It is not just about well-resourced centers or scholarship programs, although both are necessary. To me, to close the opportunity gap and thus close the achievement gap entails deeper reframing.
The opportunity gap and the achievement gap are related and do exist. Let us not forget that all people are different but all should be capable of learning.
I think the issue is more about deficit thinking that drives how we approach early childhood settings for children from low-income homes. There is a tendency to approach development and learning for children from very low-income families by structuring the learning environment with the idea that I know what you don't know and need and I will push it into your brain through drilling skills such as alphabet recognition and rote learning activities rather than saying to oneself that children from low-income families need what children from more wealthy families tend to get, which is more play - games and blocks but particularly imaginative pretend play, talk, stories read to them, listening to their thoughts and writing down their ideas, field trips in the neighborhood, etc. They need us, the teachers, to be there for them. We need to learn to listen to what their families are saying, their stories of life and the stresses that they are going through.
How do we develop these alternative kinds of attitudes that I believe will provide opportunities to learn and develop for children from low-income families and thus close the achievement gap?
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Nora Krieger, PhD
Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
Highland Park, NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-06-2019 08:19 AM
From: Aren Stone
Subject: Opportunity Gap or Achievement Gap?
Thank you, Tonya. I appreciate this reframing. It puts the responsibility, the blame, and possible solutions where it needs to be. I see this in the differences between the well-resourced and the less-resourced child care settings. Cambridge has begun to start to address this through a scholarship program for very low-income families that pays for childcare at a rate far above the state voucher rate. What are some things being done in other communities?
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Aren Stone
Child Development Specialist
The Early Years Project
Cambridge, MA
she/her
Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 04:23 PM
From: Tonya Satchell
Subject: Opportunity Gap or Achievement Gap?
"'Opportunity gap' refers to the fact that the arbitrary circumstances in which people are born-such as their race, ethnicity, ZIP code, and socioeconomic status-determine their opportunities in life, rather than all people having the chance to achieve to the best of their potential." (Read more here: https://www.teachforamerica.org/stories/why-we-say-opportunity-gap-instead-of-achievement-gap).
Is it the "achievement gap" or an "opportunity gap" that impacts Black children?
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Tonya Satchell
Columbia MD
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