Sean Reardon of Stanford Academy's Graduate School of Education

Sean Reardon of Stanford University's Graduate School of Teaching

The results of the Smarter Balanced assessments, the centerpiece of the California Assessment of Pupil Performance and Progress, or CAASPP, were released on Sept. ix and showed the vast achievement gaps that decades of education reforms take failed to close. This interview with Sean Reardon, who is a professor of poverty and inequality in education in the Stanford Graduate School of Instruction, is the 2nd in a series of interviews conducted by EdSource executive director Louis Freedberg with leading educators and scholars about the continuing gap. Among Reardon's many publications, a landmark newspaper on the "income achievement gap" showed that the gap between students from affluent families and those from depression-income backgrounds has widened in recent years, and is 40 percent larger than the blackness-white accomplishment gap.  (For Role One in the series with Christopher Edley, become here).

What does the achievement gap in the Smarter Balanced test results say nearly the effectiveness or otherwise of the basic approach to education reform in recent decades?

There is no existent testify that the whole school system has been able to issue a reduction in achievement gaps over concluding decade or 2. I don't recall there is whatever evidence that accountability systems accept been effective in reducing achievement gaps. We did a paper looking at whether No Child Left Backside had reduced the achievement gap and found very little testify that information technology had. Accomplishment gaps are a niggling flake smaller than they were nationally 15 to twenty years ago, but that is non due to NCLB considering that happened well before NCLB came into place, and when you look at the blackness-white achievement gap, when kids come up to school at kindergarten entry that has been declining over time.

That seems to explain why the accomplishment gap in elementary and middle school has been narrowing very slowly, considering kids are getting to school a niggling less unequally prepared. Whatever narrowing there is seems to be a result of what happens to kids earlier they go to school. So it suggests nosotros accept not done a very good job.

Also worth acknowledging is that a large piece of the achievement gap is due to inequality of kids' lives out of school. It may be unrealistic to wait schools to disengage all the other inequalities in kids' lives. They could certainly practise a better chore at reducing some of it, but I incertitude schools alone will ever entirely reduce the accomplishment gaps, without some equally concerted efforts to reduce racial and ethnic inequality in income and neighborhood conditions and things like that outside school.

But what tin schools practice about the income inequality?

In that location are two sides to that argument. You can say schools can sort of do information technology on their own, and allow's non telephone call attention to poverty. Or you could say schools can't do anything because at that place is and so much inequality exterior school, and we are are fooling ourselves if nosotros call up nosotros can fix this without fixing the bigger consequence of structural inequality.

Well, schools can do something, and then it is not accurate to say schools can't practise anything. The right answer is that both schools and larger social inequalities play a big role and nosotros are non going to make real progress without working on both fronts at once.

California is targeting funds at low-income and high-needs kids more than any other state. Is this going in the correct direction and volition information technology tackle the achievement gap more effectively than other reform efforts in contempo years?

I think information technology is certainly a step in the correct management, and it will likely have benefits down the road. But probably it lonely will not exist enough.

New evidence from Rucker Johnson at UC Berkeley and others evidence that states that take done more than to equalize funding amongst poor and rich districts have seen improvements in educational outcomes of kids in lower-income districts, and some narrowing of gaps in the graduation rate.

If Johnson's evidence is whatever indication, nosotros should see some payoffs down the line. Will that resolve the trouble entirely? No. It is much bigger than a funding disparity simply information technology is certainly a step in the right direction?

How much of a departure will the Mutual Cadre make?

I don't think we know the respond to that question. Will the Common Cadre make things better or worse or make no departure in terms of equity? I hear competing arguments. Both have claim.

I argument is that information technology raises expectations and advantaged districts will have resources to encounter those improve than disadvantaged districts and volition widen inequality.

The other argument is that it volition assist narrow it, considering it will put pressure on schools to move away from drill and impale, the test prep stuff that NCLB fostered and that maybe helped get your test scores upwards simply didn't promote the real learning that we want. And so by pushing towards higher standards of instruction and learning, the kids in disadvantaged schools will starting time getting what kids in advantaged schools are getting.

Both are very plausible arguments. We don't know yet how information technology volition play out. I wouldn't venture to predict at this indicate.

Some media reports have argued that the achievement gap equally measured by exam results is actually wider on the Smarter Balanced assessments than on previous tests. What was your reaction to those reports?

I don't think the people reporting the results sympathise how to translate test results. They are comparing things that are not comparable to each other. Y'all tin can't simply look at differences in proficiency rates.

Imagine trying to measure the pinnacle differential between boys and girls, and you say "I am going to call anyone over 5′ 8″ tall, and anyone nether 5′ viii″ short. And you conclude that there is a big gap betwixt boys and girls, because near boys are over 5′ 8″ and nearly girls are under five′ 8". The tiptop gap would be huge.

Just if you set the height at 5′ 2″, most girls are over 5′ ii″ and so are the vast majority of boys. And then the difference would exist much smaller. What the Common Core has done is to motion the bar college so information technology is more in the 5′ 8″ range than in the 5′ 2″ range. So the differences look bigger.

Y'all are missing the big story that at that place is a wide distribution of heights or test scores in both groups, and you want to describe the whole distribution, not some movable standard. And then I don't know if the gap is whatever bigger under the Common Core standards than nether the one-time ones, because you tin can't compare them the manner they are doing information technology in the media.

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