November 2005 Minority Learning | Teachers College Columbia University

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November 2005 Minority Learning

According to international studies such as the Trends in Math and Science Study (TIMSS), the highest-performing U.S. high-schoolers score lower than students in other countries with comparable courses in advanced classes such as calculus. Some analyses of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicate that narrower gaps between minority and/or poor children and nonminority and more affluent children are due more to static achievement of the latter group than to higher achievement in the former group.
According to international studies such as the Trends in Math and Science Study (TIMSS), the highest-performing U.S. high-schoolers score lower than students in other countries with comparable courses in advanced classes such as calculus. Some analyses of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicate that narrower gaps between minority and/or poor children and nonminority and more affluent children are due more to static achievement of the latter group than to higher achievement in the former group.

Fostering academic talent among minority/poor students will require much more than higher testing requirements, says a report from the National Study Group for the Affirmative Development of Academic Ability. The group of scholars was charged to propose the interventions needed to help close the academic achievement gaps among ethnic-minority students. Sponsors of the Study Group were the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College Columbia University, the College Board, and Learning Point Associates (the former North Central Regional Education Laboratory).

The report, "All Students Reaching the Top: Strategies for Closing Academic Achievement Gaps," published by Learning Point Associates (www.learning point.org), calls for simultaneous interventions at the classroom, school, and community levels. Academic ability, the authors contend, "is a developed ability, the quality of which is not primarily a function of one's biological endowment or fixed aptitudes."

This article appeared in Education Digest on October 28th, 2005.  

Published Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005

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