![]() ![]() But most American teachers admit that they don't differentiate very well, certainly not on a sustained basis. Many teachers struggle heroically to cope, and some are reasonably effective. The trouble is that it simply doesn't work in most classrooms because kids’ performance levels are too varied. In place of these programs, Bay State schools claim to rely on “differentiated instruction”-a splendid notion wherein a single teacher is expected to tailor instruction to the individual abilities and prior achievements of each student in the classroom. And less than half of one percent of the state’s black and Hispanic students participate in one. A gifted program exists in just one out of every twenty Massachusetts elementary and middle schools, a lower rate than everywhere except Rhode Island and Vermont. But Fordham’s recent report, Is There a Gifted Gap?, which one of us coauthored, finds that it’s quite the opposite. Given this galling rift, you’d hope Massachusetts, so long accustomed to academic excellence, would try to lift up these talented students of color with programs that maximize their educations. Although one in every five white students is advanced, that’s true of just one in every twenty-five black and Hispanic students-a gap that is also twice what it is nationally. But this masks massive academic inequalities. But it won’t be easy.Īccording to the National Assessment of Education Progress, Massachusetts’s white, black, and Hispanic eighth graders reach the test’s highest level in math, deemed “advanced,” at twice the national rate. His sterling record as a principal in Boston and superintendent in Lawrence suggest that he’s up to the challenge. The selection of Jeff Riley as Massachusetts’s new education commissioner is a perfect opportunity to do better by high-achieving students of color. And it’s not just that low-income and minority students do worse than their wealthier and white peers on average there are also big gaps among high achievers, discrepancies that professor Jonathan Plucker rightly calls “ excellence gaps.” One cause may be the state’s severe shortage of programs for gifted students. But as Bay State leaders know, behind its accomplishments lurk some of America’s largest achievement gaps. Overall, it was a wild ride I'll never forget.Massachusetts has earned well-deserved accolades for becoming America’s highest-achieving state, as measured by national academic assessments. Since this is a low-income district, there is less funding & less resources. The one thing I'd change would be the opportunities. SHA is a very academics-heavy school which was beneficial in some ways, but came with burden of added stress. The suckier parts of my experience was definitely the time during the pandemic, where schools in my area were fully-remote for a year and a half. ![]() I really enjoyed extracurriculars such as ROTC and watching sports games, where I had gotten the chance to meet people from Commerce and even other schools in the district. The small community made it easy to strengthen relationships. Now my best experiences came along when I started making new friends and really getting in the mix of things. SHA is a pretry small school with around 250 students total. Alum: I went to Springfield Honors Academy (SHA) which is in the same building as High School of Commerce. ![]()
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