Educator targets achievement gap

By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 22, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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School districts must focus on and organize help for failing students if Colorado is to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students.

That's the strategy of Anita Foxworth, appointed by the Colorado Department of Education last week to coordinate efforts to close the age-old gap in learning between affluent students, who are predominantly white, and the disadvantaged, who are disproportionately minorities.

"It can't be individual people (addressing the achievement gap)," the former special education teacher from St. Louis said. "It really has to be the collective effort of (all) people in the district."

Many teachers will need training, Foxworth said. For example, more classroom teachers should be able to work with English-language learners instead of leaving the job to specialists.

Much of what Foxworth proposes is common sense, but it won't be easy.

"We still have to roll up our sleeves and do the work," she said.

The achievement gap is among the most intractable problems in American education.

In Colorado, only 46 percent of black students and 45 percent of Hispanics were proficient or advanced in math on state tests administered last spring, compared with 76 percent of whites, according to the Colorado Education Department.

In reading, 48 percent of black students and 44 percent of Hispanics were proficient or advanced, while 78 percent of whites reached that standard.

Closing the gap is a major goal of Gov. Bill Ritter and Education Commissioner Dwight Jones.

Also on board is the legislature, which last spring approved a $2.2 million budget boost for the Department of Education - the first significant new money the department has seen in years.

In addition to Foxworth's position, the funding pays for pilot projects in six school districts and the hiring of experts in math, science, social studies and the arts.

The Education Department doesn't run public schools, which are under the jurisdiction of Colorado's 188 local boards of education. Foxworth and the curriculum experts will visit districts as advisers.

Local districts, however, are eager to address the achievement gap, Foxworth said. They're under pressure from the federal No Child Left Behind Act to improve minority learning, and progress on closing the achievement gap could become part of the criteria to retain state accreditation.

In addition to working as a special education teacher in St. Louis, Foxworth also worked in Seattle with federal programs that target disadvantaged students.

"It's one of those careers that has touched on the issues, but this is the first opportunity to sort of pull everything I've learned together," she said.

Foxworth has been with the Colorado Education Department since 2001 in roles involving teacher training and helping districts comply with No Child Left Behind.

The first step for districts is to review test data to see which students need help in which subjects.

"Then invite everybody in - the stakeholders - the parents, the community, the principals, the teaching staff, so that everybody owns the problem, because you have to build that ownership," Foxworth said. "It can't just be one or two people."

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5209

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