Running head: CLOSING ACHIEVEMENT GAPS: REVISTING BENJAMIN S. BLOOM’S
Guskey, T. R. (2007). Closing achievement gaps: revisiting Benjamin S. Bloom 's “learning for mastery”. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19(1), 8-31.
The author begins the article by first acknowledging the existence of achievement gaps within the school system, a problem that has plagued the country for some time now. As a result of education reform and the desire for change to take place within the education system, political leaders and programs like No Child Left Behind, has shifted its focus once again to closing the achievement gap. Given the latest changes in education, schools are now mandated to submit a breakdown of student achievement results based on the student’s
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Bloom’s research on reducing achievement gaps as providing awareness and strategies to common problems associated with achievement gaps. In 1960, Bloom began his research on individual differences in school learning, when he noticed that instructors provided few differences in the way they taught students. He observed that teachers did not accommodate for individual differences but taught every student the same and offered students the same amount of time to grasp concepts. As a result, students that had minimal trouble with this method of instruction were ultimately successful, but majority of the students who found the instruction methods to be unsuitable were not as successful as their peers, thus acquiring less information. In an effort to produce favorable results and diminish differences in student achievement, Bloom decided that because teachers serve students with different needs and learning abilities that a variety of teaching methods must be applied to instruction with the intent on the teacher meeting the needs of every student in her classroom. While looking for ways to solve this issue, Bloom thought about three possible resolutions to the problem. Providing students with a tutor to assist with student understanding, structuring concepts into instructional units, and using the results from assessments to provide feedback to students. Based on this approach, Bloom suggested that all three components be included as the framework …show more content…
The author than describes common misperception and misunderstandings of Bloom’s mastery learning. Some educators feel that the implementation of mastery learning is too time consuming and can take the place of valuable instruction time. In response to the argument, the author admits that at first the process can be lengthy and that many teachers that are implementing the program in their classroom find that they are behind with units compared to other teachers who don’t participate in mastery learning, but teachers can make up for instructional time missed by doing away with lesson reviews prior to administering formative assessments or adjusting the curriculum and or pacing
In conclusion, the Academic Achievement has been fueled by society's presets, minority students' lack of effort, and the failures of the schooling system in America. There has been some challenging setbacks, but the Gap can be fixed to create a common ground for all prospective members of America's society to excel on equally. By realizing that change can be achieved, there are little to no limits for minority students to create a better mindset towards education. Students, parents, and teachers have to be willing to work together, as well as tackle obstacles upheld by society, and the economic deficiencies that effect schools across America. This will, in turn, take America one step closer to closing the Academic Achievement Gap in America.
Hursh, David. "Exacerbating Inequality: The Failed Promise of the No Child Left Behind Act." Wou.edu. Routledge, Sept. 2007. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.
Woolfolk, A. E., Winne, P. H., & Perry, N. E. (2011). Educational psychology (5th ed.) Toronto: Pearson.
In the late 1950s, Carl Hansen associate superintendent of all high schools and desegregation advocate released a report of test scores showing a wide range in high school student performances; this report will be the beginning of tracking or ability grouping. According to Hansen, the objectives of tracking were “the attainment of quality education” and “the...
The Achievement has been a reoccurring issue for many years within the education system. Achievement gaps refers to the academic performance within a set of students. The most vital indicators pertaining to the achievement gap is reviewing standardized tests, course selection, dropout rates, and college completion rates (Morris 227). This issue has been reoccurring because of the various attempts of reforms to close the gap. Some of the reforms to decrease the gap is “No child left behind act 2001”, recovery act, P-12 reform, and many more. It can be argued that these first reforms changed the education system to any extent. However it is evitable to find the most successful reform for the United States increase economically. Which is why this topic is important for North Carolina. The achievement gap is sustainably defined by the differences among not only racial groups but subgroups as well.
Achievement gaps in schools across America impinge on racial-ethnic and socioeconomic status groups. For generations school systems focus on improving the achievement gaps for low-income and minority students. Statistics have provided evidenced that the school systems made enormous progress between 1970 and 1988, but came to a halt thereafter. Presently in the 20th century the gap has widened and the need for improvement is challenging for the school administr...
