<p>Race-based academic goals are a fundamental piece of NCLB, which has been around for years. In order to make “Safe Harbor”, one of the two ways that a school can make Adequate Yearly Progress, they need to show growth in each subgroup. If a school started out with a significant achievement gap, as almost every school in American with enough diversity to measure such a gap does, then Safe Harbor allows them to demonstrate progress by closing the gap.</p>
<p>Are those numbers depressingly sad? Yes. Even more sad, they seem to arrived at by taking the number of students currently failing, and cutting them in half. So, for example, they’re proposing reducing the rate of failing African American students from 56 to 28%. </p>
<p>However, realistically, the achievement gap is a huge problem, and it’s not going to disappear overnight. It’s going to take years and years of hard work on the part of schools, and other organizations that serve youth and families. Setting ambitious but attainable targets for incrementally chipping away at it is key. </p>
<p>For example, our school has set a goal that students who are behind grade level in reading will move 2 years in reading levels in one year. This means that almost all of the 3rd graders, and most of the 4th graders who are behind will achieve AYP. But the sad reality is that we get many new sixth graders who read on second grade levels. For them, moving to a fourth grade level before seventh would be an amazing thing, accelerating their growth sixfold over what they achieved in their prior school. But it also means that if they stay on that path, they likely won’t achieve “proficient” until the 10th grade test.</p>