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Evanston Teachers Tackle the Equity Gap
Produced by Jennifer Brandel on Monday, March 03, 2008
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The achievement gap—some are calling it the equity gap—continues to vex education experts across the country. In general, black and Latino students—even those from wealthy or middle class backgrounds—under perform white students. At Evanston Township High School this school year, the staff has taken a radical approach to fixing the problem. First semester grades just came out and the school reports a good sign, fewer Ds and Fs. We report on the new approach.
Ebony Brooks-Clark was in danger of failing biology. But instead of falling further and further behind, she's coming in to school early to meet with her teacher for one-on-one help.
Well – sometimes she is.
BROOKS-CLARK: Half the time I don't go because it's too early. It's a waste of time to be honest. If I'm gonna bring up my grade – it's easier to do it inside the classroom and not before school because I don't even get up that early.
It's extra school time for her, which she's not thrilled about. And it's extra time for all of Evanston Township's 278 teachers.
But it's a commitment the staff made to try and get low achieving students back up to speed, before they get too discouraged.
This am support is new this year and it's mandatory. Evanston has always had support and tutoring available, but kids had to get up the courage to seek it out.
STEVEN SPEIGHT: It always became a thing of negotiating an invitation. Which for especially kids that are struggling and have been struggling for a long time –they may not necessarily feel good about saying wow – I need help.
That's science teacher Steven Speight. He says this old system meant struggling students fell behind, failed, and sometimes dropped out.
So he and 10 other teachers stepped up and led the charge to figure out a better way to connect with these students.
Over the summer months, these teachers began an unprecedented, community-wide collaboration that resulted in a new system of supports called SOS for short.
Speight headed the process and was blown away by what happened.
SPREIGHT: And it was just incredible. It was shared leadership, it was negotiation, it was consensus and it really became a different way for a school to do business. So it's changed everything. It's not an us and them – it's more of a "we".
What came of those meetings is an entirely new school day structure. Struggling students get personalized teacher support before the regular day begins until their grades improve.
Also new are study centers for math, science, English, and foreign languages open to all 3,000 students, all day long.
But more than school day structure, this newly empowered faculty is changing the school's very philosophy.
At least that’s they way superintendent Dr. Eric Witherspoon sees it.
WITHERSPOON: This is a school where we care about you deeply –And we're not going to give up on you – even if you're giving up on yourself!
National education experts say this teacher-lead solution is something of a rarity and they give the new Evanston model a thumbs up.
That’s because creating better student-teacher relationships does help get under performing students back on track.
But these relationships take lots of time and energy from teachers.
RICH KAPLAN: I'm amazingly overwhelmed and overworked and it's too much. We need schedules that are livable – that we can do this for the long term.
Richard Kaplan teaches math. Like him, a lot of teachers are in favor of the program but have had a hard time with the transition.
They've lost a planning period –and that’s a big deal for teachers--and no one's making extra cash.
Still, most teachers seem willing to keep SOS in place while they problem-solve the glitches.
Students predictably don't like showing up early--and if they don't show up they get assigned to MORE support after school. But most agreed with sophomore Jessica Moore. She admitts it's helping.
MOORE: Because it's less people and you're with a teacher so you get more attention from a teacher, so it's good.
BRIAN MALONE: My name is Brian Malone – I think SOS is helpful because it gets your grades up and it'll make you do better in your classes and you can't be denied the help that you need.
But senior Daria Mitchell raised a critical point. She says SOS isn't working for all students because some teachers haven't bought into it.
MITCHELL: It really depends on the teacher and if the teacher is productive with SOS and they're actually teaching you instead of just having you do the work in class.
There is some tweaking going on here. The SOS steering committee has cut teacher duties in half for second semester in order to give back some planning time.
And teachers are concerned about delivering high quality class instruction, with all the added responsibilities.
For now, teachers are hoping their system may finally make a dent in the achievement gap that has long plagued Evanston Township High School.
For Chicago Public Radio, I'm Jennifer Brandel.
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