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Public forum attempts to close gap

• Area residents have their say about how to close the achievement gap between the races, locally and nationally.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — From legislators to educators, Albany-area residents from all walks of life voiced their opinions Tuesday during a citywide community forum on how to “close the achievement gap.”

Organizer Veronica Adams- Cooper said the forum was part of the National Issues Forum series, which addresses political issues of different sorts. The three-session forum focused on closing the achievement gap among black, Hispanic and Caucasian students.

“This is an opportunity for us to deliberate among ourselves ... about an important issue,” Adams-Cooper told the group before watching a video on the issue. Black and Hispanic students have about a 50 percent chance of getting their high school diplomas, she said.

A video presentation by the Kettering Foundation, which compiles local and national reports based on information gathered through similar public forums nationwide, presented three approaches to addressing the achievement gap.

First was raising student expectations and demanding school accountability. Second was closing spending gaps, and third was addressing root causes of the gaps.

The video presented support and criticism of each approach.

After the video was presented, the gathering of more than 50 split into three smaller groups and deliberated on questions posed by moderators about several aspects of each approach.

“A National Issues Forum is designed to provide an atmosphere for citizens to come together and deliberate — not debate — about political issues,” Adams-Cooper said. “It allows for people to be heard in an environment of respect.”

Attendees of the forum gave several reasons for the achievement gap and how to better schools in the region.

One woman said she felt there was too much apathy on parents’ behalves toward their children’s education. There is too much responsibility on school systems, she said, to teach the children, while the burden should be more fairly shifted toward parents.

Another woman said many teachers were leaving school systems for higher-paying jobs in other school systems and they were too limited as to “what they can say or not say” to students. A good teacher, she said, was one who would be like a mother to the students.

Tuesday’s forum was the last of the three-part series organized by the local National Issues Forum.

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