Creating The Opportunity To Learn Chapter Summaries

Summary
Chapter 8 of Creating the Opportunity to Learn by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera discusses why some schools are making more progress than others in closing the achievement gap. The chapter describes how two schools that are similar in the demographics and challenges hindering achievement, can have two different results in their efforts to close the achievement gap. One school saw improvements because they recognized the problems and implemented research based strategies to help all students be successful. The other school did not because they did not fully acknowledge the gap, and accept their role in ensuring all students succeed. Boykin and Noguera described how some principal “do not merely admonish their staff with slogans or speak in platitudes about their commitment to academic success, rather they take on decisive steps to ensure that academic achievement remains the priority of their school” pg. 145). This quote highlights the purpose of the chapter because it is all about the actions taken toward raising achievement, not just the speeches and
It provided examples of strategies and programs implemented that either can either close or widened the achievement gap. Since research shows that the schools effort to close the achievement gap starts with the leadership of the administration, I think school leaders should spend their professional development days focusing on interventions for academic achievement, and have access to research based strategies that have a track record of success in other schools. In addition, school leaders should be paired with each other for professional support and advice. I think it could be overwhelming to have the responsibility of raising achievement for a traditionally low-performing school, and school leaders are often time expected to know exactly what to do, which is not always