Gaining on the Gap: Changing Hearts, Minds, and Practice

Gaining on the Gap: Changing Hearts, Minds, and Practice serves as a guide along the journey taken by six individuals who each played a role in moving a school system along a path where race would not be a predictor for academic success. Join us as we share insights to challenges and victories as well as a close look at our own personal and professional growth.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter One: The Context Chapter Two: Creating Organization Conditions to Close Achievement Gaps Chapter Three: Can Schools Eliminate Gaps? Chapter Four: Fixing the System, Not the Kids Chapter Five: The Perfect Storm: Capitalizing on Synergy Chapter Six: Facilitating Conversations About Race Chapter Seven: Teaching Across Cultures Chapter Eight: System-Level Buy-In: A Case Study Chapter Nine: Gaining on the Gap: Progress, Themes, and Lessons Learned Afterword

About the Author :
Robert G. Smith is associate professor in the George Mason University's College of Education and Human Development's Education Leadership program. Alvin L. Crawley is assistant superintedent for student services at Arlington Public Schools. Cheryl Robinson is the supervisor for the Office of Minority Achievement for the Arlington Public Schools. Timothy Cotman, Jr. is a minority achievement coordinator with the Arlington Public Schools. Marty Swaim is a cultural competence trainer. Palma Joe Strand is associate professor at Creighton Law School in Omaha, Nebraska.

Review :
The achievement gap plagues schools and school divisions around the country. In this compelling book, four staff members and a parent from the Arlington Public Schools (VA), along with former APS Superintendent, Rob Smith, have chronicled the district's more than 12 year attempt to grapple with the difficult issues and move toward the heart of the problem. Looking back over their journey, the APS team believes that solutions to the gap challenge must come from a real awareness of the systemic nature of the problem, the effective and intentional use of data, and a shared responsibility for the development of solutions. There is much to learn from their thoughtfully told stories. The strength of the book is in how a school board, superintendent, and determined staff including teachers tackled a thorny and wicked problem and built slowly an infrastructure that permitted the entire APS staff to deal openly with issues usually left untouched—that of the relationship between race and the achievement gap. This is an important story of a school district systematically and systemically diminishing its racial, socio-economic and linguistic achievement gaps. It presents a forthright blueprint for mobilizing schools and the community to make the structural changes necessary to improve the fortunes of its most low performing students. Reducing and, ultimately, eliminating achievement gaps is a critical task for public school systems today and, indeed, for the nation. The story told by Gaining on the Gap provides valuable insights for School Board members and others who are committed to this task. Gaining on the Gap provides powerful insights into one school district's efforts to eliminate the achievement gap. The collective and varied experiences of the authors reveal the complexities of this issue. Their experiences also give us hope that through honest conversations, sustained professional development, accountability, and use of effective strategies, all students can be successful. For many years I have been telling administrators, 'If you want to lose your job, place the education of poor and minority students first.' Fortunately, the authors of this volume have totally ignored me and sought to find practical and powerful ways to insure that all students receive a first class education. Rather than bemoan the legislative mandates and testing schemes, these authors point us in clear directions for making what historian David Tyack called 'the one best system' a reality in the lives of children and families who most need it to be just that. Closing the gap is the very tip of the iceberg that Rob Smith and his talented team undertook in the Arlington Public Schools. Tackling institutional, societal and personal racism as part of the strategy to achieve this goal became a joint venture of the school board, teachers, staff, students and community. A heroic effort and a powerful story unfold. All of us in education need to read this book. The study offers important lessons for both education practitioners and policymakers. It gives practitioners a new perspective on understanding the achievement gap and ways of narrowing it. For policymakers, it provides insight into what states and the federal government may do to help schools in their reform efforts.