Getting Results with Youth Development: A Strategy for Closing the Achievement Gap in California

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(No Transcript)
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Getting Results with Youth DevelopmentA
Strategy for Closing the Achievement Gap in
California
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• Access to high-quality educational experiences
  is the right of every student no matter their
  ethnic, social, or economic background and is the
  responsibility of the State.
• Closing the Achievement Gap Report of
  Superintendent Jack OConnells California P-16
  Council

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PURPOSE

• To provide information and materials about the
  importance of youth development strategies in
  improving students academic performance and in
  closing the achievement gap

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OUTCOME

• Participants will be able to
• explain the importance of youth development
  strategies in improving students academic
  performance and in closing the achievement gap
• provide support to schools as they implement
  youth development strategies

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OBJECTIVES

• At the conclusion of this training, participants
  will be able to
• Describe the achievement gap in California
• Explain how the use of youth development
  strategies affects the achievement gap
• Describe the efforts of the CDE to address the
  achievement gap
• Identify the kinds of support needed as they work
  with their schools

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ACHIEVEMENT GAP

• The disparity between academic performance of
  white students and other ethnic groups as well as
  that between English learners and native English
  speakers socioeconomically disadvantaged and
  nondisadvantaged students and students with
  disabilities as compared with students without
  disabilities.
• California Department of Education

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ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTS
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MATHEMATICS
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CALIFORNIAS STUDENTS
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A CLOSER LOOK

• Analysis of 2006/7 STAR data indicated poverty
  does not completely explain why the performance
  of African American and Latino students lags
  behind.

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WESTED STUDYPURPOSE

• Determine the role of poverty in the achievement
  gap
• Determine what factors other than SES might
  contribute to the Gap
• Determine how achievement and school well-being
  vary in relation to the socioeconomic status
  (SES) and racial/ethnic compositions of
  California schools

Source The Achievement Gap, School-Well Being,
and Learning Supports. CHKS Factsheet 8.
Available www.wested.org/chks
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WESTED STUDYMeasures

• Race/Ethnicity
• High non-Hispanic White schools (41-47)
• High Hispanic schools (40-45)
• High African American and Hispanic schools (7-9)
• High Asian schools (5-7)
• Socioeconomic Status (SES)
• Proportion that participated in
  free/reduced-price meal program

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WESTED STUDYMeasures Continued

• School Well-Being (as measured by the CHKS)
• School Developmental Supports
• Caring relationships with adults (3-item scale)
• High expectation messages (3-item scale)
• Opportunities for meaningful participation
  (3-item scale)
• School Safety
• Experienced harassment
• Engaged in bullying others
• Violence-related behaviors
• Perceived school was safe
• School Attachment
• School connectedness (5-item scale)
• Truancy

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WESTED STUDYResults

• Association of School Well-Being to Achievement
• Students in low-performing schools consistently
  reported lower levels of school environmental
  supports, safety, and connectedness than students
  in high-performing.
• Racial/Ethnic Differences in Achievement
• Schools with high proportions of Hispanic
  students, and high proportions of African
  American Hispanic students had lower
  standardized test scores even after controlling
  for SES.
• Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Well-being
• African American/Hispanic schools, followed by
  Hispanic, had the lowest rates of school support,
  perceived safety, and connectedness and the
  highest rates for harassment/victimization,
  violence, truancy.

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WESTED STUDYSummary

• Achievement and well-being scores lowest in high
  African American Hispanic schools
• Differences in achievement persisted even after
  controlling for SES, indicating that other
  factors play a role
• One of these factors may be school well-being.
• It affected achievement, even after controlling
  SES and race/ethnicity

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WESTED STUDYConclusions

• Schools with high African American and Hispanic
  students experience both poverty and negative
  school environments, resulting in poor academic
  achievement
• There is a greater need for improvement in school
  well-being in schools with high African American
  and Hispanic students
• Improving the school environment should be part
  of a comprehensive approach to closing the
  achievement gap

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REFLECTION

• How well are the schools you serve doing at
  providing a caring and positive school culture
  and climate?
• Poor Excellent
• 1 2 3 4 5

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REFLECTION

• Do you think that youth of color experience
  fewer external assets than their white
  counterparts in the schools you serve?
• Not at all Greatly
• 1 2 3 4 5

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DEFINING YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

• An approach that helps youth build strong
  relationships with others, learn new skills, and
  give back to the community.
• Karen Pittman in Getting Results, Update 1, p. 7

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YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

• Is a strength-based approach focused on meeting
  the developmental needs of the whole child rather
  than repairing deficits.
• Youth development research includes
• connectedness (Resnick)
• developmental assets (Search Institute)
• resilience and protective factors (Benard)

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CONNECTEDNESS

• School connectedness means that students have a
  sense of belonging at school and perceive that
  teachers are fair and care about them.
• Getting Results, Update 1, pp. 35-36.

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CONNECTEDNESS

• School connectedness is highly correlated with
  school attendance and grades
• School connectedness is the only school-related
  factor that consistently protects students from
  engaging in unhealthy behaviors

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DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS

• The building blocks of human development that
  promote health and protect young people from
  risk-taking behaviors.
• Getting Results, Update 1, p 5.

