A study group assembled last summer by Mayor Tim
Davlin and the Springfield Urban League to examine African-American
achievement is right on track — a third of the way through its
“ambitious” timeline — says City Hall education liaison
Sheila Stocks-Smith. The study group is part of a local effort to
understand and, with any luck, remedy educational disparities between the
races. The group has sought to determine how factors such as high-school
dropout rates, parental support, ethnicity, and student engagement affect
African-American students in Springfield’s District 186. “We are focusing on things that can have a
significant impact,” Stocks-Smith says. Additional study topics include a comparison of the
traditional high-school diploma with such “alternate
completers” as GED programs, plus special-education identification,
truancy, suspensions and expulsions, resource equity, mobility, course
rigor, and student engagement and support. Now, Stocks-Smith says, the group is split into two
subgroups — data and interventions — to determine best
practices and finds ways to implement them. The study group allotted itself 10 months to form
planning groups and subcommittees, review pertinent literature, and collect
trend data on black students from local, state, and national sources. The 18-month timeline also calls for the group to
begin developing recommendations in June for a report to be written and
published next fall. By this time next year, the group plans to have
publicly announced its findings and disseminated the report. Separate from the study group, Stocks-Smith is also
planning part two of an educational-policy series on the achievement gap.
The first gathering in the series, attended by more than 150 people, was
held in November. The second meeting, Stocks-Smith says, although similar
to the first, featuring a keynote speaker and three to five panelists, will
last longer — a full morning — to allow more
question-and-answer time, taking place sometime near the end of March.
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2006.
