McREL supports Missouri statewide effort to close the achievement gap
Closing the achievement gap: It’s a vexing challenge that lies at the heart of many provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In 2004, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis (OSEDA) at the University of Missouri, and Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) teamed up to address this challenge through a “Close the Gap Consortium”—a three-year effort to provide schools with expert guidance on how to improve student achievement and diminish disparities among student subgroups.
This effort will bring together teams from 24 schools in 10 districts and provide them with professional development based on McREL research that identifies school, teacher, and leader practices that positively impact student achievement. In addition, McREL consultants will train a cadre of “mentors” who will provide school teams with ongoing, on-site, hands-on support and assistance.
Together, McREL and the mentors will help schools implement key classroom and school practices that improve student achievement across the board and also focus on identifying and implementing strategies that close the achievement gap boosting the achievement of all student subgroups.
Leveraging investments
The effort, which is being funded through a combination of state funds and McREL’s regional educational laboratory contract, is field testing an innovative approach to school improvement that McREL has been developing and refining through its laboratory contract. McREL’s program, which has raised student achievement in Indiana, Kansas, and South Dakota, is not a one-size-fits-all model for school improvement. Instead, McREL’s approach aims to help educators develop their own capacity for continuous improvement so they can keep on improving long after McREL consultants leave.
Working alongside schools and districts, McREL consultants help them focus their improvement efforts on changes that research says have the most impact on student outcomes. McREL works with schools to map a course for improvement and continually assess the impact of those improvements in order to guide future changes.
Proven track record
In Indiana, participants in McREL’s first school improvement consortium have seen steady gains in student achievement—some of them dramatic. The school district in Knox, for example, experienced double-digit growth in all subject areas and all grade levels on the statewide achievement test.
More importantly, participants say their teachers have developed the capacity to continue to grow as professionals, look at the data and ask hard questions, and use research to search for answers. “TOPHAT has prepared us for the expectations of No Child Left Behind,” said Knox Superintendent Allen Bourff. “But we are focused on more than just Adequate Yearly Progress. We’re focused on maintaining our growth and doing the right things for our students.”
Intended outcomes
By 2007, McREL and its partners are confident they will significantly improve student performance in all participating schools. Ultimately, the consortium’s goal is to decrease the achievement gap between black students and white students in these schools by at least 15 percent over the three years. “The partners working on this project all share the belief that we can’t waste any of our kids—we must find solutions to the achievement gap,” said Howard Jones, the consortium’s coordinator, a DESE / OSEDA employee. “By working together, we can generate powerful solutions that help all our kids.”