Full Description
While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap that is even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given fair opportunities to be prepared for college. By obsessively focusing on measuring achievement, the nation's policymakers have made little progress in measuring or addressing inequitable opportunities. Policy therefore fails to engage with the challenges, supports, and resources that lead to improvements in student learning. The achievement gap has not arisen by coincidence; children learn when they have opportunities to learn, and gaps in opportunities have led to gaps in achievement. Moreover, students' learning experiences and outcomes are deeply affected by many factors outside of the immediate control of schools.
Closing the Opportunity Gap brings together top experts who offer evidence-based essays that paint a powerful picture of denied opportunities. They also describe sensible, research-based policy approaches to enhance opportunities. They highlight the discrepancies that exist in our society and in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and broader circumstances conspire to create the opportunity gap that leads inexorably to the outcome differences that have become so stark. The volume makes a compelling case that American educational policy must move beyond the conventional focus on achievement and opens a discussion about the common sense ways schools can and should give all American children more equitable opportunities to thrive.
Contents
Acknowledgements ; List of Contributors ; Chapter 1. Achievement Gaps Arise from Opportunity Gaps, Kevin G. Welner & Prudence L. Carter ; Chapter 2. Lack of Achievement or Loss of Opportunity?, Gloria Ladson-Billings ; Part One: Overcoming the Obstacles We Create for Children ; Chapter 3. Educationalizing the Welfare State and Privatizing Education: The Irony of Recent School Reform, Harvey Kantor & Robert Lowe ; Chapter 4. Going to the Roots: Race, Housing, and School Inequality Costs and Possible Solutions, Gary Orfield ; Chapter 5. Why Children from Lower Socioeconomic Classes, on Average, Have Lower Academic Achievement than Middle-Class Children, Richard Rothstein ; Part Two: Overcoming the Obstacles We Create for Schools ; Chapter 6. Inequality and School Resources: What it Will Take to Close the Opportunity Gap?, Linda Darling-Hammond ; Chapter 7. Achievement Gaps Start Early: Preschool Can Help, W. Steven Barnett & Cynthia E. Lamy ; Chapter 8. How Common Standards and Standardized Testing Widen the Opportunity Gap, Yong Zhao & Christopher Tienken ; Chapter 9. A More Perfect Union: Reconciling School Choice Policy with Equality of Opportunity Goals, Janelle Scott & Amy Stuart Wells ; Part Three: Overcoming the Obstacles We Create for Teachers ; Chapter 10. Student and School Cultures & the Opportunity Gap: Paying Attention and Engaging Better, Prudence L. Carter ; Chapter 11. Meeting the Needs of Language Minorities, Patricia Gandara ; Chapter 12. Tracking, Segregation, and the Opportunity Gap: What We Know and Why It Matters, Karolyn Tyson ; Chapter 13. Good Schools and Teachers for All Students: Dispelling Myths, Facing Evidence, and Pursuing the Right Strategies, Barnett Berry ; Part Four: Solutions/Conclusion ; Chapter 14. The Cumulative Costs of the Opportunity Gap, Clive Belfield & Hank Levin ; Chapter 15. Enhancing a Nation's Democracy through Equitable Schools, Michele Moses & John Rogers ; Chapter 16. Building Opportunities to Achieve, Prudence L. Carter & Kevin G. Welner ; Notes ; References ; Index
