To close the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their peers, educators should learn by example from those who have already done so, Asa Hilliard told participants at ASCD's 20th annual Symposium on Urban Curriculum and Instructional Leadership, held recently in Tucson, Ariz. Hilliard, a professor at Georgia State University and a nationally recognized expert on urban education, emphasized that the gap-closers are often not prominent in the field.
"Ph.D.s don't know best," Hilliard asserted. Much of the literature on education is about strategies the authors believe will work—such as school choice—rather than what they have found to work in practice, he noted. "Most things that go on in education have no empirical foundation behind them at all," he said.
For guidance on closing the achievement gap, educators should look first to those who have produced tangible results, Hilliard argued. Those most qualified to advise other educators are those who have actually succeeded at teaching disadvantaged children and raising their achievement above the average. "I don't have time for the `speculators,'" he said.
Hilliard, who has been collecting examples of these successful educators for 30 years, said almost none of them are specialists. They get their work done fast, he added—they can turn things around almost overnight. And they are "so focused it's not funny."
While some of these educators have gained prominence—Jaime Escalante, for example—many others remain out of the spotlight, as do many successful schools. "Most of these places are invisible," he said, noting that they are written about more often in newspapers than in scholarly journals.
There is no "secret recipe" for teaching disadvantaged students, Hilliard emphasized. Most well-regarded treatment methods—tutorials, cooperative learning, and so on—will work if they are applied by educators who are consistent and hardworking.
Hilliard also criticized the way Americans have "rationalized" the achievement gap between mainstream students and minority students, poor students, and rural and urban students. We tend to blame the gap on false but popular causes, he said: test bias (which does exist, but does not account for the gap), IQ, socioeconomic status, and cultural diversity. Correlations between these factors and low achievement do not imply causal links, he pointed out.
The real cause of the achievement gap is the differential treatment that students receive, he asserted. The "treatment gap" has been well documented—by Jonathan Kozol in his recent book, Savage Inequalities, for example. "We always talk about the achievement gap, not the treatment gap," he said.
Identifying and learning from those who have closed—or reversed—the achievement gap is not enough. The real goal is to change teachers so that all of them can close the gap, Hilliard told the assembled urban leaders.
The goal is attainable, he said—but, to achieve it, we must believe in the intellect of our teachers. "You can't believe that all students can learn but all teachers cannot." Many teachers need renewed faith in their students' ability to learn—and their own ability to teach them. By showing teachers models of success, administrators can transform their beliefs about what can be accomplished, Hilliard said. Teachers also need to be placed in apprenticeship roles so they can learn to do what their successful colleagues do. Teachers may also need more training in their subject matter to teach it effectively, he said.
In conclusion, Hilliard noted that educators are "notorious for flipping from one catchy phrase to another," without making significant changes. To make real progress, he said, they need to take hold of what has been proven to work—and to emulate those who have shown they can teach all children.