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
June 8, 2012

Photo courtesy Charlie Riedel/Associated Press.

New York Times: We all know that the job market is terrible for recent college grads. Many are toiling at low-paying jobs while living with their parents and paying off student loans. But while this situation is certainly bleak, it’s even worse for high school graduates who choose not to go to college. A new report from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University surveyed high school grads currently not enrolled full-time in college, and found that the majority of participants had trouble finding full-time work and earning a living wage. Only 16 percent of those who graduated high school from 2009-2011 who did not go to college had full-time jobs. An additional 22 percent were working part time, and most of them wanted full-time work.

With the job market in such tatters, many high school grads are debating whether or not the financial burden that comes with college is worth it. But if this report from Rutgers is any indication, it’s better to go to college and struggle as a barista than to not go to college and struggle to find any kind of job. Communities In Schools makes sure that every student receiving our services is prepared to graduate high school and has access to post-secondary education. And we also provide programs that teach high school students a valuable, marketable skill  such as auto repair, plumbing, or construction.

Chronicle of Philanthropy: When the recession began, many corporations had to find ways to cut their spending. Unfortunately, it often came at the expense of their donations to nonprofits. The Chronicle of Philanthropy noted that corporate spending has begun to rise once again, but in ways that are different from typical spending before the economic downturn.

While corporations used to donate to an extremely wide range of causes, most of their spending is now targeted towards one or two specific nonprofits at a time. A study by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy and the Conference Board revealed that just 4 percent of the 144 companies surveyed said they support a wide array of causes.

Want to know what corporations support Communities In Schools? Visit our featured funders page on our website.

Huffington Post: The Huffington Post’s Teen section recently featured a powerful and moving post from a teenager struggling to overcome the achievement gap and get into college. While the student, 17-year-old Andrea Lopez from San Fernando, Calif., gets good grades, she didn’t realize how poorly her school was equipped to help her achieve until she took an SAT prep course at UCLA. Faced with students from wealthier schools, for the first time Lopez realized she was at a disadvantage.

“I thought I had a great vocabulary, but I had never heard words like ‘spurious,’ ‘cogent’ and ‘plaudits.’ It’s disappointing that the schools I’ve been to didn’t give me as good an education as these kids. Usually I’m proud of getting some of the best grades in my classes, but I was jealous of what these students knew,” Lopez wrote.

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Reader Revels

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
April 5, 2012

At Communities In Schools, we love to hear about students succeeding, site coordinators creating amazing programs, and people working together to change the lives of kids across America.

So it’s time again for Reader Revels! It’s an opportunity for you to celebrate and share the difference you made in someone’s life recently, or to recognize the work that someone else did to inspire you.

Are you participating in National Volunteer Month? Someone you know done something kind and wonderful for others? Share these achievements with us and our readers!

To submit your story, go to the comments section of this blog post. We’ll pick our favorite ones to turn into feature stories for the blog!

Let’s celebrate the great work we all do to help children succeed in school and achieve in life!

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The Key to Survival

Filed Under: Dropout Epidemic by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
March 29, 2012

Not a single young person in the United States will walk away unscathed by the current economic downturn. Some children are already feeling the effects of the recession; they’ve watched their parents lose jobs, have had to move from their homes, or are lacking in vital resources such as food and health care. Currently, 87 percent of students served by Communities In Schools receive free and reduced-priced lunch.

Some children may not be feeling the pressure of today’s economy at this very moment. But when they graduate from high school and are faced with entering a dismal job market, they certainly will. View full article »

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