RUNNING HEAD: CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

Issue analysis: Closing the achievement gap

Kristin Weber
Oakland University

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Many schools and school districts are having a difficult time meeting the needs of a
changing population in their schools. North Farmington High School is no exception to this.
North Farmington has had a successful academic history, often being ranked as one of the best
high schools in the state. University of Michigan gives North Farmington more admissions
points than any other public high school in the state, and recently it was listed as one of the best
high schools in US News and World Reports list of best high schools. However, even with all of
these accolades, North Farmington was named as a Focus School by the State of Michigan this
year because of the widening achievement gap in the school. There are two subgroups in
particular that are causing this gap, our African American population and our special education
population.
Right now North Farmington is trying many different things to close this achievement
gap. The school has tried to create an RTI program, but has not been very successful at a
systemic implementation of the program. Most staff members do not know what is in the plan,
let alone how to use it. The school has also been using the LINK Crew program to help
transition incoming freshman successfully into high school. This program has made significant
progress in reducing the failures in the freshman class. However, there are still 10th, 11th and 12th
graders that are not doing well in their classes, as well as doing poorly on the state assessment.
The school also offers lunchtime tutoring to any students that would like to use it. This is housed
in the media center during all of the student lunches. The tutors are students that are members of
National Honor Society. This program has had a few students attend, but not enough to call it
significant. The people who are most involved in trying to close this achievement gap right now
are the LINK Crew advisors (teachers), the paraprofessionals in charge of tutoring, and the
assistant principal that has worked on the RTI program. The school also sends out Listservs on a

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regular basis that give information about upcoming events, school-wide assessments, and college
information.
In order to continue to close the achievement gap at North Farmington High School, there
are several things that could be done. First of all, a comprehensive RTI plan that is implemented
with fidelity needs to be developed. This plan should have tier 1, 2, and 3 interventions clearly
articulated with a three year implementation plan for each tier of intervention. Tier 1
interventions need to be implemented first throughout the building. These interventions must be
focused on quality instruction in every class, every day. The core academic classes must be
targeted for these intervention in order to raise scores on the state assessment.
The school should also continue the lunch time tutoring with the honors students, as well
as the LINK Crew program with an added focus on academics. Teachers should also receive
more professional development on how to differentiate instruction to meet learner needs. They
should be utilizing instructional coaches in the building to co-teach and model effective
classroom strategies to cognitively engage all students. The teachers should also be using peerto-peer observations to see other teachers and what they do to engage and motivate their
students.
Many of the failures that students receive are a result of poor attendance. Therefore, part
of the plan to close the achievement gap should be to make regular phone calls home (not with a
computerized voicemail) to encourage better attendance for students. Another way to combat
failures would be to hold parent-teacher conferences earlier in the trimester to allow more time
for students to catch up on missing work and assessments before the end of the trimester.
Teachers would also send out weekly text blasts to parents cell phones with information about
up-coming tests, quizzes, projects, etc. as most parents have this type of technology, even if they

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do not have a computer at home. The school should also continue to send out its Listservs
through email to notify parents of important dates and events at the school pertaining to
academics.
Lastly, the school should implement an adult mentoring program for those students with
multiple failures. These students should meet with their mentor on a weekly basis to set goals,
assess progress on those goals, and to work through any problems that the student might have.
In order to better identify these students who are struggling, the school should start a
comprehensive data tracking tool to monitor the bottom 30% of the students. This tool should be
available to all staff with the ability to edit and add additional information to each students
profile.
In order to implement this new plan to close the achievement gap, the school needs to
better utilize media and communication so that parents and the community know how hard the
school is working and what help it still needs from the community. Farmington Public Schools
has a television station called TV-10 that could be used to help communicate this plan. The
students in this course could create a program on how to be successful in high school that could
be shown to both parents and students at the beginning of each school year. This program would
be under the direction of the TV-10 teacher and the principal of the school.
North Farmington also needs to better utilize its website to promote itself and the job it is
doing to close the achievement gap. The school should create a parent resource section on the
website that would include links to such things as key dates throughout the school year,
information about tutoring, information about LINK Crew, the Parent Connect system to check
student grades and attendance, a sign-up for Listserv emails, information about the adult
mentorship program for at-risk students, teacher email addresses, and a sign-up for teacher text

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blasts. All of these links would be handled by a small group of individuals that would include
the media center technicians, counseling staff, LINK Crew advisors, and the principal of the
school.
The last piece of media and communications that needs to be addressed in North
Farmingtons plan to close the achievement gap is the utilization of Facebook and Twitter. The
school should begin sending out tweets and Facebook posts daily about upcoming testing dates,
end of the marking periods, changes in the daily schedule, as well as information for parents that
would help them to help their child be successful in school. Individual teachers could also start
using the Twitter feed and Facebook account to notify parents of events or assignments that are
coming up in their classrooms. The Twitter feed and Facebook account should also include daily
study tips as well as links to sign up for Listservs from the school and text blasts from teachers.
To implement this comprehensive communications plan to close the achievement gap at
North Farmington High School, there is a three year time line that needs to be put into place.
During the first year, the school will need to open a Facebook and Twitter account and begin
making weekly posts into the programs about upcoming events. The school will also need to
make the changes to the school website that were articulated earlier in this document, as well as
implement the weekly phone calls to homes of students with chronic absenteeism. During this
first year, there should also be a focus on the Tier 1 interventions of the RTI plan by the entire
staff of the school.
During year two of the implementation of this comprehensive plan, there should be a
continuation of all parts of the plan that were introduced in year one. There should also be an
installation of the weekly text blasts by teachers to inform parents of important information about
their classrooms. During this year, there should also be a focus on peer-to-peer observations by

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the staff of the school to improve the quality of instruction delivered by every teacher in the
building.
During year three of the plan, all components of the plan should be in place. During this
year there should be an assessment done to see where the school is in the implementation
process, and then to make plans to improve the process again. By this time, modes of
communication may have changed, so the school needs to stay current on up-to-date technology.