National Education Goals Panel, September 2001
Children of military personnel who attend schools run by the Department of Defense (DoD) resemble their peers in urban schools in many ways: 40% of students in DoD schools are minorities, half qualify for free and reduced price lunches, 80% have parents with a high school diploma or less, and 35% switch schools every year. There's one big difference: the 112,000 DoD students consistently score higher than students in nearly every state on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (and have an achievement gap between whites and non-whites that is significantly narrower than the national average). Researchers from Vanderbilt University were asked by the National Education Goals Panel to determine why DoD students - especially African Americans and Hispanics - do so well. Among the conditions they identified were clear, centralized standards combined with local decision-making - dubbed by the researchers as "mission, money, and measurement from the top, and methods from the bottom"; curriculum-aligned standardized testing of every student; high expectations for all kids; top-quality, competitively paid teachers; strong pre-school and after-school programs; small schools; and a "corporate commitment" to expecting and enabling parent involvement. The report is laced with revealing comments from DoD teachers that seem right on track - for example: "Your study is looking at why minority students do better. I think the answer to that question is that all our students do better. There are no 'minority' students here." It's worth reading. Download the report in PDF format at www.negp.edu or contact the National Education Goals Panel at 1255 22nd Street, NW, Suite 502, Washington, DC 20037; 202-724-0015; fax 202-632-0957; email [email protected].
