In classrooms across the nation, chil-dren started school for the first time thisfall. In a perfect world, entering schoolwould mark a fresh start for all of them,opening doors to opportunities, with nolimits on what they might achieve. Thereality, of course, is not so simple. Overthe past 30 years, entire groups of peoplehave achieved at lower levels on averagethan other groups.

Typically, middle- and upper-class whitestudents achieve at the highest levels, yetmost educators agree that race, gender, eth-nicity, and handicap do not in themselvesput limits on a child’s ability to achieve.What, then, are the reasons for the achieve-ment gap? Seeking answers, educators have

conducted countless studies, which haveyielded copious and often conflicting statis-tics. The numbers, and differing interpreta-tions of them, raise issues that are bothcomplex and controversial.

CRUNCHING NUMBERS“There are a lot of different issues and

different ways in which people address theachievement gap, but to me, what it boilsdown to is an under-representation of par-ticular groups at high levels of achieve-ment,” says UAB School of EducationDean Michael J. Froning, Ed.D. “In awhole school or town, if an entire racial,language, gender, or other group has anaverage grade-point average of 3.7 while

another one has a 3.2, then there is anachievement gap.”

According to the 2000 Census, among24-year-olds nationwide, 87 percent ofAfrican Americans graduated high school,and 16 percent went on to earn bachelor’sor higher degrees. Among white students,91 percent graduated high school, and 30percent—nearly twice the percentage ofAfrican Americans—went on to obtainbachelor’s or higher degrees. Latino stu-dents fared even worse, with just 62 percentgraduating high school and 6 percent grad-uating college by age 24.

Those numbers don’t represent a recentphenomenon, according to Kati Haycock,executive director of the Education Trust.In a lecture at the UAB School ofEducation last winter, Haycock explainedthat the gap between white and AfricanAmerican students was documented as farback as the late 1960s. In the aftermath ofthe Civil Rights Movement, much atten-tion was paid to the gap, and for twodecades the gap narrowed considerably.

That progress, she says, came to a sud-den, inexplicable halt around 1988.“Although everybody had wanted to takecredit for narrowing the gap earlier, nobodywanted to take responsibility for wideningit after the late 1980s,” Haycock says. “So,for a while, there was mostly silence.”

During the 1990s, that silence led to fur-ther declines in achievement, as evidencedby falling scores on national reading andmath tests. In 1999, one in 12 white 17-year-olds was able to read well enough togain information from specialized texts,while only one of 50 Latinos and one of100 African Americans of the same agedemonstrated this ability. The same gap wasevident in math test scores: One in 10white students was able to “comfortably domultistep problem-solving and elementaryalgebra,” while only one in every 30 Latinosand one in every 100 African Americanshad this ability, according to the NationalCenter for Education Statistics and theNational Assessment of Education Progress.

When confronted by those numbers, it ishard to deny that achievement gaps exist.Why they exist is less clear.

Mind the GapP U T T I N G H I G H A C H I E V E M E N T W I T H I N R E A C H

Marianne McGriff teaches a fourth-grade class at Bluff Park Elementary School.

i n t h is iss u e

~m a x i m i z i n g

h u m a n p o t e n t i a l

• Dean’s Column:The Search for Today’s Heroes

• Viewpoint:John Ogbu’s final work

• Project Equal

• Special-Education Concerns

• Inquiry: Laying the Groundwork for Literacy

• Redefining the Role of High- School Guidance Counselors

• Creative Learning Center

• Hellos & Farewells

• Alumni Notes

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Fall 2003 Vol. 6 No. 2

School of EducationThe University of Alabama at Birmingham

E D U C A T I O N O U T L O O K

2

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

A PROBLEM OF POVERTY?As recently as 10 years ago, con-

troversial publications such as TheBell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray,New York: The Free Press, 1994)asserted that intelligence is genetic—implying that achievement gaps existbecause some groups are geneticallyless capable than others of academicachievement. That assertion, Froningsays, flies in the face of ample evi-dence to the contrary.

“There have always been peoplewho will argue that there are geneticdifferences that account for a person’scapability,” Froning says. “There isno question that from one family youget a Mozart and from another youget a child with Down syndrome, soyou can’t rule genetics out entirely.But my belief is that across the spec-trum of an entire population, talentand ability are distributed equally; soif there is an achievement gapbetween two whole populations,there must be another reason for it.”

Many researchers say a more like-ly culprit for the achievement gap isthe gulf between low- and high-income students, schools, and schoolsystems. The same Census thatshows African-American and Latinostudents achieving at lower levelsalso reveals that 48 percent of 24-year-olds from high-income families,regardless of race, graduated fromcollege, compared to just 7 percentfrom low-income families.

UAB School of EducationProfessor Kathleen Martin, Ph.D.,recently received a $2.5-million grantto help fund an Early Reading Firstprogram for Bessemer preschools—aprogram she hopes will tackle

achievement-gap issues at their core.“There’s evidence everywhere that thegaps have a great deal to do with eco-nomics,” Martin says. “In a low-income family, there might not be asingle book in the house. Thelibraries in low-income communitiestend to be smaller, with fewer pro-grams and fewer books. If those kidsenter kindergarten and first gradewithout the fundamental knowledgethat comes from exposure to print,there are a lot of things they will haveto learn before they can even begin toread. So they’re way behind from theday they start school.”

A SLANTED SURFACEOther researchers agree. Eric

Cooper, Ph.D., president of theNational Urban Alliance for EffectiveEducation, cites evidence from stud-ies conducted by Brown Universityresearcher Marilyn Adams, Ph.D.,who says that in order for children tosucceed academically, they need3,000 to 4,000 hours of goodpreschool experiences. Children fromlow-income families, however, typi-cally have only 300 to 400 hours ofpreschool, mostly in custodial care.

“We know that preschool is impor-tant and that full-day kindergarten isalso necessary,” says Cooper. “But inmany states in this country, poor chil-dren have only half-day kindergartenclasses, so they enter elementaryschool lacking the prerequisites thatcome from good preschool experi-ences and good kindergarten.

“What’s exciting about ourresearch,” Cooper continues, “is thatwe’ve shown that in spite of this gap,which exists in the beginning, chil-dren in some school settings are

learning at similar rates. So it’s not aquestion of capacity; it’s a questionof what we, as educators, can do todissolve that initial disadvantage.

“You also have to acknowledge theeffects of discriminatory practices,”Cooper continues. “You could go allthe way back to the tradition ofkeeping slaves uneducated to keepthem from becoming a threat, butwhat it all boils down to is a historyof discrimination. And that history,especially when combined withpoverty, has created an uneven play-ing field before some children everset foot in the classroom.”

BREAKING THE MOLDPerhaps the greatest challenge in

responding to the achievement gap isthe lack of conclusive statistics thatcan be applied to the search for solu-tions. Instead of definitive data,there are documented exceptions toevery generalization researchers havedrawn. For example, the widening ofthe gap during the 1990s between

whites and blacks nationwide wasnot evident in the reading scores ofAlabama fourth-graders; instead,reading assessment tests showed thatthe gap actually narrowed by onepoint between 1992 and 1998. Theblack-white gap in eighth-grademath scores in Alabama from 1990to 2000, however, widened by sevenpoints. To lay blame on a single fac-tor such as race or economics, then,would be difficult.

“The evidence shows that poor

kids in general score lower than richkids,” says Froning. “But researchdemonstrates through very rigorousdata collection that there are many,many exceptions. There are somehorribly underfunded schools thatachieve at high levels. And there areaffluent schools with what most con-sider good family environmentswhere the gap is very evident.

“To me, that means that you can’tuse poverty and you can’t use race asexcuses for low achievement. Thereare just too many people in thosedemographic groups who doachieve. I truly believe that if educa-tors are organized in their approachand focus on helping students reachhigher levels of achievement, thenmany more students from all demo-graphic groups will be achieving athigher levels.”

LIMITED BY LOW EXPECTATIONSIf commonly accepted barriers

such as poverty do not in and ofthemselves limit achievement, then

clearly educators must try to identifybarriers that might be present withinthe classroom itself, Froning says.

“We have created opportunities forwhole groups of people to live ‘up’ tolow expectations,” he says. “There is along history of prejudice in this coun-try that has brought us to the pointwhere, at the core of it, many peopledon’t really believe that AfricanAmericans can achieve at high levels. Ialmost hate to say that out loud, but Ihonestly believe that is a problem we

0 20 40 60 80 100

Of Every 100 African-AmericanKindergartners:

Graduate from High School

Complete at LeastSome College

Obtain at Least aBachelor’s Degree

Source: U.S. Bureau of Census, Current Population Reports, Educational Attainmentin the United States; March 2000, Detailed Tables No. 2

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20

30

40

50

60

70

80

College Freshmen GraduatingWithin Six Years (NCAA Division 1)

Source: 1999 NCAA Division I Graduation Rates Report, p. 636

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While thinking about a column that would fit with thisissue, I came across a speech by Oklahoma newspaper edi-tor Forrest “Frosty” Troy that has been making the roundsby e-mail in education circles.

In his speech, Troy refers to a radio talk show host whoblames our education system for society’s shortcomings andasks the question, “Where are the heroes of today?”

“Too many people are looking for heroes in all the wrongplaces,” Frosty responds. “Movie stars and rock musicians,athletes and models aren’t heroes; they’re celebrities.”

You want heroes? Here are a few of Troy’s suggestions.Consider Dave Sanders, the school teacher shot to death

while trying to shield his students from two youths on ashooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton,Colorado.

Jane Smith, a teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina,was moved by the plight of one of her students—a 14-year-old boy who was going to die if he didn’t receive a kidneytransplant. This woman told his family that she would givehim one of her kidneys. And she did.

When teacher Doris Dillon was stricken with LouGehrig’s Disease, she asked to stay on the job. When hervoice was affected she communicated by computer. Did shego home? Absolutely not! She was running two elementaryschool libraries! When the disease was diagnosed, she wrotethe staff and all the families that she had one last lesson toteach—that dying is part of living. Her colleagues namedher Teacher of the Year.

Bob House, a teacher in Gay, Georgia, won a million dol-lars on the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.Months later, Bob House and his wife were still teaching.They explain that teaching is what they’ve always wanted todo with their lives and that will not change.

Last year the average school teacher spent $468 of personalincome to buy workbooks, pencils, and items kids had to havebut could not afford. That’s a lot of money from the pockets ofthe most poorly paid teachers in the industrial world.

Troy concludes his speech with a quote from an un-named source who says, “We have been so anxious to giveour children what we didn’t have that we have neglected togive them what we did.” In summary, Troy says, “Math, sci-ence, history, and social studies are important, but childrenneed love, confidence, encouragement, someone to talk to,someone to listen, standards to live by. Teachers provideupright examples, the faith and assurance of responsiblepeople. You want heroes? Then go down to your localschool and see our real live heroes—the ones changing livesfor the better each and every day!”

In Searchof Today’s

Heroes

have created. And unfortunately, I seeevidence of it every day.”

However uncomfortable an opinionit may be to express, Froning’s interpre-tation of the problem is shared by manyother educators. Cooper says the evi-dence, seen daily in classrooms acrossthe nation, points to a pervasive, tena-cious belief that intelligence is innate incertain groups. Cooper and Froningbelieve that this bias subtly colorsexpectations, which, in turn, influenceachievement patterns.

This point was driven home dramat-ically last winter when noted StanfordUniversity psychologist Claude Steele,Ph.D., presented UAB’s IrelandLecture. Steele has written extensivelyon the achievement gap and is wellknown for an experiment he performedto test students’ susceptibility to stereo-typical expectations.

In his experiment, Steele divided sev-eral fraternity brothers into four differ-ent groups—two groups of black menand two groups of white men. “He toldone of the white groups and one of theblack groups that the test they wereabout to take would evaluate their intel-lectual understanding of the game ofgolf,” Froning says, “and he stressed thatgolf is a very difficult game, hard tounderstand, and that you have to bereally bright to do well at it. In thatgroup, the white students outperformedthe black students tremendously. Hethen brought out the other two groupsand told them that the test would eval-uate their physical ability; he stressedthat golf is a game of pure athletic abil-ity and that the best athletes always per-form better on the test—and you canguess what happened.

“That was Steele’s way of demonstrat-ing that our prejudices and beliefs aboutpeople’s abilities control their perfor-mance. I believe that is a fundamentaltruth about the achievement gap.”

THE IMPERATIVE TO INSPIRERegardless of which groups are identi-fied as being at risk because of achieve-ment gaps—whether they be AfricanAmericans, Latinos, special educationstudents, or even females—there areexamples of whole populations inwhich even the most severe gaps havebeen eliminated. For example, theNational Urban Alliance (NUA) toutstwo Indiana schools where the perfor-mance of African-American third-graders is above the state average for thefirst time, thanks partly to the NUAand Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS)Literacy Initiative. Math scores in IPSare also ahead of the state average. In

Seattle, Washington, similar resultswere found where teachers underwentspecial literacy training. In thoseschools, 26 percent of African-Ameri-can students who spent two years withliteracy-trained teachers passed thereading portion of the state’s Assess-ment of Student Learning, compared toa 12 percent pass rate by students with-out literacy-trained teachers. In thewriting portion, 31 percent passed withliteracy-trained teachers, compared to22 percent without. Numbers like thoseillustrate why closing the achievementgap is widely recognized today as anational priority. And Froning says hebelieves that any discussion of achieve-ment gaps, no matter how uncomfort-able, is a good thing.

“Whatever we do, we can’t approachthis from a negative point of view,” hesays. “We can’t go around accusing peo-ple of being racist, because that’s justnot productive. What we, as a school ofeducation, have to do is build into ourtraining a level of inspiration that willallow teachers to support students toachieve their best.”

Toward that end, Froning says thateducators need to develop the ability touse data on an ongoing basis to analyzewhere their instruction is falling short,with regard to particular students. “Thiswill allow them to fix the gaps as theygo,” he says. “It used to be that teacherswould give a test at the end of the yearand find that some students had far out-performed others—but by then it wastoo late to do anything to correct theproblem. If we can train teachers to ana-lyze the data for themselves throughoutthe year, then they can continually lookfor ways to ensure that what they’reteaching is truly being learned.”

Thanks to the amount of nationalattention being paid to the achievementgap, Froning says he believes progress isbeing made, but unfortunately closingthe gap won’t be a quick or easy process.As Cooper points out, even one goodteacher per student cannot close thegap, since a child is guided by so manydifferent teachers throughout his or hereducational experience. And of coursemore than one poorly equipped teacherin succession can put a child severalyears behind his or her peers.

“Changing people’s expectations andbehavior is not a science,” acknowledgesFroning. “It’s an art. That’s why teachingcannot be reduced to a set of measurableobjectives. In addition to extensive train-ing, the very best teachers have an almostspiritual ability to inspire people—allpeople—to achieve their very best.”

Viewpoint:

4

It is reported that every school day 3,000 mid-dle and high school students drop out. Nationalgraduation rates of 69 percent in this countrysuggest that six million adolescents are at risk ofnot graduating. Recent estimates of urban menages 16 to 24 suggest that 5.5 million are out ofschool, out of work, and out of hope. Those whoare at risk are primarily children and youth ofcolor who are challenged by family circum-stances. This data set is anchored by the profile ofa changing America—one which is increasinglynon-white. The new demography portends aracial generation gap and life gap as well as anachievement gap.

In his new book, Black American Students in anAffluent Suburb, Professor John U. Ogbu, Ph.D.,of the University of California at Berkeley, writesconvincingly of the reasons for the achievementgap. Those reasons include perceived inadequateIQs, social-class status, segregation, teacher expec-tations, cultural differences, racism, socializedambivalence, and language-dialect differences tothe effects of negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

During the 1980s Ogbu and his colleagues firstattracted national attention with their study thatreferred to “community factors” as a reason forunderperformance. In 1997, Ogbu and his asso-ciates were invited to Shaker Heights, Ohio, tostudy and suggest what could be done to improvescholastic opportunities for African-Americanstudents. Parents wanted answers for why theirchildren were underperforming (the averagegrade-point average for African-American high-school students was about 1.9, as compared to3.45 for white students).

In the resulting analysis, Ogbu and his associ-ates cover every known cause of the achievementgap before ending with a series of recommenda-tions that can have far-reaching implications. Thebook raises the important question of what roleparental involvement plays in the gap, but it alsoseems to beg the question: Do we, as a nation,have the will to eliminate the achievement gapbetween white and non-white students?

Jabiri Mahiri, an Ogbu colleague at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, writes in

Shooting for Excellence (1998) that Ogbu arguesthat African-American “culture itself is opposition-al to the culture of schools . . . that AfricanAmericans associate school knowledge and officialschool culture with ‘acting white’ and see this as aviolation of their identification with fictive kinshipnorms (p. 2).” Mahiri feels Ogbu’s premise shouldallow for more flexibility, recognizing that schoolpedagogy, teacher attitude, and school curriculumto which these students are exposed might also beconsidered in the equation. In Black AmericanStudents . . . Ogbu does just that. He cites teacherexpectations and programmatic interventions, aswell as parent involvement in his recommenda-tions for improvement. Clearly, he understandsthat students and parents themselves must not beisolated in the cause-and-effect paradigm related tolow and underperformance achievement.

Joyce King, a researcher of African-Americaneducation, offers this statement on some of Ogbu’swork: “. . . research that focuses on the educationof black students often emphasizes socioculturaldeficits as an obstacle to assimilation or accultura-

Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study in AcademicDisengagement, by John U. Ogbu (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003)

John Uzo Ogbu (1939-2003)

Editor’s Note: Typically, this space is reserved for two opinion pieces, offering dif-

ferent perspectives on a given topic. In this issue, the topic was to be the new book

by John U. Ogbu, Ph.D., a noted anthropologist at the University of California at

Berkeley. Sadly, as we were preparing to go to press, we learned that Ogbu had

suffered a fatal heart attack after a lengthy back operation at Kaiser Permanente

Hospital in Oakland, California. He was 64.

In the following review, Eric Cooper, Ph.D., president of the National Urban

Alliance, offers an analysis of Ogbu’s last book, Black American Students in an

Afflluent Suburb: A Study in Academic Disengagement. The book, published in

January, drew much attention and created quite a bit of controversy in the weeks

leading up to its publication and in the months since. We chose to include this dis-

cussion of Ogbu’s work just as it was written prior to his death. While we acknowl-

edge that the controversy surrounding his conclusions will not end with his passing,

we include this review in hopes that debate over this issue will continue until

achievement gaps are eliminated from our schools entirely.

A R E V I E W

5

tion (Ogbu, 1992; Steele, 1992). This research paradigm misses the pointof a fundamental insight of black studies: Cultural and racial democracyrequires pluralism, not cultural negation or absorption.” The questionthat King, Mahiri, and others may be suggesting in response to Ogbu’swork is that we may inadvertently be blaming the victim (African-American students and their parents) in our attempts to find causality.This is not to imply that students who bend to peer pressure or avoid“acting white” for peer acceptance are outside the factors to be consideredwhen studying reasons for the achievement gap. Yet the core questionremains: How do we learn to educate all children in a manner that doesnot deny the cultural, language, and race-specific experience that studentsbring to the school? Ogbu provides a partial answer: Regardless ofwhether students are served in increasingly segregated urban schools orwhether students of color are enrolled in suburban schools, we can’t hidefrom the lack of success non-white children in America are experiencing.Ogbu reminds the reader that every child is worth educating and that we,as a nation, can not afford to write any student off.

Recent research by Bill Sanders and his colleagues at the University ofTennessee speaks to the impact educators have on student achievement.Sanders’s research suggests that of all the in-school factors that affectlearning, the skills and attitudes of the teachers are paramount. Clearlyteacher attitudes can result in “stereotype threat”—defined by notedresearcher Claude Steele, Ph.D., as subtle exchanges between teacherand student that may convey the teacher’s low expectations in terms ofthe student’s ability to learn. And the concomitant underperformance ofstudents demands significant attention if we are to see deep gains in thequest for the elimination of the achievement gap.

Ogbu stresses the need for workshops that address teacher expecta-tions, but to recommend periodic one- or two-day workshops may missthe point. There will have to be sustained opportunities for appropriateprofessional development if educators are ever going to be expected toimprove in terms of how they guide students to higher levels of achieve-ment; and this professional development must teach strategies and skillsranging from highly specific approaches to broad ones. An enormousamount of learning occurs both formally and informally, through inter-actions among students of both sexes of different races and socio-eco-nomic backgrounds. Teaching opportunities that allow appropriatemediation and student-generated collaboration demand highly struc-tured, but flexible, environments.

A concern I had upon completing the reading of Black American Studentsin an Affluent Suburb was that discussion of African-American underper-formance in a wealthy town might inadvertently lead some to suggest pol-icy changes akin to those first recommended by W. E. DuBois—who sug-gested that the best hope for black American leadership is to focus resourceson the elite 10 percent of the race. According to that argument, AfricanAmericans from wealthier families, lacking the constraints of poverty, aremore likely to succeed than others. I am certain that this is not Ogbu’sintention, but I mention it as a cautionary note, stemming from my beliefthat students who are provided high-quality education recognize the inher-ent potential of all to be educated, and, in turn, serve others.

Discussion of this book should be geared toward using education tochange the national educational experiences of children who are oftenlocked out of the American dream. This is driven home by MartinHaberman, a researcher and writer on urban education, who has recent-ly written that schools, rather than functioning as the great equalizer, tendto both reflect and replicate social-class structures and societal biases. Theresearch conducted by Ogbu is excellent, and it addresses inequities inour nation, but ultimately, I believe that the spheres of influence thataffect how we think, how we learn, and how we live are so varied and

complex that we must always be open to new possibilities in our quest forthe keys to successful learning and achievement for everyone. As IdriesShah stresses in his books, the moment we are very sure about anything,we are almost assuredly suffering from self-deception.

This book brings up deep psychological and social questions thatAfrican Americans and the country will eventually have to face regard-ing the achievement gap. For example, Ogbu refers to the psychody-namics of a self-fulfilling prophecy, arguing that by not achieving, manyof us continue to be stigmatized by racist policies and practices, whetherpast or present. By keeping the wounds alive, we maintain the hope thatthe cruelty will be seen and addressed. Or, put another way, if we as arace begin to achieve at higher levels, the achievement may more fully

rid us of our past; then, if the pain is jettisoned, will we continue to beable to validate our collective experience? These are topics that can beaddressed in future articles and future books. For now, let’s celebrateJohn Ogbu’s new book by using the knowledge contained in his volumeto continue the American journey toward social justice.

Eric J. Cooper is president of the National Urban Alliance for EffectiveEducation at the Council of Great City Schools & The University ofGeorgia, Athens. He can be reached through the Alliance’s Web site atwww.nuatc.org.

If you think Alabama’s only language problems involve Southern drawls,you haven’t visited Shelby County recently.

“We have more than 900 students with limited proficiency in English,and they speak 48 different languages,” says Janet Smith, English as aSecond Language (ESL) program specialist for the Shelby County schoolsystem. “This is a 444-percent increase since 1998.”

To meet the needs of children whose primary languages range fromSpanish to Arabic, Shelby County has joined forces with UAB in “ProjectEqual,” which is funded through a five-year, $1.3-million grant from the U.S.Department of Education. The program involves UAB’s School of Educationand Graduate School, which will work together to train teachers and otherschool employees to work with students who aren’t proficient in English.

Project Equal isn’t just for ESL teachers. Although teachers receivingtraining will be ESL-certified, the program also will reach other teachers,administrators, and school employees. “Very few mainstream teachers areprepared to work with English-language learners,” says Julia Austin, Ph.D.,director of educational services for the Graduate School. “Even after chil-dren make the transition from ESL classes to the regular classroom, manystill won’t be able to function completely without support. So it’s importantfor all teachers to learn to work with English-language learners.”

Austin, who is principal investigator for Project Equal, says many partic-ipating teachers will serve as mentors to other teachers at their schools.“Shelby County’s situation has a lot of challenges,” she says. “In addition tothe variety of languages they speak, the county’s ESL students include chil-dren of Honda executives and college faculty members as well as children ofconstruction workers. So the educations and expectations of parents are asdiverse as the languages spoken.”

Gypsy Abbott, Ph.D., professor of education, is evaluating the project,and Susan Spezzini, Ph.D., who joined the UAB faculty in January, isprogram director. Spezzini knows the challenges of adjusting to a differ-ent culture. A Californian who joined the Peace Corps and moved toParaguay after earning her master’s degree, she married a Paraguayan andlived in Asuncion, the capital, for 26 years. In Asuncion, she coordinat-ed a master’s degree program for the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.Several years ago, she enrolled in a UA doctoral program, completing herdoctorate in 2002.

“Now,” she says, “I’ve returned to the States and my husband, who hasretired from his work as an agronomist, has immigrated here. Our oldest sonis a student at UA-Tuscaloosa, and our youngest son has been admitted tothe University of Montevallo for the fall term.”

Spezzini says that Project Equal has several components—all designed tohelp students successfully learn English.

“First,” she says, “we’re training teachers and those who work with teach-ers to better incorporate non-English-speaking students into their classes.We select 30 teachers annually; they take one graduate course per semester,plus two in the summer, and receive ESL certification in two years.

“Another component is working with teachers’ assistants and aides whoare bilingual and have been hired to help communicate with students andparents who don’t speak English. We’ll help them give one-on-one supportin teaching English.

“A third aspect of Project Equal involves training Shelby County’s princi-pals and area specialists, giving them an overview of laws involving residentimmigrants, how to interact with students and how to give them support.The county’s school superintendent and assistant superintendent havealready attended these sessions, and we’ll work with counselors next year.”

A fourth component of Project Equal extends to other colleges and uni-versities. Workshops for area education faculty members will emphasize theneed for future teachers to learn techniques for accommodating studentswhose English is limited. “For instance, we might suggest that instead ofasking students to read an entire chapter, teachers ask them to read subtitlesand summary,” Spezzini says. “We want them to have successes while they’rein the process of learning English.”

Austin says Shelby County’s school leaders have helped launch ProjectEqual successfully. “We’re putting together a program that addresses imme-diate needs and helps build for the future,” she says. “Everyone from thesuperintendent on down has been extremely helpful.”

6

Project Equal: L O C A L S C H O O L S TA R G E T C R O S S - C U LT U R A L D I S PA R I T Y

School of Education professors (left to right) Susan Spezzini, Janet Smith, and JuliaAustin are putting a $1.3-million grant to work training teachers and other schoolemployees to work with students for whom English is a second language.

Rebecca “Ricky” Deaver hadn’t planned to be a teacher. She had a perfectlygood job in the business world. But on the day her son John was diagnosed withReye’s syndrome, Deaver’s priorities changed.

Reye’s syndrome is a disease that sometimes occurs in children duringrecovery from a viral infection, and in John’s case, it resulted in mild braindamage. His school assigned him to special education classes, and Deaverbecame very involved in his schooling. She subsequently enrolled at UABand earned a degree in special education, later returning to earn her master’sdegree. She now teaches at Simmons Middle School in Hoover.

“From my perspective, she’s the best teacher I’ve ever seen,” says LouAnne Worthington, Ph.D., associate professor of education. “What’s so spe-cial about her is that she’s done such a good job of getting classroom teach-ers to include students with learning disabilities. Most children with learn-ing disabilities do better in a classroom, with support from trained special-ed teachers.”

Deaver spends her days rotating through classrooms, checking on the sta-tus of “her kids.” She says that teamwork, as well as training, is important.“We did away with self-contained (special-ed) classrooms completely two orthree years ago,” says Deaver. “Out of 400 special-ed students, we only have10 students in a resource-math class and about that many in a resource-English class. The others are assimilated into regular classrooms, and we sharethe responsibilities with the regular teachers. I do some of the grading andthey do some.”

Having those students spread out through several classes and several gradesexpands Deaver’s job, as she has to become familiar with a wide range of cur-riculum and materials. “But the teachers teach me what I need to know, andI teach them what they need to know about students I work with.”

Simmons’s successes reinforce the idea that expectations for many spe-cial-ed students are too low. “For a long time there was the mindset thatkids with disabilities belong in special education, not general education,and never the two shall meet,” Worthington says. “But evidence makes itpretty clear that kids achieve more in regular classrooms than they do inisolated special-ed programs. This may not be true of all disabilities, butit’s certainly true of learning disabilities involving the use of language ormathematical calculations.”

Contrary to the “Dark Ages” of special education, when isolation andminimal goals were the standard for many special-education students, theNo Child Left Behind Act that was passed last year sets high progress andachievement goals for this group. It also holds local school systems account-able for results.

“The attitude of general-education teachers toward students with specialneeds is a key issue,” says Richard Gargiulo, Ph.D., professor of education.“I believe all kids can learn. But they learn differently. I tell students that if achild doesn’t learn the way you teach, you’d better teach the way the childlearns. It all comes down to customizing the learning experience for each stu-dent. Learning is effective in different ways. Some want to be told. Otherslike to read instructions. Still others prefer demonstrations. If you expectmediocrity, you won’t be disappointed. But if you expect kids to learn andyou raise the bar, they’ll try to live up to those expectations.”

While many special-ed students succeed without accommodation, othersneed some, according to Deborah Voltz, Ph.D., associate professor of educa-tion. Voltz joined the School of Education faculty this fall from the Universityof Louisville. She says that in Kentucky, accommodations frequently includeallowing extended time on tests or non-reading versions of tests; school systemsalso sometimes employ scribes to write down answers dictated by students whohave impaired writing skills.

“One of the major challenges in special education has been teachers’unfamiliarity with the backgrounds and cultures of minority students. Thismay lead to placing minority students in special ed by mistake,” she says. Inresponse to that concern, Voltz hopes to introduce a version of Kentucky’sCRISP (Culturally Responsive Instruction for Special Populations) to UAB.Through CRISP, she looks at cultural influences on special-ed placement,using that information for training teachers to better assess children.

There is no question that general-education teachers play roles in bothassessing children for special education and assimilating them into the class-room. Effective selection and assimilation are necessary to close the achieve-ment gap. Unfortunately, many teachers may not have the training—aproblem UAB is working to correct. “UAB has started requiring under-graduate education students to take more than one special-educationcourse,” Worthington says. “I believe we’re doing more than any universityin the state to require this training.”

Gargiulo recommends that future teachers evaluate students by asking,“How is the child smart?” rather than “How smart is the child?” Deaver whole-heartedly supports this approach. Her son John, the special-ed child who drewher into teaching, is now a teacher himself at Spain Park High School.

7

Special-Education Concerns A R E E X P E C T A T I O N S T O O L O W ?

School of Education professors Deborah Voltz and Lou Anne Worthington are committedto the idea that special-education students can achieve at high levels.

Achievement gaps exist at every level ofeducation, particularly with regard to high-and low-income students. One group ofUAB educators is taking an innovativeapproach in its effort to eliminate such gapsbefore they even have a chance to form.

Thanks in part to a $2.5-million feder-al grant, the UAB School of Educationand the Bessemer city school system areworking together on Early Reading First

(ERF), a program designed to give low-income preschoolers and their teachers thebackground they need to begin their for-mal education at the same level as theirhigher-income peers.

“There is a huge gap between low- andmiddle-income children in terms of howdifficult it is for them to learn to read,” saysKathleen Martin, Ph.D., an assistant pro-fessor in the School of Education and prin-cipal investigator for the ERF program.“Children who score low in preschool onlanguage measures are much more likely tohave difficulty learning to read, so webelieve a big key is to identify children whohave low language achievement and startdeveloping their language skills so thatthey’re not starting out at a disadvantage.”

UAB was one of 30 universities selectedby the U.S. Department of Education to

pioneer ERF through funding made avail-able by the No Child Left Behind Act of2001. Martin, whose past research has dealtextensively with early literacy, wrote thegrant proposal and chose Bessemer as thelocation for the program.

“The original request for proposals calls forthe creation of ‘centers of excellence inpreschool education in low-income commu-nities,’” Martin says. “We chose Bessemer

because the School of Education has alwayshad a good relationship with the Bessemerschool district and because the community isrelatively stable. It’s a compact communitywhere the children who are in preschool arelikely to also be in elementary school, so it willbe easy to track children over several years.”

Even though Bessemer does have strongmiddle-class areas, it is considered a high-poverty system because 3,778 of its 4,342students qualify for the free and reduced-cost lunch program.

Martin says it is imperative that teachershave an understanding of scientific-basedliteracy instruction if they hope to raise theachievement levels of their low-income stu-dents. “There is a lot that has to take placebefore a child can even begin to learn,”Martin says. “When we see children in thefirst grade learning to read, that is really the

end of a process. Children who come intofirst grade and are successful learning howto read have had a rich beginning.”

That rich beginning has nothing to dowith material wealth, but in too many cases,children from lower-income families enterschool without the proper backgroundknowledge to begin to learn how to read.

“In a low-income family, there might notbe a single book,” Martin says. “The librariesin low-income communities tend to besmaller and have fewer books and fewer pro-grams for young children. That means thesechildren aren’t being exposed to the samethings as children in families that sharebooks, where parents read to their children.”

In those families, Martin says parents areteaching their children to read, often with-out even realizing it. “People aren’t bornwith an understanding of how print works.You have to learn how print works—thatwords are groups of letters with spaces oneither side and that you read them from leftto right. When a parent reads to a child,the child may learn at some point that theparent is relating to the words on the pageand not the picture. People take for grant-ed that a child will know those things, butthat isn’t always the case.”

Another goal of the ERF program is toboost community involvement, creatingprograms and events at preschools and locallibraries that will encourage communitymembers to get involved with literacy.Teaching children the importance of books,as well as enhancing their vocabulary, willmean that when they do start learning toread, they will be familiar with the wordsthey are being asked to read.

“To that end, we will be testing these chil-dren prior to beginning the program, andwe will follow their progress after they beginkindergarten and first grade—at whichpoint they will have started the ReadingFirst program,” Martin says. “We hope toshow that our treatment-group children willperform at a higher level than those in thecontrol group. We also will be watching howthe teachers grow in their practice of theprofession and whether or not they improvein their skills and knowledge.

“The primary thing we’re looking at iswhether or not we can change outcomesfor children, and we have confidence thatthe methods we are implementing will dojust that.”

8

Inquiry L A Y I N G T H E G R O U N D W O R K F O R L I T E R A C Y

New Program Promotes Reading in Bessemer Preschools

School of Education professors Kathleen Martin and Kay Emfinger spent months compiling materialsthat will be used in the Early Reading First program.

9

Changing Focus Redefining the Role of High-School Guidance Counselors

Educators nationwide are makingthe battle against the achievementgap a top priority, and many schoolguidance counselors have taken thelead in that fight.

Long recognized as the gatekeep-ers responsible for steering studentstoward more challenging courses,counselors are now being asked to redirect their focus. StephanieRobinson, Ph.D., a principal partnerof the Education Trust in Washington,D.C., says the new role of the coun-selor is defined in the TransformingSchool Counseling Initiative, whichemphasizes advocacy on behalf ofequitable education funding. “We areconcerned about the financial gapbetween what most affluent schooldistricts spend per pupil and what isspent per pupil in the lowest-incomeschool districts,” Robinson says.

Lawrence E. Tyson, Ph.D., schoolcounseling advisor in the CounselorEducation Program in the UABSchool of Education, says thenational initiative was the inspira-tion for the new Alabama StateGuidance Plan, which was pub-lished last summer by the AlabamaDepartment of Education. The

plan, he says, is a call to action forthe state’s school counselors.

“First, they need to be looking atexisting data in their schools andasking why the data looks the way itdoes. They need to be raising theissue and raising the questions, espe-cially if the numbers show that thereare large gaps between groups in theschool,” Tyson says.

The new guidelines call for schoolcounselors to point out theseachievement gaps to public officialsin an effort to make a difference inthe way resources are allocated toschools and programs. “That maynot sound like much, but we needto remember that school counselorshaven’t been charged with beingthese kinds of advocates before,”Tyson says. Guidance counselorshave traditionally been expected todeal individually with students andtheir needs, but their role is evolvinginto that of advocates who identifyand address barriers, both personaland systemic, that impede students’academic progress. “Our job, evenmore so now than before, is to findout how to go around, go above, gobeneath—or do away with—thesebarriers,” Tyson says.

According to Robinson, theTransforming School CounselingInitiative was developed by theEducation Trust in 1996 with thegoal of revolutionizing the wayschool counselors work within theirschool systems. “The initiative isaimed at getting school counselorsto stop sorting students and to workon reforming schools—changingthe system to provide high-qualityeducation for all students,” she says.“This means counselors have tomove away from the emphasis on

mental health—leave that to theschool psychologists and socialworkers, who are better trained—and become brokers of services.”

Robinson says the initiative callsfor counselors to become communityleaders in an effort to eliminate the

funding gaps that are often blamedfor creating achievement gaps.“Counselors have skills in collaborat-ing and forming teams and gettingpeople to talk together to solve prob-lems. For example, if a school isunderfunded or there is a gap, thecounselor can get those data, showthem to people, and then help mobi-lize parents to say, ‘We need betterfunding for our schools.’”

While the Transforming SchoolCounseling Initiative is changingthe way colleges are preparing thecounselors of tomorrow, training isalso being offered to current coun-selors to help them adapt to theirnew role. Tyson has led trainingworkshops for counselors inBirmingham and Shelby and Jeff-erson Counties, and plans for thestate Department of Education tooffer similar training throughoutAlabama. The state’s counselors arebeing joined by others nationwidein this effort, says Robinson.

“If we can manage to get a criticalmass of counselors out there, partic-ularly in the districts that serve highconcentrations of poor kids and stu-dents from low-income homes andstudents of color, then we will haveaccomplished some of our goals.”

Lawrence Tyson (pictured at right) helps prepare future guidance counselors throughthe UAB School of Education’s Counselor Education Program.

10

HellosLevi Ross, M.P.H., Human Studies; Andrew McKnight,Ph.D., Leadership, Special Education, Foundations andTechnology; Tondra Loder, Ph.D., Leadership, SpecialEducation, Foundations and Technology; Deborah Voltz,Ed.D, Leadership, Special Education, Foundations andTechnology; Linda Houghton, Ph.D., Leadership, SpecialEducation, Foundations and Technology; Kay Emfinger,Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction; Retta Evans, Ph.D.,Human Studies.FarewellsTerry Conkle, Ed.D.; Eugene Golanda, Ph.D.; DavidWhittinghill, Ph.D.

HELLOS AND FAREWELLSThe UAB School of Education faculty, staff, and

students warmly welcome new faculty members Levi

Ross, M.P.H., Human Studies; Andrew McKnight,

Ph.D., Leadership, Special Education, Foundations

and Technology; Tondra Loder, Ph.D., Leadership,

Special Education, Foundations and Technology;

Deborah Voltz, Ed.D., Leadership, Special Education,

Foundations and Technology; Linda Houghton,

Ph.D., Leadership, Special Education, Foundations

and Technology; Kay Emfinger, Ph.D., Curriculum

and Instruction; Retta Evans, Ph.D., Human Studies.

In June, children had the opportunity to demon-strate what they learned at the Children’s CreativeLearning Center. The summer enrichment programis designed to enhance the academic skills of chil-dren ages 4-12 with a focus on the arts and lit-eracy. The program features reading and mathenrichment workshops and an early-childhood spe-cial-education program. Children also attended spe-cial workshops to learn art, photography, and cre-ative writing. The center is sponsored by the UABSchool of Education in partnership with theHoover City Board of Education.

11

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Two life gift annuities are also available at slightly

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Gift annuities may be used to endow and name many important programs, such as scholarships,

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If so, please contact either of the following with submissions:

William Tevendale, director of development (205) 934-8354,tevendal@uab.edu

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Education Outlook is published by the UAB School of Education in collaboration with the Office of Public Relations andMarketing. Executive Editor: Pam Powell Managing Editors: Jo Lynn Orr and Grant Martin Writers: SandraBearden, Michael Froning, Ed.D., Grant Martin, Mike Stedham Art Director: Jason Bickell Photography: Steve WoodSOE Editorial Board: Michael Froning, Ed.D., Dean;William Tevendale, Director of Development; Joseph C. Burns, Ed.D., Chair,Curriculum and Instruction; Brian Geiger, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Human Studies; and Miranda Harris, Office Associate.

PS-13595c

Susan Ronilo Caraway, an English teacherat Clay-Chalkville High School, has been

named the first recipient of the University ofAlabama at Birmingham (UAB) AP TeacherAward. The award will be presented to Caraway atthe John J. Haggerty High School ArticulationConference on Friday, May 2 at the BirminghamBotanical Gardens.

The AP Teacher Awards, established this year,are designed to honor advanced-placement Englishteachers in Jefferson County. The award recognizesteachers who are dedicated to their students andwho exhibit a passion for teaching literature and acommitment to developing good writing skills.Award winners are selected by the AP TeacherAward Committee, which is comprised of threeUAB English Department faculty members andthree members of the UAB English AdvisoryCommittee. The committee consists of peoplefrom the Birmingham community.

Caraway will receive a certificate, a $500 cashprize, and a $200 gift certificate from The AlabamaBooksmith. Caraway has taught advanced-place-ment English for seven of her 25 years as a high-school teacher. She teaches 80 advanced-placementstudents in three classes in addition to her compo-sition classes.

Marlee A. E. Neel, a teacher at Hueytown HighSchool, won second place. Neel will receive a certifi-cate and a $200 cash prize. She has been a high-schoolEnglish literature teacher for two years. She teachesninth-grade English and a 12th-grade honors class.

The AP Teacher Awards will be presented annu-ally. The awards are made possible through dona-tions from the UAB English Advisory Committee.

The John J. Haggerty High School ArticulationConference is the UAB English Department’slongest running educational outreach program.The conference was established by AssociateProfessor Emeritus John J. Haggerty, Ph.D., topromote communication and one-on-one interac-tion between UAB English faculty and teachers inthe Birmingham city schools. This year, the con-ference has been expanded to include teachers inall public high schools in Jefferson County.

Chantay Walker, Ph.D., CHES, is the newdirector of health promotion for the

Metropolitan Public Health Department inNashville, Tennessee. She is also the project direc-tor for the Center of the Study of Spirituality andHealth at the Association of Black CardiologistsIncorporated, located in Atlanta, Georgia andholds an adjunct faculty position with the

University of St. Francis located in Joliet, Illinois.Walker received her bachelor of arts degree (cum

laude) from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee,in 1991; a master’s of education from UAB in 1994;and a doctorate of philosophy degree in health edu-cation/health promotion from both UAB and theUniversity of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in1998. She completed a postdoctoral study programin health promotion and chronic disease manage-ment at the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care(Indiana University Center for Aging Research)through Indiana University-Purdue UniversityIndianapolis (IUPUI) located in Indianapolis,Indiana. She received credentials as a certified healtheducation specialist in 1996.

John Jernigan (MA ’88) received the Professionalof the Year Award from the Council ofOrganizations Serving Deaf Alabamians

(COSDA) at a June 6 banquet at the BirminghamHilton. The honor was “in appreciation of (your)dedicated service to Deaf/Hard of Hearing indi-viduals.” Jernigan is director of student develop-ment at the Alabama School for the Deaf and iscurrently pursuing a doctoral degree in deaf educa-tion.