Monday, March 25, 2024

Miami-Dade wins foundation's urban education award

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The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation had named Miami-Dade County Public Schools as a finalist for the Broad Prize for Urban Education five times before this year, giving the award to another district every time. But this year, the nation’s fourth-largest school district came out at the top in terms of improving student achievement, raising the graduation rates of minority students, and increasing the percentage of minorities reaching advanced levels on state exams.

The prize includes $550,000 in scholarships for students who demonstrate financial need and academic improvement. Three school districts were chosen as finalists and will receive $150,000 each: the Palm Beach, Fla., district; the Corona-Norco district in Riverside County, Calif.; and the Houston public schools.

The selection jury evaluated quantitative data on the finalists that consisted of publicly available student performance data compiled and analyzed by MPR Associates, Inc., a leading national education research consulting firm. In addition, the jury evaluated the four finalist districts’ policies and practices, compiled following site visits conducted by a team of education practitioners led by RMC Research Corporation, an education consulting company. The site visits included classroom observations and interviews with administrators, teachers, principals, parents, community leaders, school board members and union representatives.

“To give every child a fair shot at the American dream, big-city school systems must deliver an education that prepares young people for college and careers,” The Associated Press quoted US Education Secretary Arne Duncan as saying. “I commend the entire Miami-Dade community for establishing a district-wide culture of results that empowers teachers and students, puts more resources into helping children in the lowest-performing schools, and is helping narrow the achievement gap.”

Progress on closing the achievement gap

Educators—and politicians—think of the “achievement gap” as a difference in the average performance on statewide standardized exams, college entrance exams, high school graduation rates, etc., between two distinct subgroups of students. Examples of subgroups include white students vs. black students, poor students vs. wealthy students, Hispanic students vs. Asian students, and so on.

Two very important things we need to keep in mind whenever we talk about the achievement gap are

  • the groups overlap more today than they ever did, and
  • individual students, because they belong to several different subgroups at the same time, often perform nothing like the “mean” or average performance of the subgroup we’re talking about.

Although the nation and many of our school districts are making progress, the achievement gaps can be tough to close. Also, the progress on narrowing the gap between subgroups varies from place to place. In a state like Florida, where progress is good, it would take an estimated 28 years to close the black-white achievement gap for fourth-grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In Washington State, closing that gap would take an estimated 105 years, according to a report dated December 2010 from the Center on Education Policy.

We also know girls generally have a narrower achievement gap in the different subgroups (race, socioeconomic status) than boys, especially in reading. The gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students is also closing faster than other gaps are.

In awarding the Prize for Urban Education to Miami-Dade, the Broad Foundation clearly hopes the district can serve as a model for other schools around the country. “If we’re serious about closing the achievement gap, we have to close what I call the opportunity gap,” Secretary Duncan said. “The Broad Prize shines a spotlight on success. We have to celebrate success, but most importantly we have to replicate it.”

Paul Katulahttps://news.schoolsdo.org
Paul Katula is the executive editor of the Voxitatis Research Foundation, which publishes this blog. For more information, see the About page.

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