C.A.R.E. Guide: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps
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C ULTURE A BILITIES R ESILIENCE E FFORT STRATEGIES FOR CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAPS Enduring Student Reflections Resources Video Clips Understandings Activities 1 • C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps Fourth Edition, 2011 The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organi- zation, representing 3.2 Million elementary and secondary teachers, education support professionals, college faculty, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers. Copies of this guide are available at http://www.nea.org/care-guide Copyright © 2005 National Education Association All Rights Reserved F o r eF w o r do r e w o r d by Dennis Van Roekel, President, and John I. Wilson, Executive Director National Education Association ur nation can no longer be satisfied with success for some students; instead we must cultivate the Ostrengths of all. An educational system designed to serve all students well will require educators with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to value the diversity among students. Students from diverse backgrounds bring their varied cultural, racial, and socio-economic characteristics with them to school. Culturally competent teaching is increasingly necessary if educators are to connect with their students. And to connect, educators need to acquire new teaching strategies that match students’ ways of understanding and interacting with the world. These approaches will help increase student performance as measured by grades and tests, enhance student access to more rigorous curriculum, and advance student attainment to high school completion and beyond. Culturally competent teaching, in other words, will play a major role in closing the achievement gaps that exist among race, gender, language, and social class groups. This publication—C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps—will help us make this happen. C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps is research-based and was developed through the collaborative efforts of teachers, education support professionals, researchers, community advocates, parents, and practitioners. This new Fourth Edition also includes video clips of leading experts in cultural competence, English Language Learners, and teaching diverse students sharing what they know from their research and practice. These videos—developed and edited in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Diverse Students Initiative (TDSi www.tolerance.org/tdsi) – reinforce the activities and the educator reflections of the C.A.R.E. strategy guide and help users improve their practice for culturally and linguistically- diverse students, as well as for those who are economically disadvantaged. C.A.R.E. stands for culture, abilities, resilience, and effort. As we learn about the cultures that students bring to school – their everyday experiences – and how to connect these experiences and cultures to what educators teach, we must also reflect on the culture that permeates schools and how it advantages or disadvantages certain students. Similarly, we learn that even students who may not perform well on standardized tests have abilities (learned in their homes and communities) on which we can build academic success. Resilient students, those students who persevere in schooling despite repeated failure or discouragement from their environment, are students for whom we must create protective factors inside school to help them keep an eye toward their future. And for students whom we find difficult to motivate, we must find out how they are motivated outside of school and bring those interests inside the school walls where we can direct them toward academic pursuits. If our students can’t learn the way we teach, then we must teach the way they learn. Recently, more than 350 users of this C.A.R.E. strategy guide were surveyed and 8 out of 10 reported changing their teaching practices and found its contents useful in closing achievement gaps. Two-thirds of these educators also saw an increase in students’ motivation and interest in their studies. And 7 of 10 say their relationships with students and their family members improved. All the C.A.R.E. strategies and reflections are critically important in the schools NEA identifies as priorities: those schools that have persistently under-performed in producing strong readers, adept math users, cogent writers, critical thinkers, and high school graduates. Creating success in these priority schools is the NEA’s major offense in the fight to advance public education and preserve it as an accessible social institution for all students and communities. We know that closing student achievement gaps helps students, empowers educators, and encourages