{"id":2503,"date":"2020-01-30T17:40:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T17:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=2503"},"modified":"2024-10-15T22:02:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:02:04","slug":"progressivism-fails-to-clear-the-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2020\/01\/30\/progressivism-fails-to-clear-the-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressivism Fails to Clear the Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A recent report, The Secret Shame<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>shows\nthe deleterious effects of progressive policies on education outcomes of\nminorities. The report concludes that the top 12 progressive cities such as San\nFrancisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Detroit have larger educational achievement\ngaps between whites and minorities than the top 12 conservative cities, such as\nFort Worth, Anaheim, Virginia Beach, and Oklahoma City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, \u201cprogressive cities, on average, have\nachievement gaps in math and reading that are 15 and 13 percentage points\nhigher than in conservative cities.\u201d To determine the progressive and\nconservative cities, the report relied on independent political scientists\nChris Tausanovitch and Christopher Warshaw who \u201cpooled data from seven large\nsurveys of U.S. public opinion to rank the nation\u2019s biggest cities in terms of\nconservatism. [They] then selected the 12 most conservative cities and the 12 least\nconservative cities from the list to establish the conservative and progressive\ncities.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, this does not necessarily indicate causation. But the numbers are astonishing: math achievement gaps in the 12 most progressive cities on average between black-white and Latino-white were 41.3 and 34.4 respectively. The reading performance gap was not much better, with 40.4 and 33.8 for the respective groups. The graduation rate gaps were 11.3 and 16.5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the conservative cities, although more can be done,\nthe results are more encouraging: for math the two groups measured show gaps of\n26.2 and 19.1, 26.9 and 21.8 for reading, and 4.3 and 4.6 for graduation rates.\nMuch better results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Stewart, the CEO of brightbeam, who produced the\nreport, points out that one of the arguments some may have is \u201cwhere you\u2019ve got\ngreater income inequality, you have greater academic achievement gaps. Perhaps\nprogressive cities have a harder problem to solve because they have higher\nrates of income inequality.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is not the case. From the cities studied in this\nreport, income inequality was roughly equal. Citing the Gini index for income\ninequality, Stewart notes that, \u201cfrom the most recently available census data\n(where 0 is total equality and 1 is total inequality), income inequality, on\naverage, in these progressive and conservative cities, is .4681 and .4607\nrespectively.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, half of the progressive cities studied have, on\naverage, lower-<\/em>income inequality than\nnearly half of the conservative cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is apparent from the data that progressives have to shift\ntheir focus. As Stewart asserts, \u201cIt is not enough for cities to tout their\nbooming economies and call themselves cultural centers if entire swaths of\nchildren suffer in the shadows.\u201d The leaders of these cities must be held\naccountable for their failure to close the achievement gaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this report successfully diagnoses the negative effects of progressivism on educational gaps, it fails to provide an effective remedy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stewart proposes that community leaders should 1) call the city together to understand the issues; 2) make better plans; set short timelines and; 3) share better information. As for parents and advocates, he recommends that citizens 1) spread the word; 2) demand a plan and; 3) make their voice heard in the halls of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These recommendations are too vague to be helpful.  They are proposed by almost every public official, whether elected or appointed, as well as by the aspiring advocacy groups. Even if his advice is followed, it won\u2019t fix the problem. As ACTE program chair Don Nielsen has been saying, \u201cthe problem is the system\u2026All kids can learn. However, some are far better prepared than others and they get support along the K-12 continuum. Treating them all the same does not take that into account and, therefore, the system fails the ill-prepared.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At ACTE we aim to transform the education system. In a broad view, our approach is to change an adult-focused system to a student-focused system; change an input-focused system to an output-focused system; change a teaching-focused system to a learning-focused system; change a group-focused system to an individual-focused system; and change a time-focused system to a competency-focused system.  These are the systemic changes needed not only to reduce education gaps, but to improve the educational outcome of all our children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent report, The Secret Shame, shows the deleterious effects of progressive policies on education outcomes of minorities. The report concludes that the top 12 progressive cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Detroit have larger educational achievement gaps between whites and minorities than the top 12 conservative cities, such as Fort Worth, Anaheim, Virginia Beach, and Oklahoma City. Specifically, \u201cprogressive cities, on average, have achievement gaps in math and reading that are 15 and 13 percentage points higher than in conservative cities.\u201d To determine the progressive and conservative cities, the report relied on independent political scientists Chris Tausanovitch and Christopher Warshaw who \u201cpooled data from seven large surveys of U.S. public opinion to rank the nation\u2019s biggest Read More ›<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":2504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,52],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1062],"class_list":["post-2503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-policy","category-educational-leadership"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Bailey Takacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2503"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}