Closing the Achievement Gap
This is a series of podcasts that go beyond weekly announcements and present ideas to encourage reflection or further examination on issues about and related to education. This is Dr. Edward Trimis, principal of Legacy Visual and Performing Arts High School.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend our Legacy Girls Tennis banquet. Our team was undefeated. Quite a feat, especially when considering our complex of high schools draws from three different schools and has virtually no athletics during the day and coaches, including the tennis coach, are mostly what are called “walk-on” coaches. They are not regular teachers at the school but are coaches who manage to come to Legacy to coach after their regular day jobs for practice and games. I was so proud of our girls and not only because of what they accomplished in tennis, but how they were able to win every match while maintaining their grades in their classes and keeping everything else in their lives going. The coach came with his wife and 2 small kids. He was dressed up as were the players. The banquet was an informal potluck held in our multipurpose room. I sat with a young lady who was a senior and planning to go to Brown University or UC Davis in their pre-veterinary program. Like many of the other players there, she was Latina, dark complexioned, and spoke with an accent. I thought on my way home how hard the team worked to get where they were, how hard the coach worked for very little compensation, and how so many of these bright, creative, and lovely kids, even though have bright futures ahead of them, it still will not be easy. I thought about how many people, still, in our society will make judgements and lower expectations for people based on how they look and how they speak, not what they can do and who they are.
And I thought of the work I did several years ago on my dissertation, Closing the Achievement Gap: Breakthrough in the Urban High School and how my experiences when I was teaching 20 years earlier are still relevant and thought about how much progress have we really made in closing gaps, achievement, financial, and ethnic/social/cultural, since then.
The achievement gap is the persistent disparity in academic performance between groups of students, particularly between white and/or Asian and affluent students and students of color, minority, poverty and second language learners.
The achievement gap is found throughout the education system, at all grade-levels and in all content areas. The focus at the local, state, and national levels is usually on math and English/Language Arts, but it goes further than that. Gaps are found in the other core content areas, such as history/social studies and science, and in areas that some may not think, of such as music and the other arts.
I experienced the power of the achievement gap crisis when I was a teacher at Huntington Park High School in the 90’s. This school had a rich history, was founded in the late 1800’s, and was in a community plagued by neighborhood street gangs and large urban school issues. The biggest challenge at the school was developing students’ sense of self-efficacy so they really believed they could achieve great things and giving them the tools they needed to achieve that success. Being very active in the state music educators association, I also had an opportunity to regularly see what other students from throughout the state were doing in the field. The achievement gap concerns that were starting to come to the forefront of my mind were glaring when I saw the all-state honor ensembles perform one year.
I noted the ethnic imbalance in the honor groups along with the other music teachers and administrators listening next to me. Except for some Asian students in the Honor Orchestra, most of the students participating were white kids from Central and Northern California. The imbalance had nothing to do with the organizations that sponsored the groups. The taped auditions were totally colorblind; there is really no way to tell what ethnicity the students are who submits tapes. The problem becomes apparent when the final rosters for these groups include mostly white, middle class kids. It is easy to make a false assumption that students of color and/or with low socio- economic status do not have some of the same capabilities other kids have. This can't be any farther from the truth. It's amazing what kids can accomplish, regardless of where they grew up or how much money their families have. So I decided in my mind one year, in my own way, I would start to change this dynamic. Whatever it took, I would get at least one of my students into one of these groups. I was on a mission.
The All-State Honor Jazz Choir music came the last week of school even though the tapes were due over the winter vacation, just one week later. While the other teachers were cleaning out their classrooms and finishing their grades, I worked a grueling 7 hours with 5 students on their Honor Jazz Choir audition music. In the end, there were two students who were able to complete the recordings. Although they were tired and ready to quit towards the end of the day, the tapes were finally completed and mailed in. We found out some weeks later that both Mary and Chris were accepted.
Mary talked about making the tapes at an interview on a radio program just before the Honor Jazz Choir trip took place. "I remember when we made the tapes. It was really hard, the music was tough, and I just wanted to quit. I said, 'No. I can't do it'. And Trimis just said. ‘YES you can. You HAVE to FINISH. You have to do it again. You can do this, I know you can.'”
The concert was great. I think I was more proud of my "all-staters" than I have been of any students in all my years of teaching. There they were, dressed to the nines, right up on the stage with these all star kids from all over the state. Singing their parts, holding their own, and swinging with the best of them!
And at that point I knew that what they learned from this experience is that they can compete with anyone else. If you work hard, you can make your dreams come true. I also knew that after this experience, Mary and Chris would have just a little bit bigger view of the world. They experienced something many of our students do not have a chance to experience. They saw, listened to, and experienced true excellence: the best of the best. And they wouldn't be able to settle for less anymore. The positive impact on the rest of the HPHS Jazz Singers since Chris and Mary returned proved my point. After their return, the group sounded the best they had sounded in 6 years. Singing in multiple parts, improvising, singing in tune and with good phrasing and style, and always trying to be better, trying to be the best they could be. Comments of “do we need to sing today?" were replaced by "can you play that part, again? I need to fix it". They truly became a top-notch jazz choir, always trying to improve and singing music sung by the best jazz vocal groups! And I think the main reason this big change happened was because of Chris’ and Mary's experience in the honor group. They were exposed to the best, experienced the best, and felt that they were the best. Excellence and the drive for excellence are contagious so it's not surprising that Chris and Mary made such a big impact on all of the other students. Their lives really were changed, and they in turn changed the lives of those around them. And I know that they will always strive for excellence, since they experienced it themselves (Trimis, 2005).
And now flash to some 20 years later. I talked about the Tennis Banquet, but not about the honor jazz band I saw perform at the National Association of Music Merchants Show. The group was great and was not entirely white, through predominantly so. It seems like we have made some progress, but not enough. It is important that all of us, in whatever way we can, do what we can to close gaps of all kinds in our schools and help our students achieve at the highest levels whether it be in music and the arts, in athletics, or in academics. It’s not only important, it’s critical for the growth and survival of our nation and our world. If we all do what we can in our sphere of influence, I whatever capacity we work and where we live, we can make a difference. I have; to believe that. Here is a link to my dissertation from USC (Closing the Achievement Gap: Breakthrough in the Urban High School http://bit.ly/2LTLZ6t)
Dr. Edward Trimis, Principal, Legacy VAPA High School
