Will a longer school day help close the achievement gap?, By Amanda Paulson, November 1, 2009, Christian Science Monitor: “Going to school from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. may sound like a student’s nightmare, but Sydney Shaw, a seventh-grader at the Alain Locke Charter Academy on Chicago’s West Side, has come to like it - as well as the extra 20 or so days that she’s in class a year. ‘I’m sure every kid at this school says bad things about the schedule sometimes,’ says Sydney, who was at school on Columbus Day, when most Chicago schools had a holiday. ‘But deep down, we all know it’s for our benefit.’ Finding ways to give kids more classroom time, through longer hours, a longer school year, or both, is getting more attention. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan support a lengthier timetable. Many education reformers agree that more time at school is a key step. Charter schools like Alain Locke and KIPP schools (a network of some 80 schools that are often lauded for their success with at-risk students) have made big gains in closing gaps in student achievement, partly through expanded schedules. Other schools have been making strides, too - notably in Massachusetts and in the New Orleans system…”

Program based on Harlem initiative shows promise, By Cassandra West, November 4, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton famously drew on an African proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ to explain her vision for American children more than decade ago. Now the Obama administration is looking to another village — local urban communities — to serve the educational and social needs of children in poverty with its Promise Neighborhoods, an initiative modeled on the transformative and widely touted Harlem Children’s Zone. For two days next week representatives from the Chicago communities of Chicago Lawn, Logan Square and Woodlawn will be in New York attending the conference, ‘Changing the Odds: Learning from the Harlem Children’s Zone Model.’ The forum is a first step for advocates and community groups interested in replicating the New York City-based endeavor, which President Barack Obama has called ‘an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort…’”

Illinois school test scores: Income-based gap proves hard to close, By Tara Malone and Darnell Little, October 30, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Surrounded by sports fields and suburban lawns, Hadley Junior High School could be the envy of the state. Nine of every 10 students at the Glen Ellyn school passed state exams in reading and math, according to the 2009 Illinois School Report Card made public Friday. But average scores belie a widespread problem the federal government has spent billions trying to fix nationwide: While at least 95 percent of Hadley’s well-off students passed the eighth-grade reading and math tests, about half of their low-income classmates met the same goals, revealing an achievement gap that is as persistent as it is pernicious. Seven years after the federal No Child Left Behind Law ambitiously pledged to eliminate such disparities and invested nearly $6.2 billion in Illinois schools alone, the progress has been modest and isolated. While the performance gap between advantaged and disadvantaged grade school children narrowed in Illinois since 2002 — in math, the margin shrunk by at least 13 percentage points in third, fifth and eighth grades — the divide among high school juniors actually widened slightly in math and reading…”

• No improvement for fourth-graders on national math test, By Amanda Paulson, October 14, 2009, Christian Science Monitor: “For the first time since 1990, America’s fourth-graders showed no improvement in math - a disappointing finding in the latest release from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the nation’s report card. In four states, scores for fourth-graders actually declined between 2007 and 2009 - the first time any state has shown a drop since all 50 states began participating in the assessment in 2003. The news is better at the eighth-grade level, where scores did rise by two points since 2007. But achievement gaps between white and minority students stayed the same…”
• Math results show racial achievement gap hasn’t changed, By Tom Weber, October 14, 2009, Minnesota Public Radio: “Fourth and eighth graders in Minnesota continue to rank near the top in the nation in math, according to new national test results. But the new report also exposes a key shortcoming for both Minnesota and the nation — the gap between how well white students perform compared to students of color. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Minnesota fourth-graders ranked third in the nation for math, and the state’s eighth-graders ranked second…”

• Close Oregon’s achievement gap by starting early, study urges, By Kimberly Melton, September 14, 2009, The Oregonian: “A new report from the Chalkboard Project highlights a persistent achievement gap between Latino students and white students in Oregon that starts as early as third grade. It suggests the key to narrowing the gap is to start working with students early. The report, released Monday, echoes the conclusion of an earlier study of the achievement gap between black and white students in Multnomah County that recommended focusing more on prevention than intervention…”
• A blueprint for closing the gap, Editorial, September 15, 2009, The Oregonian: “As a new study of Oregon’s achievement gap makes clear, the state should put more effort into early intervention and dig deeper into what works. The stubborn gap in academic achievement in Oregon between Hispanic students and their white classmates used to be somewhat of a mystery. Not any more. The main causes of this gap are well-diagnosed. So are at least some of the solutions, plus the areas desperately needing further research…”

Harlem program singled out as model, By Robin Shulman, August 2, 2009, Washington Post: “On a recent Saturday morning in Harlem, a few dozen pregnant women in a parenting class made resolutions for life after the baby’s birth. Avoid cursing. Provide healthy foods. Develop a sleeping routine for the infant. “I want my son to be perfect,” said Naquell Williams, 22, who is unemployed and pregnant with a child whose father is in prison. This is the starting point for the Harlem Children’s Zone: the womb. Geoffrey Canada’s nonprofit has created a web of programs that begin before birth, end with college graduation and reach almost every child growing up in 97 blocks carved out of the struggling central Harlem neighborhood…”

R.I. to offer its first public pre-K program, By Jennifer D. Jordan, July 27, 2009, Providence Journal: “For the first time, the state Department of Education is venturing into early childhood education by launching a small, high-quality pre-kindergarten program designed to level the playing field for low-income children who now start school at a significant disadvantage compared with middle- and upper-income students. Until now, Rhode Island has failed to support the notion of public early childhood education. It is one of just 12 states that does not offer public pre-K…”

• Achievement gap still splits white, black students, By Libby Quaid (AP), July 14, 2009, Washington Post: “Despite unprecedented efforts to improve minority achievement in the past decade, the gap between black and white students remains frustratingly wide, according to an Education Department report released Tuesday…”
• Black-white achievement gap smaller in Va. than Md., By Nick Anderson, July 15, 2009, Washington Post: “The achievement gap between black and white students is smaller in Virginia than in Maryland, according to a federal analysis released yesterday that illuminates how states compare on a key measure of academic disparity…”
• Young students improve, but later minority achievement gap remains, By Greg Toppo, USA Today, July 14, 2009: “For decades, public schools have focused on closing the stubborn achievement gap that separates African-American children from their white peers. New data out today from the U.S. Education Department show that the effort may have a limited shelf life for kids…”
• Racial student achievement gap stands wide in state, By Gayle Worland, July 15, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal: “Wisconsin is the only state in the nation where the achievement gap between black and white students in reading and math in both fourth and eighth grades exceeds the national average, according to a U.S. Department of Education report released Tuesday…”