Closing the Achievement Gap

Chronology

In his fourth annual State of Education Address on February 6, 2007, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell lead an intensive effort to find ways to close California's pernicious achievement gap that exists between subgroups of students who are white or Asian, and their peers who are African American or Latino. This gap threatens the future competitiveness of California in this demanding, hypercompetitive global economy. Closing this gap became his top priority in his second term of office.

California's rigorous academic standards and accountability system have led to steady, significant achievement gains over the past seven years. However, while all subgroups of students are improving, the achievement data clearly reveals the ongoing achievement gap and highlights the need to focus in new ways on the groups of students whose achievement lags persistently behind.

As part of O'Connell's plan to close the achievement gap, he hosted a two-day Achievement Gap Summit on November 13-14, 2007 in Sacramento. The Summit included 4,000 educators from around the state as well as 125 leading educators from around the nation. The Summit led to the creation of the Closing the Achievement Gap: Achieving Success for All Students [http://www.closingtheachievementgap.org/cs/ctag/print/htdocs/home.htm] (Outside Source) Web site.

O'Connell charged his California P-16 Council with gathering information from the diverse list of presenters and the feedback of participants, and to use the information to help California become more effective in assisting schools and districts close the achievement gap. The P-16 Council then took the information it gathered from the Summit and produced in January 2008, its Closing the Achievement Gap report (Posted 22-Jan-2008; PDF; 2.60MB; 90pp.). Based on research conducted by the P-16 Council and other partners involved in the project, the report included 14 recommendations to address the achievement gap among student subgroups.

The California Department of Education immediately started implementing the recommendations:

• September 26, 2008: Preschool Bills Signed Into Law.  
• November 14, 2008: Distinguished School Eligibility Changes. 
• December 8, 2008: California School Climate Survey.
• December 18, 2008: McKinsey Report.
• August 4, 2009: Data Legislation Signed.
• October 7, 2009: Partnership Resource Kit.
• October 21, 2009: Signature Practices Web Tool.

Related Links

President Barack Obama talked about the achievement gap and what government is going to do about it, during his July 17, 2009 speech in New York City before the NAACP: The White House - Press Office - Remarks by the President to the NAACP Centennial Convention 07/16/2009 [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-NAACP-Centennial-Convention-07/16/2009/] (Outside Source).