What is STRIDE doing to close the gap?

There are facets of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) that need reform. A positive consequence of NCLB is the attention paid to closing the achievement gap between cultural groups, students with special needs, students who speak English as a second language and socio-economic classes. STRIDE Academy has taken an honest and open look at the data over the past four years. There is a clear and obvious gap in test scores between black students and white students. This gap in achievement levels between different cultures is unacceptable and we need to remedy this situation as soon as possible. The lack of proficiency in reading, writing and math amongst black students is a symptom of deeper problems that have gone ignored, unaddressed, and unmet for far too long (Kafele, 2006).

STRIDE teachers have been meeting one time per week to participate in professional development and strategic planning to specifically raise proficiency amongst black students. The book that we have used as our tool to improvement is Motivating Black Males to Achieve in School and in Life authored by Baruti Kafele (www.principalkafele.com). The main points of the book and our training include:
- Learning about black male students to meet their classroom needs
- Learning about ourselves to meet our black male students needs
- Three Crises: community crisis, family crisis, self crisis
- Who are we as a school?
- Developing a Young Men's Empowerment Program

Thus far, STRIDE has focused on setting high expectations for ALL students. We need to believe ALL students can go to college. Our job at STRIDE is to prepare EVERY child for college. That is the ultimate goal. Teachers are now working on a three pronged approach:
1. Helping students set incremental goals in order to get to college. These goals include: academic, social, behavioral and emotional.
2. Establish trusting relationships with students. Without a trusting relationship with students, they will not be motivated to learn.
3. Include more black role models in our curriculum and visually throughout the building.

While we are still in the infancy stage of closing the achievement gap at STRIDE, we will close the gap. -Jason Ulbrich, Education Director