Achievement Gap or Development Gap? "Outliers" and Outsiders Reconsider an Old Problem
Debate about the achievement gap between Black and Latino public school students and their white, typically more well-to-do peers, has been going on in one form or another for over a generation. Lately it has gotten louder, for several reasons. One is that the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the goal of which was to close the achievement gap, is up for renewal and rewrite. Another is that the massive amount of stimulus money coming down the pike has accelerated competition for funding among those offering solutions to the gap.
Yet another important factor fueling public interest is the upcoming New York City mayoral race, which has brought the achievement gap center stage. Mayor Michael Bloomberg gained control of the New York City public school system in his first term by an act of the state legislature in 2002. (Mayoral control must be reauthorized this June.) The campaign promises to reignite battles over mayoral control vs. so-called community control and between independent coalitions oriented toward innovation and traditional Democratic Party coalitions. Within that overall environment, discussions of the achievement gap are becoming increasingly politicized.
One case in point. McKinsey and Co. recently issued a report, The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, which argues that the systematic underachievement of poor and minority young people produces a "permanent recession" - one they calibrate at 2% to 3% of GDP. As soon as the report was published, an assortment of interested parties piggybacked on to it, some promoting the virtues of mayoral control as a means of closing the gap, others extolling community control as the key.
Like many discussions of the achievement gap, the McKinsey report did not add any particular insight other than to describe its economic impact. (That permanent educational failure produces a permanent economic recession is something every kid with below-average math and reading scores gets.)
Describing and redescribing a problem does not, in and of itself, get us closer to a solution. Moreover, if we're seeking remedies for the gap, we must examine whether the gap in question is best described as an achievement gap at all.
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