Literature Review Achievement Gap

Literature Review

Introduction

As stated in Achievement Gap Defined, “Achievement Gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performances of groups of students,” which includes socioeconomic status. The achievement gap at Woodville High School is a socioeconomic one. As reported by Williams (2002), the NAEP discovered that “the way schools are organized and the types of strategies and assessments teachers use in the classroom do matter” in the closing of the achievement gap. (p. 30). Barton’s (2004) research revealed several influences that correlate to achievement including before and beyond school factors as well as in school factors. Interventions to close the achievement gap of the high poverty

33). Capella University’s online library’s Summon search feature was utilized to find articles relative to these strategies. The search was narrowed with the following terms reading strategies, high poverty, parent participation, school leaders, and achievement gap. Additionally, the search was narrowed to peer-reviewed literature published within the past five years.

Parent Participation

Purtell and McLoyd (2012) discuss research on the New Hope strategy and its effect on youths’ educational development and their career-related thoughts and planning in the article “Parents’ Participation in a Work-Based Anti-Poverty Program Can Enhance Their Children’s Future Orientation: Understanding Pathways of Influence.” According to Purtell and McLoyd (2012), the study clarified the “processes

Klar and Brewer identified “how particular leadership practices and beliefs were adapted to increase student achievement in this rural, high-poverty school in the southeastern USA” (p. 422). The principal in the study addressed school and community challenges with “direction setting, developing people, redesigning of the organization, and managing the instructional program” (Klar & Brewer, 2014, p. 438). Klar and Brewer (2014) further noted that the principal’s “personal and professional support of individual teachers and prominent visibility reinforced his commitment, and resonated with the values of this particular community” (p. 439). Furthermore, the principal asked all members of the community to engage in the work of educating children. Klar and Brewer (2014) declare that the principal and “his community confronted the changing politics of the rural while opening multiple routes to success and the meeting the accountability demands” (p. 440). Therefore, the principal “initiated a schoolwide reform effort suited to the community’s needs, interests, and values” (Klar & Brewer, 2014, p. 440). Additionally, the study found that the principal does not need to be from the same or similar community to be successful. Instead, the principal needs to understand the “community’s