The means of justifying these inequalities are important for the entire world. Education played and will always play a big role in everyone’s lives. Equality in education will eventually guarantee every person a better position in society. Educational inequality is the difference in learning effectiveness and results as faced by students with varying backgrounds. The effects of educational inequality are not only left within the circles of education, but also remain further to have an impact on other life aspects. All over the world, there have been unending calls to reform education at each level. With various causes that are very much connected to society, history and culture, the educational inequality has apparently been one of the most difficult challenges to address. Regardless of the challenges faced in removing educational inequality, education has continued to be a very important part of society with a big expectation of moving it forward. In the current-day America, very many disadvantaged children have continued to grow up missing key skills. Discrimination has continued to persevere in educational achievement between racial issues. Above all, low performance levels among these disadvantaged children have over the years been responsible for the long-term issues, especially in such an society with higher levels of skills and a failing incomes offered to those people that are less-skilled.
(Jennings, 2010).” According to Jennings,we must relook how student progress in English language arts and math sho...
The enactment of standardizes testing given to students to measure their academic abilities and supposedly will close achievement gap only prove that the battle to the end achievement gap between racial groups is a failure. Buchanon elucidate statistics of the results from the national test under the “No Child Left Behind” program to infer that there is a huge gap between white students and black students (par. 19). On the same note, New Yorks state test scores reveals a large imbalance in academics between different racial groups (par. 16)
Rothstein, Richard. The Way We Were?: The Myths and Realities of America’s Student Achievement. [Online] Available http://www.tcf.org/publications/education/way.we.were/Foreword.html, May 1, 2000.
In the 1980’s a report called “A Nation At Risk” stated that American children had fallen behind in such subjects as math and science. Thus came the advent of education’s increased focus on literacy and numeracy, accountability and academic standards. These high standards, according to Dumas (2000), are the most significant trend in schools today.
In society, education can be seen as a foundation for success. Education prepares people for their careers and allows them to contribute to society efficiently. However, there is an achievement gap in education, especially between Hispanics and Blacks. In other words, there is education inequality between these minorities and white students. This achievement gap is a social problem in the education system since this is affecting many schools in the United States. As a response to this social problem, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed to assist in closing this achievement gap by holding schools more accountable for the students’ progress. Unsuccessful, the No Child Left Behind Act was ineffective as a social response since schools were pushed to produce high test scores in order to show a student’s academic progress which in turn, pressured teachers and students even more to do well on these tests.
Cook, Bryan G., and Melvyn I. Semmel. American Educational Research Association. Chicago: ERIC, 1997. 3. Web.
The inequality of education is a disparity among our children experience in their education compared to other children. The relations of educational success focus on grades, test scores, dropout rates, college entrance rates, and college completion percentages. Unfortunately, the inequalities of education are linked to the difference in socioeconomic status, racial, and geographic reasons. According, to Colclough (2005) “it is commonly presumed that formal schooling is one of several important contributors to the skills of an individual and to human capital. There’s not just only one factor parents, individuals and government officials have the abilities to contribute” (p.40). This perception of inequality of education does not only exist in the United States, but also all over the world. When associated with other nations the United States invests the most in education, however manages to obtain lower levels of student performance than many other countries. The children around the nation are not responsible for the injustice of inequality in education but sadly enough they are our victims. Although, the ones to blame would be our government they should be accountable for creating a vicious cycle that eventually trickles down to our public education. Our government highly contributes to our problem on the inequality of education because they are the ones in control of the Board of Education were they have the opportunity to analyze their trouble schools including their state test scores, their academic school standings, and school dropout rates. By knowing and having easy access to valuable information there shouldn’t be any an excuse on the behalf of the government or on the Board of Education for not trying to working together i...
Wilde, Marian. Apples and Oranges: Comparing Private and Public School Test Scores. 1998-2014. 10 February 2014 .