School Reform Alone Can Never Fully Close Achievement Gaps, Says WestEd
School reforms to close the academic achievement gap among our nation's children cannot fully succeed unless supplemented by reform in the social and economic institutions that affect children's ability to learn, according to a WestEd Policy Perspectives paper by Richard Rothstein, Research Associate at the Economic Policy Institute.
School reforms to close the academic achievement gap among our nation's children cannot fully succeed unless supplemented by reform in the social and economic institutions that affect children's ability to learn, according to a WestEd Policy Perspectives paper by Richard Rothstein, Research Associate at the Economic Policy Institute.
"We exclusively target schools for reform because we wrongly assume that schools must be the sole cause of persistent achievement gaps, says Rothstein. "But the achievement gaps between middle and lower income students, and between black and white students, cannot be eliminated unless we also tackle the causes of these gaps which lie outside the schoolhouse door."
This article appeared on www.i-newswire.com on June 14th, 2006.Published Saturday, Jun. 17, 2006