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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 203 Print image (78K) |
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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 203 Print image (78K) |
| Recommendation 11: Academic Growth Local school systems should set the goal, with necessary accountability mechanisms, that all students should make at least a year's worth of academic growth each year regardless of the starting point. Recommendation 12: Academic Growth Local school systems should ensure adequate communication between feeder and receiving schools to avoid excessive reteaching, since that is one of the biggest impediments to sustained academic growth as students change buildings. Rationale When there is a downward relation in students' academic gain compared to their prior academic achievement, a phenomenon termed "shed pattern" is often occurring. When this detrimental pattern is observed, instruction is being paced and directed to the needs of the previously lowest achievers in the classroom, resulting in retarded academic growth for the average and previously above average students. Often in the early grades, schools serving high percentages of disadvamaged students at the lower end of their distributions get exceptionally high gains. But as shed patterns persist, the gap in achievement means becomes pronounced in the middle school grades, thus the lag. The lag in average scores is not necessarily attributable to the failure of schools to provide adequate growth opportunities for the early lowest achieving students, rather it is the failure to provide sustained academic growth opportunities for the early above average students within those schools. If students are unfortunate enough to be in classrooms with this pattern tor two or three years in a row. then those early average and above average students begin to score at levels considerably below those levels that would have been predicted from their earlier academic performance. Shed patterns can be observed within suburban, rural and urban schools, but they are observed -disproportionately within urban schools serving disadvantaged populations of students. This phenomenon is not an ethnic issue per se. Schools that have a preponderance of these patterns will have achievement levels that lag, regardless of the location of the building. However, schools serving a high percentage of minority students are more likely to demonstrate these patterns. Local school systems should articulate and hold schools and teachers accountable for sustained academic growth rates at reasonable and attainable levels, thus ensuring appropriate levels of progress that all students should obtain. All students should be given the opportunity to make academic progress each year from their starling points, regardless of the school or the classroom to which they are assigned. This involves development and implementation of methods to ascertain that every student's academic achievement is progressive and commensurate with prior achievement from elememarv throueh secondary school. 63 |