Achievement Gap

FOR THE SECOND year in a row, Montgomery County's investment in all-day kindergarten for selected schools has paid off. Lower-income students targeted by the project have been matching or outperforming their peers in other, wealthier county schools, and making significant gains in early reading skills. These early test results confirm the value of extending the school day for 5-year-olds, especially those who start school lacking skills needed to become strong readers. Numerous studies suggest that children who start school with letter and sound basics, and active vocabularies, tend to get and stay ahead through their academic careers; their peers who are behind at the starting gate too often never catch up. To tackle head-on the seemingly intractable roots of the "achievement gap," Montgomery County has spent $11 million to target the neediest children first, and plans to phase in day-long programs for the rest.

Howard County school board members have agreed that they need to voice stronger opposition to a bill that would retool the seven-member, at-large, elected body to one with five members elected by district and two appointees. The bill, which requires legislative approval, will be discussed Tuesday at a public hearing. If passed during a special session this month, the legislation would take effect before the Jan. 11 school board primary filing deadline. Board Chairman Janet Siddiqui plans to testify at the hearing, and she asked board members this week for suggestions on rewording her previous testimony.

In the most recent national report card on student achievement - the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress - minority pupils showed some welcome, though not overwhelming, signs of narrowing the long-standing achievement gap vs. the performance of white students. Maryland's testing of its public-school students in recent years has shown much the same improvements. And within certain parts of the Baltimore region, such as the Howard County schools, the relative gains by black students also have been pronounced.

School board incumbents Janet Siddiqui and Ellen Flynn Giles and candidate Allen Dyer have been endorsed by the Howard County Education Association, the union that represents more than 6,000 school system employees. "We not only influence our members, but their families, retirees and community members that value our option," said Ann DeLacy, president of HCEA. "We are respected. We are held in high esteem. Hopefully, they know that we go through a very thorough process and we examine all the factors that contribute to student learning."

If an identifiable group of students is having a hard time keeping up in school, is it fair to single those kids out for special help? It's a dilemma that many school systems, including some in Maryland, are facing when it comes to African-American boys, who are often on the low end of the achievement gap. In Ossining, N.Y., the school district is using mentoring and other targeted interventions that have also been recommended by a Maryland task force...

For the third year in a row, Baltimore's scores on state tests show a double-digit achievement gap between chronically absent students and their peers who attend school regularly, and the system's recent spike in suspensions has created a similar disparity. In releasing the Maryland School Assessment results last week, city schools CEO Andrés Alonso identified the widening gap between students who are chronically absent — meaning they miss more than 20 days a year — and those who attend school regularly as a crucial barrier to the system's overall achievement.

Baltimore County students of all races are making academic progress by many measures, but wide gaps in the achievement and suspension rates between whites and minorities remain, according to a report released yesterday. The report shows that minority students, along with whites, are taking more "highly rigorous" courses, and that in some cases the achievement gap in standardized test scores is narrowing. At the same time, however, the number of suspensions for African-American students nearly doubled between 2000 and 2004 while the number for white students rose only slightly.

Now that the General Assembly session is about to begin, the Baltimore County political delegation should turn their focus to securing funding to sustain the Baltimore County Public Schools' (BCPS) decade-long success in raising achievement for all students, regardless of their zip code. BCPS continues to be ranked one of the best in the nation among large, diverse, urban school systems. A good example of this is Millbrook Elementary School's recent national recognition for progress in closing the achievement gap. As demonstrated in BCPS' Blueprint for Progress, the focus should always be about the students and making sure more students do well in math, reading and language arts.

Now that sequestration is upon us, our nation's leaders continue to debate which federal programs provide the best bang for the buck. When they ask how effective Head Start is, many legislators have cited the Head Start Impact Study. It concludes that although Head Start consistently closes the achievement gap and prepares many of America's poorest and neediest children for kindergarten, by third grade most children across the nation outperform and outscore children who attend Head Start.

Cellular phone towers are taking root in residential areas After years of tucking cellular telephone antennas on commercial properties, telecommunications companies are proposing several towers in Howard County's residential areas - catching neighbors' attention and occasionally their wrath. The county's Board of Appeals approved at least two towers on residential land in the past six months and will hear three more requests soon. All are outside Howard's urban core. Most are or would be on farms.