- Creating the Opportunity to Learn
Purpose, Content, and Structure
In the book Creating the Opportunity to Learn, authors Boykin and Noguera examine the academic achievement gap that exists in the United States, which the authors claim is three dimensional. There is a gap between white students and minority groups, between U.S. students and students in European countries, and between what students know now and what they will need to know to lead successful lives in the future. They examine the probable causes of the gap and evaluate current research to locate solutions to address the issue. While the academic achievement gap is pervasive, over three thousand schools have made significant progress in closing the gap. The authors explore and discuss the methodologies employed in these schools in order to provide direction to other districts in their attempts to improve academic outcomes for minority students. As evidenced by their numerous peer-reviewed publications on education and race issues, Boykin and Noguera are well versed on this topic, and they provide readers with a meaningful historical viewpoint along with carefully selected suggestions to address the nation's static achievement gap.
Audience
Creating the Opportunity to Learn serves as a guide for school district administrators who are searching for strategies to combat the achievement gap. Others who could benefit from its contents include administrators from teachers' colleges, college professors, principals, and all district administrators. Teachers could also glean instructional strategies that could be useful in addressing achievement disparities in the classroom.
About the Authors
Wade Boykin has published several studies that focus on the achievement of African Americans in schools and on achievement tests. He also serves as the director of the graduate program in the Department of Psychology at Howard University and is co-editor of the book Research Directions of Black Psychologists. He has served as a member on a number of advisory panels and task force committees, including the President's National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Co-author Pedro Noguera serves as the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University and has several published articles that focus on closing [End Page 183] the achievement gap. He has also penned numerous books, including American Dream; Unfinished Business: Closing the Achievement Gap in Our Nation's Schools; City Kids, City Teachers; and The Trouble with Black Boys . . . and Other Reflections of Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education.
Creating the Opportunity to Learn is divided into three sections. The first section examines the achievement gap. The authors discuss race and its connection to achievement, society's viewpoint and impact on the gap, and historical documentation of the gap's existence. Section 2 provides readers with research-based strategies to help remove the achievement disparities. The authors examine peer-reviewed literature and offer suggestions to set schools on the correct course. In the final section, Boykin and Noguera take a closer look at successful schools and make connections between empirical research and the methods employed by the schools that are closing the achievement gap. This section also offers information on how school policy can enhance efforts to address achievement gap issues.
Essential Idea Identification and Analysis
Section 1: Understanding the Achievement Gap
Black and Latino students have made statistically significant growth over the past twenty years on achievement tests; however, so, too, have their white counterparts. In comparing historical data with current information, the achievement gap is essentially the same today as it was in 1990. This is true across a number of measureable variables, including grade point average, district and state achievement tests, and higher-level course enrollment. Furthermore, the authors provide support for the fact that minorities are disproportionately overrepresented in special education programs and underrepresented in gifted placements.
The authors then discuss No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and note that this legislation compelled schools to focus on improving achievement for those subgroups that have not traditionally been successful in school. Even with this mandatory spotlight on achievement, or lack thereof, the gap still exists in most schools...