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A recent story in the New York Times described a series of studies finding that the academic achievement gap between wealthy and poorer students has continued to increase over the years, even as gaps between white and minority students have narrowed.  This trend is doubly disturbing for poorer students with college aspirations, since it means that fewer will be college ready by the time they graduate from high school, and will therefore have less access to the higher incomes associated with higher education (see for example, Education Pays 2010).

This trend has consequences for school and teacher accountability policy, which are becoming increasingly focused on measuring student improvement and growth in academic areas.  Measuring growth is important, if the goal is to measure the effectiveness of teachers and schools.  But if the goal of schools is to prepare students for success in college, then merely measuring student growth will not suffice, particularly in light of research showing that high poverty schools produce nearly as much student growth as wealthier ones.  The teachers in poorer schools are just as effective as the teachers in wealthy schools, but the students are starting out at a much lower level.  Consequently, poorer schools produce fewer students who are ready to succeed when they get to college.

In order to reduce the achievement gap between wealthy and poor schools, we need to do more than just set tough (growth-based) teacher and school accountability policies.  Mechanisms need to be established to permit poorer schools to make up for the academic deficits their students have when they enter.  Such mechanisms might include longer school days, longer schools years, shorter breaks, and more tutoring; essentially, more school.  But such remedies are expensive and politically difficult.  When policymakers decide to become serious about education reform, the changes with the greatest impact on kids won’t focus on measuring school and teacher performance.  They will focus on kids.