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RESILIENCE

• Resilience is everyones capacity for healthy
  development and successful learning in spite of
  challenges.
• (Bonnie Benard)

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Youth Development Process
Resilience in Action

• Environmental
• Inputs
• DEVELOPMENTAL
• SUPPORTS
• OPPORTUNITIES
• Caring Relationships
• High Expectations
• Opportunities for
• Meaningful Participation
• in
• Families
• Schools
• Communities

Developed by Bonnie Benard

• Youth Inputs
• THAT MEET
• DEVELOPMENTAL
• NEEDS
• Safety
• Love Belonging
• Respect
• Power
• Challenge
• Mastery
• Meaning

• Youth
• Outputs
• PROMOTING
• POSITIVE
• DEVELOPMENTAL
• OUTCOMES
• Social
• Emotional
• Cognitive
• Moral-Spiritual

• Societal Impacts
• POSITIVE
• PREVENTION
• EDUCATION
• OUTCOMES
• Reduction of
• Risk-taking Behaviors
• Academic Achievement
• Wellbeing
• Mental Health

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• I start with the attitudes and beliefs of
  educators because I have found this to be the
  most striking feature distinguishing the few
  successful schools I have seen and worked with
  from all the othersIn American education we have
  tended to treat reform in a vacuum believing that
  the attitudes of educators are irrelevant.
• Pedro A. Noguera, Understanding the Link Between
  Race and Academic Achievement and Creating
  Schools Where that Link Can Be Broken. SAGE Race
  Relations Abstracts, 2002, 27, p.5-15.

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CARING RELATIONSHIPS

• At my school, there is a teacher or some other
  adult
• Who really cares about me.
• Who notices when Im not there.
• Who listens to me when I have something to say.

2004-2006 weighted CHKS data 700,000 students
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HIGH EXPECTATIONS

• At my school, there is a teacher or some other
  adult
• Who tells me when I do a good job.
• Who always wants me to do my best.
• Who believes that I will be a success.

2004-2006 weighted CHKS data 700,000 students
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MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION

• At school,
• I do interesting activities.
• I help decide things like class activities or
  rules
• I do things that make a difference.

2004-2006 weighted CHKS data 700,000 students
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SCHOOL CONNECTEDNESS

• How strongly do you agree or disagree with the
  following statements about your school?
• Feel close to people at this school.
• I am happy to be at this school.
• I feel like I am part of this school.
• The teachers at this school treat students
  fairly.
• I feel safe in my school.

2004-2006 weighted CHKS data 700,000 students
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ENGAGING SCHOOLS

• Students who report caring and supportive
  interpersonal relationships in school have
• More positive academic attitudes and values
• Are more satisfied with school
• Are more engaged in academic work
• Attend school more and learn more
• Engaging Schools Fostering High School Students
  Motivation to Learn,
• National Research Council Institute of Medicine
  of the National Academies, 2004

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TEACHER PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS

• Teachers perceptions, expectations, and
  behaviors interact with students beliefs,
  behaviors, and work habits in ways that help to
  perpetuate the Black-White and Hispanic-White
  test score gap.
• No matter what material resources are
  available, no matter what strategies districts
  use to allocate children to schools, and no
  matter how children are grouped for instruction,
  children spend their days in social interaction
  with teachers and other students.
• Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the
  Black-White Test Score Gap,
• Ronald F. Ferguson. 2007.

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TEACHER PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS

• Teachers, like all of us, use the dimensions of
  class, race, sex, ethnicity to bring order to
  their perception of the classroom environment.
  With the passage of time teachers perceptions
  become increasingly stereotyped and children
  become hardened caricatures of an initially
  discriminatory vision.
• Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (1978)
• The race or class of a particular student may
  cue the teacher to apply their generalized
  expectations, therefore making it difficult for
  the teacher to develop specific expectations
  tailored to individual students. In this manner,
  the race or class distinction among students is
  perpetuated. The familiar operation of
  stereotypes takes place in that it becomes
  difficult for minority or disadvantaged students
  to distinguish themselves from the generalized
  expectation.
• Baron, Tom and Cooper (1985)

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TEACHERS BELIEFS INFLUENCE STUDENTS BELIEFS

• All children develop a belief about their own
  intelligence
• A group of 7th graders who had been taught that
  the brain can grow (smarter) had significantly
  better math grades than 7th grade students who
  had been trained in good study skills but
  believed they were as smart as they were going to
  be.
• Mindset The New Psychology of Success Carol
  Dweck, 2007.

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THE POWER OF OUR WORDS

• The language we use shapes the way we think. We
  cannot change our attitudes and actions until we
  change our words.
• Karen Hall, Syracuse Cultural Workers 2000
  Calendar

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Multi-tasker/curious Flexible Curious Energetic Sp
ontaneous Persistent Flexible Thrives on
chaos Leader Critical thinker Risk-taker Clever/pl
anner Reflective Eager/enthusiastic Passionate Act
ivist/Strong sense of self Activist Bold Survivor
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CDE EFFORTS

• P-16 Council charged with developing,
  implementing, and sustaining a plan to close the
  achievement gap. (June 2007)
• Closing the Achievement Gap Conference (November
  2007)
• Closing the Achievement Gap website
  (www.closingtheachievementgap.org)
• Report of the Superintendents California P-16
  Council (January 2008)

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P-16 COUNCIL RECOMMENDATIONS

• Access
• Provide high quality Pre-K program
• Align educational systems from Pre-K to college
• Develop partnerships
• Culture and Climate
• Provide culturally relevant professional
  development for all school personnel
• Conduct a climate survey

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P-16 COUNCIL RECOMMENDATIONS

• Expectations
• Augment accountability system
• Model rigor
• Focus on academic rigor
• Improve the awards system
• Strategies
• Create a robust information system
• Provide professional development on the use of
  data
• Share successful practices
• Fully implement the CA K-12 high-speed network
• Create opportunities for district flexibility

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FINAL QUESTIONS
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THATS IT

• Please complete the evaluation form.
• THANK YOU!