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Or it could be that education systems don't like accountability and that the term 'achievement gap' doesn't provide a full understanding of how Black and Brown children are oppressed by education and other systems. https://twitter.com/arotherham/status/1293638267007533057
The one side is obvious. Traditionalist groups in American public education have spent decades pushing back against accountability, standards and non-traditional approaches to expanding access to high quality education. I've documented that for decades.
But...
But...
On the other side, reform folks have spent that same period using language that ignores the real issues at play.
The problem with achievement gap is that it frames the issue as a problem with the youth the same way terms used by traditionalists have done.
The problem with achievement gap is that it frames the issue as a problem with the youth the same way terms used by traditionalists have done.
What we are dealing with isn't a problem with youth or their families or communities. It is a problem of systems undergirded by a White Supremacist framework that has historically worked to keep Black and Brown people in servitude.
You have, as @TNTP has called, an opportunity gap, in which school systems create zones and processes by which Black and Brown kids cannot access high quality education. https://apnews.com/5ee4d887e3c96dc347af22ae6b194b91
You have what a resources gap, as @RebeccaSibilia and @KiraboJackson detailed, in which, thanks to property tax funding, most of the $600 billion in public education is trapped in White-controlled districts who then shortchange Black and Brown kids. https://edbuild.org/content/clean-slate/full-report.pdf
Then you have an access gap in which housing segregation, the legacies of state White Supremacy, keep Black and Brown youth and their families from neighborhoods and communities (controlled by White folks) where they can access high quality schools. http://nextedresearch.org/redlining-and-its-stealth-impact-on-education/
You also have an expectations gap in which White teachers believe that Black and Brown children are less-capable of mastering high quality education, and often end up referring them far more often than White peers for harsh school discipline. https://dropoutnation.net/2017/11/02/afts-and-neas-soft-bigotry-against-minority-children/
Speaking of discipline: There's the school-to-prison pipeline (much of it aided by traditionalists and reformers alike - see Success Academy) in which Black and Brown children are punished more harshly than White peers for being young and themselves. https://dropoutnation.net/2015/10/27/crooked-path-of-bad-school-discipline/
There's even the knowledge gap: How school systems and states do everything possible to avoid talking about the real role of White Supremacy in American History as well as how Black people were responsible for the nation truly becoming a democracy. https://dropoutnation.net/2017/08/22/remembering-the-monica-queens/
There are so many ways that this nation and its school systems, both on their own and in concert with other systems, oppress and shortchange Black and Brown youth. The term 'achievement gap' ends up centering the problem on youth when it was never about their own actions.
I know @arotherham wants to dismiss the discussion around the term 'achievement gap' as a focus on phraseology at the expense of accountability. There are folks who do want to avoid holding schools systems responsible for what they do. But there's also a real issue to consider.
If we as reform folks want to truly help all children succeed, then we must be willing to change our language to reflect what research and knowledge shows us. As well as to admit how our nation's White Supremacist framework got us here.
Achievement gap doesn't demonstrate the problems or the systematic failures or the White Supremacy at the heart of it all. It centers the issues on what students do and not what is done to them.
We can use better language. Let's try to do that.
We can use better language. Let's try to do that.
