Chapter 1: Can Teacher Education Close the Achievement Gap?

On September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia claimed the lives of over 3,000 people. But every day of the school year, on average, this same number drop out of high school and very few take notice. America’s greatest crisis is a silent one. While a majority of these youngsters are white, African American and Latino students are conspicuously over-represented. By the end of the school year as many as 500,000 tenth to twelfth graders have “disappeared” (Wingspread, 2002). The likelihood that these youngsters will ever have a job that pays enough to secure adequate health care or an apartment in a safe neighborhood is significantly diminished. In most cases their lives are limited to dead end jobs, or wasted away in street violence or prison. My estimate is that this horrendous statistic is matched by an equal number of those who never appear in any drop-out data because they have never made it to high school. They are the victims of failed middle schools using high stakes testing as an admission barrier into failing high schools. I believe we are creating a city the size of Chicago every two and one half years filled with people Jesse Jackson has labeled “no hopers.”