Awareness to Action:Addressing Achievement Gaps in Delaware Schools

Abstract

Many groups inside and outside of education in Delaware have become active in the pursuit of strategies for addressing the achievement gap separating minority and low-income student scores from those of other students. As a starting point for gauging the size of the challenge and opening up dialogue around the achievement gap in Delaware schools, a school-by school examination fo state test scores was produced.

In the report, "Awareness to Action: Recognizng and Addressing the Achievement Gaps in Delaware Schools", achievement disparities in the areas of reading and mathematics were documented by comparing minority students (i.e. African Americans and Hispanics) to non-minority students (i.e. Caucasians) and low income students to non-low income students in terms of the percentage of each student group at or above the standard.Two measurement cycles, each containing two years worth of data, were used to make cross-sectional comparisons of student performance on the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP).