Marmaduke St. John / Alamy Stock Photo
We’re all familiar with data correlating student achievement with family income and ethnicity. Such data, critics argue, reveal that schooling tends to sort students according to the pre-existing socioeconomic class structure and, in so doing, reproduces existing inequities. To counter that at Hopkins Elementary in Littleton, Colorado, our staff was determined to help all students learn and thus achieve more equitable outcomes.
The key to achieving more equitable outcomes is to clearly articulate the learning that matters most and then be relentless in helping all students to get there. We focused on students’ reading achievement as our top priority. We began the year with an assessment of each student’s reading level and set specific individual goals stating what we expected every student to achieve by May. We sought grade level proficiency for every student, and we expected at least one year of growth for every student as well. However, for those performing below grade level, we expected up to one and a half years of growth so that they could narrow, if not eliminate, their learning gap.