Beaufort County schools seek to close achievement gap, again
School officials are embarking on at least their third effort in 10 years to close the achievement gap between white and minority students in Beaufort County.
The latest initiative focuses on four goals: improving literacy, intervening for the lowest-performing students, expanding pre-kindergarten and early childhood education and recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers.
Chief instructional services officer Dereck Rhoads was met with support, but also exasperation when he presented the basics of his plan to the school board Tuesday.
In an annual evaluation of superintendent Jeff Moss released Nov. 25, the board identified the virtually unchanged achievement gap as one area of improvement in Moss' performance in 2014-2015, stating the issue was a "critical concern."
On Tuesday, the four black members of the school board were the most vocal in lamenting the fact that the district's black students still score far below their white peers by up to 40 percentage points depending on the test.
"There are some numbers that are very alarming," longtime board member Laura Bush said. "While I feel within myself we are making progress, I think the time has arisen that we really need to think out of the box and take action, because we are losing students."
Last year, black students in third through eighth grade performed 38 percent worse on the ACT Aspire math test than white students, and 37.5 percent worse on English language arts, according to district statistics presented Tuesday.
They also scored about 40 percent worse than their white peers on the SCPASS science test and 25 percent worse on the SCPASS social studies.
Hispanic students lagged as well, with the greatest gap being nearly 30 percentage points on the science SCPASS test.
Students with disabilities performed far below non-disabled students by about 34 to 41 percentage points.
And in several grades, white students were the only demographic to outperform the state.
Comments from Bush, Earl Campbell and Michael Rivers on Tuesday referenced the district's past conversations on closing those gaps.
Under superintendent Herman Gaither in 2004, the district dedicated $1.4 million to a site-based approach, allowing principals to use their share however they saw fit.
At the time, for example, less than four percent of black students at Whale Branch Elementary School were proficient on the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards, compared to 14 percent of white students.
Under superintendent Valerie Truesdale in 2011, the district developed an initiative that reads much like the one Rhoads presented in its focus on reading and additional teacher training.
Bush says each iteration has improved minorities' test scores, but she argues it's time for a stronger "call to action."
Moss says there are several innovative plans in place or in the works, along with increasing the number of tutors and reading coaches in schools to help with interventions.
While he said closing the gap must be a priority, he stopped short of agreeing with Rivers at Tuesday's meeting that the state has been "negligent" in its education of black students.
"I would say the state is not doing what it should be doing to educate our minority population," Moss said.
Reached Thursday, Bush said she believed Rivers was right.
"It's good for us to be above the state (in test scores), but I set my sights higher than that," Bush said. "South Carolina is not a good measuring stick."
In Beaufort County, as it does nationwide, that gap also applies to discipline.
While black students make up just about a quarter of the district's population, they received 52 percent of the district's 5,179 suspensions and eight of the 17 expulsions in 2013-2014, the most recent year available.
Board members did not speak to that this week, though they said improving test scores must include a look at factors outside the classroom.
Evva Anderson suggested reaching out to families early, at the pre-kindergarten level, to encourage them to stay involved in their children's' education.
Campbell, who was board chairman during the district's 2004 efforts, said he would like to see some highly qualified teachers move to the district's under-performing schools.
Rivers, meanwhile, said he's not yet convinced the district's recent efforts will lead to significant change.
"We keep talking about the achievement gap, we keep talking about how concerned we are about it, but year after year after year, decade after decade, it's the same problem."
Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.
Related content:
- Beaufort County superintendent Jeff Moss gets high marks in school board evaluation; wife's hiring left out, November 25, 2015
- Schools to focus on black students, March 28, 2011
- Student achievement gap remains wide, January 12, 2004
This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Beaufort County schools seek to close achievement gap, again."