Dishonor Roll: ODE Closing the Achievement Gap – One Banquet at a Time

Excluding “inspirational videos” and one page stories, this is ODE’s entire coverage of closing the achievement gap.  Apparently closing the gap in Oregon is an annual banquet.

“The Academic Achievement Gap describes the gap in achievement that often exists between low income or minority students and their peers. Nationally, low income, minority, and special education students as well as students who are non-native English speakers tend to achieve at lower levels then students overall. In Oregon, our focus on this issue has seen results, and in two of the past three years we have seen a closing of the gap. However, the achievement gap still exists and there is still a great deal of work to be done. Minority and low income students still lag behind in state and national tests and are still over represented in dropout numbers.

Changing Oregon Schools

The racial and cultural diversity in Oregon has increased dramatically over the past ten years, adding great richness to our classrooms and communities and posing new challenges for our schools as they attempt to meet the needs of an increasingly culturally, racially and linguistically varied student population.

The number of Hispanic students has increased over 200% since the early 1990’s (up 700% from 1980) and the minority population overall has doubled since the 1995-96 school year. The percent of non-native English speakers has also risen from 2.7% in 95-96 to 11.5% in the 06-07 school year. The percent of students in poverty has increased ten percent in the last ten years. The increase of minority students in our schools has not been mirrored by the teaching population. While 27.7% of students are considered minorities, only 5.2% of teachers are.

Closing the Gap

While we’re not where we want or need to be on student achievement levels, over the past several years, we have seen achievement levels rise for students of color and low-income students. Although graduation rates for minority students are still lower than their white peers, we have seen a real decrease in dropout numbers. For example, in the 1994-95 school year, almost 18% of Hispanic students were classified as dropouts. In 2005-06 it was down to 8.4%. Through focus, strong leadership, use of data, and a commitment to success for all students we are seeing progress in closing the gap.”

Celebrating Student Success Banquet

The Celebrating Student Success Banquet is an annual event recognizing and honoring Oregon Schools that are making substantial progress in closing the achievement gap. The event unites educators, business leaders, community members, legislators and parents to recognize schools from around the state for their successful strategies for closing the achievement gap and to learn from and share their good work. The top schools are awarded an unrestricted, $3000 sponsored grant to further the outstanding work they are doing every day for Oregon students. The 2009 Celebrating Student Success Banquet will be held at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on May 1st from 6-8 pm.