{"id":1867,"date":"2020-01-30T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T14:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/?p=1867"},"modified":"2020-02-03T08:31:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T13:31:13","slug":"acps-2025-working-toward-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/acps-2025-working-toward-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"ACPS 2025: Working Toward Equity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">New Five-Year Plan Aims to Decrease Disparity Between Students in the School System<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Stella Williams<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>\tACPS 2025, the school system\u2019s new five-year plan, is focused on equity, which ACPS defines as \u201cempowering students, families and staff by providing relationships and nurturing capability to collectively remove barriers that prevent anyone from achieving their aspirations.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tSince minorities have fallen behind in the past, the plan aims to narrow the achievement gap in the school system to \u201cmeet students where they are and not necessarily where we want them to be,\u201d according to a page on the ACPS website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThe data workbook for the 2025 Strategic Planning Committee shows the gap between students of different races and socioeconomic backgrounds. \u201cMany achievement gaps persist. White and Asian students tend to outperform black and Hispanic students in terms of SOL pass rates, average SAT scores, and on-time graduation rates,\u201d states the workbook. Furthermore, \u201cGaps between white and Hispanic and English Learner students\u2019 SOL pass rates and on-time graduation rates have widened. Large gaps remain between white and Hispanic kindergarten students who meet fall benchmarks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tAn example of this achievement gap is the scores for the third grade reading SOL. White students had an 85 percent pass rate, while 62 percent of Asian students passed, 55 percent of Black students passed, 43 percent of Hispanic students passed, 44 percent of EDS passed, 45 percent of ELL students passed, and 26 percent of students with disabilities passed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThere are other disparities besides differences in test scores. \u201cHispanic students [are] disproportionately chronically absent,\u201d according to an ACPS Preparing for Strategic Planning: Engaging Community and Assessing Needs presentation. There are \u201cmultiple instances of disproportionate suspensions, especially among black students\u201d and students of color, and those from culturally and linguistically diverse families are more often referred to specialized instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tAlso, the presentation states that there are \u201cdisproportionately high rates of white students identified for TAG and participating in Honors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tTo fix these problems, educational equity is the focus of ACPS 2025. It \u201cwill be focused on ensuring all students get what they need to succeed,\u201d said the ACPS Express publication. \u201cWe see diversity as our strength.\u201d &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tIn a column in <em>the Alexandria Times<\/em>, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings said that it is \u201cnot simple to achieve equity in a school division like ours, which, like so many others, was not developed and grown on equitable principles and practices from the start.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\t\u201cUnfortunately, the way that some of our specialized programs and learning pathways are implemented means that we have vestiges of modern-day segregation of students based on their learning abilities or life circumstances in our school,\u201d he also said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\t\u201cIt will take a community to make ACPS the best place to teach, work and learn. But once we get there, the entire community will reap the rewards and the City of Alexandria will be a beacon in which to live, work, learn and play,\u201d said Hutchings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Five-Year Plan Aims to Decrease Disparity Between Students in the School System Stella Williams ACPS 2025, the school system\u2019s new five-year plan, is focused on equity, which ACPS defines as \u201cempowering students, families and staff by providing relationships and nurturing capability to collectively remove barriers that prevent anyone from achieving their aspirations.\u201d&nbsp; Since minorities have fallen behind in the past, the plan aims to narrow the achievement gap in the school system to \u201cmeet students where they are and not necessarily where we want them to be,\u201d according to a page on the ACPS website. The data workbook for the 2025 Strategic Planning Committee shows the gap between students of different races and socioeconomic backgrounds. \u201cMany achievement gaps persist. White and Asian students tend to outperform black and Hispanic students in terms of SOL pass rates, average SAT scores, and on-time graduation rates,\u201d states the workbook. Furthermore, \u201cGaps between white and Hispanic and English Learner students\u2019 SOL pass rates and on-time graduation rates have widened. Large gaps remain between white and Hispanic kindergarten students who meet fall benchmarks.\u201d An example of this achievement gap is the scores for the third grade reading SOL. White students had an 85 percent pass rate, while 62 percent of Asian students passed, 55 percent of Black students passed, 43 percent of Hispanic students passed, 44 percent of EDS passed, 45 percent of ELL students passed, and 26 percent of students with disabilities passed.&nbsp; There are other disparities besides differences in test scores. \u201cHispanic students [are] disproportionately chronically absent,\u201d according to an ACPS Preparing for Strategic Planning: Engaging Community and Assessing Needs presentation. There are \u201cmultiple instances of disproportionate suspensions, especially among black students\u201d and students of color, and those from culturally and linguistically diverse families are more often referred to specialized instruction. Also, the presentation states that there are \u201cdisproportionately high rates of white students identified for TAG and participating in Honors.\u201d To fix these problems, educational equity is the focus of ACPS 2025. It \u201cwill be focused on ensuring all students get what they need to succeed,\u201d said the ACPS Express publication. \u201cWe see diversity as our strength.\u201d &nbsp; In a column in the Alexandria Times, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings said that it is \u201cnot simple to achieve equity in a school division like ours, which, like so many others, was not developed and grown on equitable principles and practices from the start.\u201d&nbsp; \u201cUnfortunately, the way that some of our specialized programs and learning pathways are implemented means that we have vestiges of modern-day segregation of students based on their learning abilities or life circumstances in our school,\u201d he also said.&nbsp; \u201cIt will take a community to make ACPS the best place to teach, work and learn. But once we get there, the entire community will reap the rewards and the City of Alexandria will be a beacon in which to live, work, learn and play,\u201d said Hutchings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/2025Logo2-260x178-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1871,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions\/1871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2019-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}