Why Have American Schools Failed in Closing the Achievement Gap? A Case Study of California's Palo Alto School District

For more than a decade, the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) of California has strived for two goals: closing the achievement gap and reducing stress. However, recent statistics still show stark academic achievement gaps among ethnic groups, and one in five teens experience a diagnosable me...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNonpartisan education review Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 1 - 41
Main Author Ling Huang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nonpartisan Education Group 01.01.2020
Subjects
academic achievement
achievement gap
fuzzy math
jo boaler
math education
mathematics
palo alto schools
progressive education
school of education
stanford university
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Summary:For more than a decade, the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) of California has strived for two goals: closing the achievement gap and reducing stress. However, recent statistics still show stark academic achievement gaps among ethnic groups, and one in five teens experience a diagnosable mental health issue. While 81 percent of Asian students met or exceeded state math standards, this number dwindles to 16 percent for the economically disadvantaged group, which includes hundreds of East Palo Alto students studying at the Palo Alto schools via the Voluntary Transfer Program (VTP)—a “closing the achievement gap” program launched in 1986.
ISSN:2150-6477
2150-6477