Guilford County Schools Chip Away At Achievement Gap for Minority Students

Guilford County School board members learned the official results of end-of-year testing scores Tuesday night for minority students in grades 3^rd through 12^th.  School officials say those numbers show a great disparity between children of color and all other students.  

“In Guilford County Schools, overall we were about 37 percent proficient in comparison to white students being about 73 percent proficient, so there is still a gap there even though we saw some progress in the 2012-2013 school year, but you can see that a lot of work still needs to be done to close that achievement gap for black students,” says Effie McMillian, head of a program called African American Male early literacy.

McMillian says the district is implementing more strategies to help black students excel in the classroom. Two years ago, Guilford County Schools launched a pilot program called the African American Male Initiative. The goal is to increase literacy and disciplinary outcomes for these students. For instance, if a student gets into trouble, they are provided with alternatives to suspension, like attending a Saturday Academy to work on their reading skills or ACT scores.

Also, more work is being done at the elementary level. Guilford County Elementary Schools are incorporating more biographies, fiction and non-fiction books about black culture in the classroom. Most of these books will be purchased through Race to the Top funds.

Eric Hines, director of equity and inclusion for the school system. says the program will excite students and boost their confidence.

“When we find material that is culturally relevant, we see an increase in their love for reading and also an increase in their self-image because they are reading about people they can relate to, people that look like them and people who have stories like them," says Hines. "We see the increase not only in their love for reading but in the outcomes as well.”

District-wide, black students make up more than 41 percent of the student population in Guilford County Public Schools.  

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