The Bellwood-Antis Middle School is among 16 schools chosen last week to participate in a program designed to show how the achievement gap can be reduced in an effective manner.
\n\u201cThis is an initiative by the State Board of Education, specifically the Council of Basic Education,\u201d said Don Wagner, administrative assistant in charge of curriculum and federal programs at the Bellwood-Antis School District. \u201cTheir goal is to reduce the achievement gap in schools throughout the state.\u201d
\nThe Chair of the State Board of Education\u2019s Council of Basic Education, Luis Ramos, explained how Bellwood-Antis and the other schools were chosen to be a part of the pilot program.
\n\u201cWe went to the intermediate units and we asked them to seek out schools which were willing to volunteer to be a part of it,\u201d said Ramos. \u201cWe actually had about 30 schools volunteer, but due to funding we were only able to select 16.
\n\u201cWe also wanted a statewide representation, a regional mix and a cross section of (social and economic) groups.\u201d
\nSo, just what is the achievement gap?
\n\u201cWhat they have found is the majority of the white students throughout the state tend to do better than the subgroups throughout the state on standardized tests specifically the PSSA,\u201d Wagner told The Daily Herald. \u201cThe subgroups are ethnic minorities or poor economically-disadvantaged students.\u201d
\nDistricts which had achievement gaps were asked to detail those gaps. Wagner noted most districts throughout the state were found to have such gaps.
\n\u201cSixteen districts throughout the state were chosen to participate in the program,\u201d said Wagner. \u201cWhat they (the State Board and Council) will do is provide a lot of support. They\u2019ll send us to a school somewhere in the U.S. which has successfully reduced the achievement gap.\u201d
\nWagner explained Bellwood-Antis would then gain information from that school and in turn implement measures to reduce its achievement gap and serve as a model for other schools.
\n\u201cWe are pretty excited to have this opportunity and the support from the state,\u201d said Wagner. \u201cWe are really anxious to reduce the gap. One of the reasons we were interested was because of the fact, at the middle school we were placed on a warning list because our economically disadvantaged subgroups didn\u2019t meet state requirements in math.
\n\u201cThe school district prides itself on academic achievement and that is not acceptable to us,\u201d he explained. \u201cAny support we can get to reduce that gap we are convinced would be a good opportunity.\u201d
\nRamos noted its the Board of Education\u2019s opinion, it takes more than teachers and schools to deal with the gap issue.
\n\u201cWe are trying to bring a belief to the educational community and overall community that every child can perform at a proficient level,\u201d explained Ramos. \u201cTeachers face a challenge and we are trying to engage the whole community not solely teachers on this.
\n\u201cWe created oversight teams at a local level to search out and identify \u2018best practices,\u2019\u201d said Ramos. \u201cThis includes religious, business, political and educational leaders.
\n\u201cThe data shows when the community is involved you get better results,\u201d said Ramos.
\nNow that the schools have been chosen, a conference has been scheduled in June. District and state officials will meet and lay out the ground work as to how each district will participate in the pilot program.
\nSchools are expected to participate in one of three ways: to show how their practices have helped deal with the achievement gap, to gain needed help to deal with the problem and to learn from others schools outside the state to see how they have dealt with the issue successfully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bellwood-Antis Middle School is among 16 schools chosen last week to participate in a program designed to show how the achievement gap can be reduced in an effective manner. \u201cThis is an initiative by the State Board of Education, specifically the Council of Basic Education,\u201d said Don Wagner, administrative assistant in charge of curriculum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}