College readiness declines when school's focus is improving test scores, study finds

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoia-crd051215.php

Public Release: 12-May-2015
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Education reform policies that penalize struggling schools for poor standardized test scores may hinder -- not improve -- students' college readiness, if a school's instructional focus becomes improving its test scores, suggests a new study that explored efforts to promote a college-going culture at one Texas high school.

Published recently in The High School Journal, the case study reveals the unintended consequences of school reform policies, and how these mandates may warp schools' instructional focus and thwart students' academic success.

Some students expressed frustration about the lack of academic rigor in their remaining AP courses, which they linked to inexperienced teachers' lower academic expectations for students.

Students were highly aware of Green's negative academic reputation and told the researchers that they felt "stigmatized" and "humiliated" by it.

A high turnover rate among Green's teaching staff made it difficult for youth to receive the social support that is essential to creating a college-going culture, especially among first-generation college students, the researchers found.

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"Schools with large populations of youth of color and low-income youth are overwhelmingly targeted for reform initiatives, and, as a society, we need to examine how schools become highly minoritized and why they have large numbers of students with various needs," Welton said. "In states such as Texas, people of color are the majority population, and we need to rethink how we label schools for reform purposes."

"Rather than centering performance problems on students and teachers, policymakers should take into consideration the systemic inequities and larger sociopolitical contexts in which schools operate," Williams said. "We also need to be more aware of the impact of labeling schools 'high minority, high poverty' and 'low performing,' because these descriptors convey deficit connotations."