Achievement

As previously mentioned, there was much talk among Task Force members about goals of our work and how we ultimately would measure the success of our plan. Given our initial charge of “eliminating the achievement gap,” we ultimately landed on the following, somewhat generic goal:

We will ensure that African American students in the Kirkwood School District achieve at high levels, commensurate with their peers, in all academic areas and without lowering the bar for others.

Inherent in this goal statement is a believe that (1) our African American students can achieve at high levels, and (2) we do not want to close gaps at the expense of students already achieving at high levels. Districts with the largest achievement gaps – between any subgroups – often have one or more subgroups achieving at very high levels. Our belief is that all students should continue to grow and be successful, with equitable access to the resources needed for their continued achievement. Our focus should be on raising African American achievement, not simply in closing or eliminating gaps between subgroups.

Our generic goal statement requires further definition of “high levels” of achievement, which we are operationalizing through incremental steps, shown above and in the table below. Additional graphs found the Appendix (Pages 52-56) highlight goals in each discipline.

Targeted end-results, shown here in the 2022 column, roughly reflect the percent of all students in our district who met or exceeded proficiency standards on 2015 MAP and EOC assessments. Incremental steps were established to (1) create a six-year trend line toward ultimate goals for each content area, and (2) provide individual schools – and the district as a whole – a realistic measuring stick by which to hold us accountable for year-to-year improvement.

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