Large achievement gaps exist nationwide between the proficiency levels of Native American and White students. Data showed this achievement gap was evident in New Mexico's largest and highest density Native American school district. Native American students, 80.9% of the district's total student population, were not acquiring the same levels of academic achievement as White students on state achievement assessments. A qualitative case study of 10 educational stakeholders was conducted in Gallup McKinley County Schools (GMCS) in northwest, New Mexico to evaluate the achievement gap from an organizational and community perspective. Questions were designed to garner factors influencing Native American learning and achievement and to elicit organizational and community perspective on how GMCS could improve to meet the needs of Native American students. Individual interview data were coded and triangulated to develop themes to better understand the achievement gap through a critical race theoretical lens. Findings resulted in both outside-school-factors (OSFs) and inside-school-factors (ISFs) being attributed to differentials in learning between Native American and White students. Stakeholders felt an improvement in instructional leadership focused on practices in the classroom versus managerial tasks was of the utmost importance. Analysis also supported the presence of complex racial relations and unearthed evidence that community and organizational racism as well as tenets of colonization were existent in the district though oftentimes subtle and unintentional.

There has been much talk and effort focused on the educational achievement gap between white versus black, Hispanic and American Indian students. While there has been some movement the gap has not appreciably narrowed, and it has narrowed the least for Native American students. This volume addresses this disparity by melding evidence-based instruction with culturally sensitive materials and approaches, outlining how we as educators and scientists can pay the educational debt we owe our children. In the tradition of the Native American authors who also contribute to it, this volume will be a series of "stories" that will reveal how the authors have built upon research evidence and linked it with their knowledge of history and culture to develop curricula, materials and methods for instruction of not only Native American students, but of all students. It provides a framework for educators to promote cultural awareness and honor the cultures and traditions that too few people know about. After each major section of the volume, the editors will provide commentary that will give an overview of these chapters and how they model approaches and activities that can be applied to other minority populations, including Blacks, Hispanics, and minority and indigenous groups in nations around the globe.

The achievement gap is still an epidemic in America and many schools struggle with identifying the reasons that their students of color are not achieving at the same rates as their White peers. This review of the literature uncovers some of these reasons and gives counselors ideas for how they can help these students achieve appropriately. Throughout the literature the disproportionate ratio between the overwhelming majority of White school counselors and educators and the growing number of students of color is clear, meaning that Whites in educator roles are over-represented compared to the demographics of the student body. Also, it is evident that the education that counselors have received in the past, and are still receiving, has been lacking in multicultural competency standards. These are just a few of the reasons for the emotional disconnect that students of color feel with the education system and counselors in particular, which makes the job of the counselor difficult when trying to help all children be successful, as is mandated by the American School Counselor Association and NCLB. The literature suggests that White school counselors can become multiculturally competent and can improve school climates to embrace diverse cultures, which in turn increases the chances of student success. Counselors are important change agents in schools and can help to close the achievement gap.

We decompose black-white achievement gap trends between 1971 and 2004 into trends in within- and between-school differences. We show that the previous finding that narrowing within-school inequality explains most of the decline in the black-white achievement gap between 1971 and 1988 is sensitive to methodology. Employing a more detailed partition of achievement differences, we estimate that 40 percent of the narrowing of the gap through the 1970s and 1980s is attributable to the narrowing of within-school differences between black and white students. Further, the consequences for achievement of attending a high minority school became increasingly deleterious between 1971 and 1999.

Mathematics and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have increased among students attending elementary and secondary schools since the first time the assessment was administered. These score increases have been observed both for Black and White students; statistically significant score differences between the two racial/ethnic groups have also been observed. This statistical analysis report, "Achievement Gaps: How Black and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress," examines achievement gaps between Black and White public-school students at both the national and state levels. The report uses data from two assessment programs--main NAEP and Long-Term Trend (LTT) NAEP. While both programs assess reading and mathematics, they are different in three major respects: (1) main NAEP assesses performance of students in 4th- and 8th-grades, while LTT NAEP assesses performance of students ages 9 and 13; (2) main NAEP reports results for both the national and state levels, while LTT NAEP reports results for the national level only; (3) main NAEP was first administered in the 1990s, while LTT NAEP was first administered in the 1970s. The report uses results from all assessment years including the 2007 main NAEP and the 2004 LTT NAEP. All results are for public school students. The percentages of Black and White students in individual states vary by state. Some states' trends could not be reported because there were not enough Black or White students in the sample to have reportable results. This report is organized as follows. Following an introduction, the remainder of this report presents first mathematics and then reading results. In each section, long-term trend results are presented first, giving national results only for public school students ages 9 and 13. These are followed by both national and state results for public school fourth- and eighth-graders from main NAEP. National data from main NAEP are also presented by (1) gender; and (2) eligibility categories for the National School Lunch Program. The last section consists of two appendixes that contain relevant technical notes and supplemental tables. (Contains 12 footnotes, 11 tables, and 24 figures.) [This report was prepared under a project of the NAEP Education Statistics Services Institute (NAEP-ESSI) of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in support of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). For the report highlights, see ED505902.].

The achievement gap between white students and African American and Hispanic students has been debated by scholars and lamented by policymakers for years. This book provides, for the first time in one place, evidence that the achievement gap can be bridged.

Carol Ward examines persistent dropout rates among Native American youth, which remain high despite overall increases in Native adult education attainment in the last twenty years. Focusing on the experiences of the Northern Cheyenne nation, she evaluates historical, ethnographic, and quantitative data to determine the causes of these educational failures, and places this data in an economic, political, and cultural context. She shows that the rate of failure in this community is the result of conflicting approaches to socializing youth, the struggle between 'native capital' and 'human capital' development systems. With high rates of unemployment, poverty, and school dropouts, the Northern Cheyenne reservation provides some important lessons as Native Americans pursue greater educational success. This volume will be of use to policy makers, instructors of comparative education, Native American studies, sociology and anthropology.