Committee to hold forum on racial achievement gap

Teachers, administrators and community members are taking an active approach to closing the educational achievement gap among Columbia's black students.

A multicultural committee from Jefferson Junior High School and the Community Committee for Educating Black Youth in Columbia will meet at 7 p.m. tonight at St. Luke's United Methodist Church to educate the public about the achievement gap, discuss what's being done to fix it and how people can further the efforts to close the gap.

"We want to create dialogue between schools, community and family about the issues that contribute to the achievement gap and we also want to solicit people to join the committee for the education of black students," said Chauncey Spears, a teacher at Jefferson Junior and member of both sponsoring committees.

The meeting is expected to last an hour and a half, beginning with an overview of statistics on the gap and what long-term implications it might have for students. The second half will be open for questions and dialogue.

Spears said that although officials will speak about Missouri Assessment Program testing and the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal act that holds school districts to specific progress goals each year, they also want to talk about what this means for black students on a broader level.

"A lot of the discussion about this [gap] has come about because of [No Child Left Behind] and [adequate yearly progress] goals, but it has been around for a long time," Spears said. "Something that I've learned is that a lot of our students are making choices made on limited options, due to a lack of a good education."

This thought process was what prompted the Community Committee for Educating Black Youth to assemble a few months ago.This summer, the group is sponsoring a community reading of "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria," by Beverly Daniel Tatum to further understand the issues black students face in schools.