The minority achievement gap can be traced back to segregation, continuing long after Brown v. Board of Education. With the relatively large index of research and theory that has been devoted to understanding this phenomenon, why has the achievement gap persisted?
Hi Marquis, this is a great question. You might check out our article "Reading Difficulties in Young Children: Beyond Basic Early Literacy Skills" that appeared in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. In the article we discussed a number of issues pertaining to the persistent achievement gap (as they relate to reading skills). Although there are a host of possible reasons, I believe that some of the primary factors are: (1) Children from disadvantaged backgrounds enter school with significantly lower vocabulary knowledge breadth and depth, which in turn negatively impacts their reading acquisition, language, written expression, and long term achievement; (2) Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to enter school with lower behavioral regulation skills which negatively impacts their ability to sustain attention and persist with difficult tasks; and (3) Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to attend schools in which teachers are less knowledgable about reading development, less experienced, less skilled in diversifying instruction, and less skilled in managing students' behavior effectively.
Article Reading Difficulties in Young Children: Beyond Basic Early L...
Nathan, I agree with the findings from your article and, through my own research, have explored many of the factors that you outline. It seems, however, that scholarship is not translating into policy and practice. What are your thoughts?
The research-to-practice gap is a problem across many fields (medicine, education, psychology, etc.), thus the problem is not unique to education. First there is the problem of communication, in that people in the field tend to not read research journals and we (researchers) are not always effective in reaching practitioners or communicating our work in ways that will change their practices. Second, with regard achievement gaps, we have to consider how difficult the challenge really is. I mentioned the vocabulary gaps that are present when children enter school; vocabulary development begins in infancy and early childhood, thus preventative intervention would have to address the language exposure of at-risk children from a very young age. Studies indicate that parents from disadvantaged households talk to their children less, use fewer words, and use less rich vocabulary compared to parents from higher socio-economic status, but you can imagine how monumental the challenge would be to address the quality of vocabulary in low-SES households. I also mentioned issues around teacher and school quality; but saying that disadvantaged schools should hire and retain the most effective teachers is far easier said than done. That is partly up to policy makers at the state and federal level who control the ability for schools to attract (and keep) good teachers. At the end of the paper I sent you we offered some implications for policy that represent some suggestions for reducing the research-to-practice gap with regarding to reading achievement.
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