communities. C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps is a proven resource in our campaign to provide every student with a great public school. Dennis Van Roekel, President John I. Wilson, Executive Director National Education Association National Education Association NEA OFFICERS Dennis Van Roekel NEA President Arizona Lily Eskelsen NEA Vice President Utah Rebecca (Becky) Pringle NEA Secretary-Treasurer Pennsylvania NEA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Greg Johnson Oklahoma Christy Levings Kansas Paula Monroe California Princess Moss Virginia Len Paolillo Massachusetts Joyce Powell New Jersey NEA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR John I. Wilson NEA Executive Director North Carolina AcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments n the summer of 2003, NEA gathered a diverse group of researchers, practitioners, Association staff, Iand community-based advocates in Washington, D.C., to identify research-based instructional strate- gies, school change activities, and family/school engagement efforts for closing the achievement gaps. The result of this work is the C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps guide. We would like to thank the C.A.R.E. Advisory Committee for its valuable contributions to this effort. C.A.R.E. Advisory Committee Pat Alexander, Elsa Lee, UniServ Director, Maryland State Teachers Association, MD Bilingual Teacher, Alameda Unified School District, CA Bonnie Benard, Toni Martorelli, Researcher, WestEd, CA Partner, Star Group LLC, NM Joseph S. Brown, Patricia Sanchez, Diversity Education Training Specialist, Kodak, NY Teacher, Alameda Unified School District, CA Suzanne Bryant, Cristina Sanchez-Lopez, Curriculum Specialist, Alameda Unified School District, CA Consultant, Illinois Resource Center, IL Debra Deiters, Darius Lee Smith, Education Support Professional, Austin Independent School Community Activist, Denver, CO District, TX Rossi Ray Taylor, Ph.D. Linda Deliduka, Executive Director, Minority Student Achievement Network, IL Teacher, Burlington School District, VT Gwen Webb-Johnson, Ana Downs, Researcher, University of Texas at Austin, TX Bilingual Teacher, Montgomery County Public Schools, MD Paul Weckstein, Warlene Gary, Executive Director, Center for Law and Education, DC Executive Director, National PTA, IL Belinda Williams, Psy.D. Deena Johnson, Consultant, PA Teacher, Norfolk City Public Schools, VA Barbara Wilmarth, Cliff Kusaba, Vice President, Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, FL UniServ Director, Teachers Association of Long Beach, CA NEA Staff Contributors Kelly J. Cedeño, Denise McKeon, Ed.D. CFM/Creative Services Research Rubén Cedeño, Ph.D. Anita Merina, Quality School Systems Public Relations Russell G. Clemons, Joel Packer, Membership and Organizing Government Relations Bob Eagan, Andrea Prejean, Ed.D. Membership and Organizing Student Achievement Leslie Fritz, Harry Lawson, UniServ, NM Membership and Organizing Donna Gold, Katrina Thompson, Quality School Systems Membership and Organizing Rocío Inclán, Luis-Gustavo Martinez, Membership and Organizing Quality School Systems Betty Jeung, Nikki Barnes, Membership and Organizing Teacher Quality Nancy Kochuk, Tom Blanford, Office of Executive Editor Teacher Quality NEA Human and Civil Rights Staff Contributors Rufina Hernández, Esq. Linda Cabral Director Michelle Y. Green Sheila Simmons, Ph.D. Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D. Associate Director Genevieve Phelps Denise Alston, Ph.D. Patricia Wright, Ed.D. Linda Bacon Richard Verdugo, Ph.D. iii • C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps The National Education Association would like to acknowledge the contributions of Noni Mendoza Reis, Ed.D., and Christine Reveles, Ed.D., who wrote many of the activities for each chapter and facilitated the development of and the organizational scheme for the les- son plans based on the research and pedagogy of the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (C.R.E.D.E.). We would also like to thank the following organizations/ individuals who granted NEA permission to use their materials in this guide. • Bonnie Benard and Carol Burgoa, WestEd, Oakland, CA • Ruth Brannigan, author, and Mary Garner-Mitchell, illustrator, Tools for Teaching Resilience • The Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence • Linda Christensen, “The Politics of Correction,” Rethinking Schools magazine • Education Alliance at Brown University, Providence, RI • Jeanne Gibbs and TRIBES, Windsor, CA • Irene McGinty and Noni Mendoza-Reis, authors of Towards Equity • NEA Health Information Network, Washington, DC • Peace Corps/Coverdell World Wise Schools, Washington, DC • Cristina Sanchez-Lopez, Illinois Resource Center, Des Plaines, IL • Jim Shipley and Associates • The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group,