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(part 3 of 3)

The Achievement Gap

Lakshmi: The Board of Education here in Oak Park and in River Forest has decided that their primary concern is the achievement gap. Basically, it’s an achievement gap between white and Asian students versus black students.

Justin: And the rest of the minorities.

Eliot: I do feel that there are almost two high schools at our one high school, that there is within the class of 800 seniors, maybe 200 or so that consistently have the same classes with each other…I was taking honors and AP courses, so most of these people moved up with me. I don’t know about 600 kids in the class, because I’ve never had a class with them outside of gym or driver’s ed.

I’ve always been confused as to why they call this an achievement gap, because to me it seems that 25 percent of the kids are going to be in the A range, 25 percent in the B range, 25 percent in the C, 25 percent in the D. It seems to me that the top 25 percent of the school is taking the toughest classes, and the lowest portion of the school is taking classes that are not honors…. There is a disparity between the people who are taking the academically rigorous courses and people who aren’t. As to that being a racial disparity, I don’t really have enough evidence to speak about that. But the kids that I’ve been in classes with have been predominantly white.

Hannah: Wait, so you don’t think there’s an achievement gap?

Eliot: I think it makes sense that you have the top 25 percent of the school as a group taking the toughest classes. I don’t know why that top 25 percent of the school is predominantly white.

Are the Exams Biased?

WKCD: There is some research that shows that some of these exams are actually in their design biased toward white students.

Eliot: Towards girls, too. I’ve heard this, that girls perform better on standardized testing.

WKCD: Does that make sense with your experience? Is that true?

Lakshmi: We don’t see the statistical data for any of this. You judge yourself in the community of people that you’re put in….It does seem like the test is geared towards a certain group of people in the sense that the emphasis in certain cultural, socio-economic backgrounds is placed in a certain area. The emphasis is in predominantly math, science, English area.

Eliot: I didn’t see a white question on the test, or a Hispanic question on the test, or a black question on the test.

Justin: The reason why you didn’t see that is because its mainly Caucasian and Asian people that sit down and actually write this test. They write it in your dialect…That’s the problem with American language. There’s so many of the same words that mean the same or different things.

Eliot: But what about in math, or the science section?

Justin: Okay, in math and science sections, most of the time they gear those questions as brainteasers. They make them look harder than they actually are, or they make them look easier and they’re actually hard.

Hannah: Well, let’s just say that the honors classes help prepare-- like our AP English class helped us prepare for the ACT. We had class periods where we were practicing problems for the ACT. But if the regular classes aren’t doing that, then the people in those classes maybe aren’t going to be as prepared for those tests. If there’s a certain type of people in each class, then certain people aren’t going to get what they need.

Eliot: As I was saying earlier, I’m tutoring this girl at Roosevelt. She happens to be African American. She was looking through the test. She’s in seventh grade right now. I was having her do practice sections from one of those ACT prep books. Actually, reading was one of the things that she did the best in. This was without any high school English course preparation or any language barriers.

Her weakest subject was math, and in that case it was because she hadn’t learned much of the material that was on the test. There’s definitely material on the test that goes all the way through pre-calculus, and if in high school you’re not taking courses that take you through all that material, you will be left out on the test.

Anahí: That happened to me!

Justin: That’s exactly what happened to me.

Lakshmi: Yes, but whose fault is that?

Eliot: That is probably a combination of their fault and the school’s. They didn’t go out there and seek to push all the way through the material and make sure that they learned everything that they needed material for the test. It’s also the schools, because the school should make sure that everyone learns all the material necessary for the test by their junior year.

Justin: You said, ‘whose fault is that?’ You can’t really blame it on anybody. Simply because my understanding is different that yours….That’s an ignorant statement. No disrespect, but I see that as real degrading to people that are in the lower 25 percent of the class.

Lakshmi: I wouldn’t account their poor grades and performance to inferior intelligence, though. Because that’s a sorry excuse for doing poorly in school. Because pretty much in OPRF, effort takes you a long way.

Eliot: [Test designers] assume that they can standardize the math curricula and the English curricula, but they don’t assume that they can standardize the science curricula… Maybe the standard assumption should be that we can’t standardize the math curricula and the English curricula. And then develop tests that are more adapted towards that line of reasoning than the current.

Justin: The standardized tests can’t measure how smart you are, because there’s no way of actually doing that. Basically, all they do is, they measure how well you take their version of standardized tests. If they could measure how smart you were, there wouldn’t be a way to study for it. Yet we have prep classes, we have books, we have CD ROMs.

Eliot: I second that…I feel that ultimately the perfect standardized test would meet that criteria.

Lakshmi: They’re supposed to be aptitude tests. It was supposed to measure sheer aptitude, which technically means you can’t study for it. But the second you start placing emphasis on it in the idea that it’s a precursor to your future endeavors, obviously people are going to try to find a way to break the system to find a way to do well. That’s just inevitable. You can’t place such a significant weight upon it and then not expect people to prepare. Which is going to be the problem if, let’s say, they scrap the SAT and ACT and put a new test into place that is going to determine college admissions, or going to help.

Eliot: But the flip side isn’t that great either. They scrap all the standardized testing and then all the colleges have to assess you on is essay writing.

Lakshmi: That and maybe AP tests.

WKCD: If you were a panel of college admissions officers, would there be something else you would do aside from what they do now?

Eliot: There should be a mandatory interview. There should be an interview, the SAT and essays. I think that after doing those three, the colleges would know you.

Justin: It should just be interview, essay. Not even your grades.

Hannah: So no grades at all?

Lakshmi: Then why not just go to trade school? College means academics.

Anahí: I’m not sure about scrapping anything. There are people who may have done horribly in high school that probably didn’t care about it, but when they got to college, it flipped severely. Someone who was a C or D student [can become] a straight-A student. It’s probably because they got to do what they actually wanted for a change. Someone who really doesn’t care about English, really likes science, had to take all these classes and didn’t like them, and probably played hooky. But there’s a flip side. There has to be that consideration in that ability to see this kid for more than just one thing.

In my country, there are kids that were not stellar in high school, but they were geniuses in what they wanted to learn. Just because of your past doesn’t make your future. You’re always working forward, and if they only judge you for who you were, they’ll never give you a chance to be who you could be.

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