“Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted,” was a favorite idiom of years gone by to tell someone that they are making a large to do after the fact. Some might have added “Too little, too late!” Each of these accurately expresses the status of the “Closing the Achievement Gap” mandates that are driving our contemporary educational reform initiatives. We need to close the barn door of learning disparities while the horse is still a colt and has not yet thought of bolting.

Any observer of state accountability systems will see that achievement gaps, the disparity between the achievement measures of disaggregated groups of children compared with the achievement of white, mainstream children, are typically treated equally at all grade level intervals. That is, gaps in learning for early elementary children, middle school students and high school students are to receive similar educational emphasis – close all gaps every year. Teacher resources, supports for assisted learning, time and effort are equally distributed across all student groups. This may be an expression of equity but what are we to do when equity is not working?

Data drives most decisions of modern educational policy. The examination of data has many political and business leaders bemoaning that children in the United States are outperformed by their peers on international achievement comparisons. Similar examinations of data inform us about the disparities that exist between groups of children in our schools. In fact, the gaps in learning among disaggregated groups of children in the US schools is greater than the gap between US children and their international peers. We know this to be true.

Data also tell us that educational achievement at an early age is more potent in enhancing later school and life successes than educational achievement at an older age. Children who are at or above grade level in their academic learning in elementary school and continue on this path build content and skill strengths that can compound each successive year. In contrast, children whose early school achievement is consistently below grade level do not build similar strengths even if they achieve grade level successes in secondary school. Or, in reverse, the lack of educational achievement at an early age has profound and detrimental consequences at later ages. We know this to be true.

Specifically, this is what we know. “Reading proficiently by the end of third grade (as measured by NAEP at the beginning of fourth grade) can be a make-or-break benchmark in a child’s educational development. Up until the end of third grade, most children are learning to read. Beginning in fourth grade, however, they are reading to learn, using their skills to gain more information in subjects such as math and science, to solve problems, to think critically about what they are learning, and to act upon and share that knowledge in the world around them. Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level, according to the Children’s Reading Foundation. And three quarters of students who are poor readers in third grade will remain poor readers in high school, according to researchers at Yale University. Not surprisingly, students with relatively low literacy achievement tend to have more behavioral and social problems in subsequent grades and higher rates of retention in grade. The National Research Council asserts that “academic success, as defined by high school graduation, can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone’s reading skill at the end of third grade. A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by that time is unlikely to graduate from high school.”

Stop and consider. “Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level.” It is easy to read and gloss over this statement, but we must not. If almost half of important written information is incomprehensible in fourth grade, how much is incomprehensible in fifth grade, or eighth grade of 10th grade? The incomprehensibility grows, especially as the reliance on background academic knowledge becomes greater and greater in the subject area texts that essential to high school subjects.

For these reasons, the academic achievement gaps developing in the primary grades must receive a greater portion of our intervention resources. Given that educational resources are finite, this will mean that a seeming disproportionate amount of resources will be focused on the primary grades. Inequity? No. Strategic and necessary. Yes! All children must be academically successful when they begin fourth grade. It is imperative that greater educational resources be targeted on each underachiever in 4-K and the primary grades.

And, there are more reasons that we know to be true which justify such an emphasis on primary grade interventions. “Some children don’t develop the social and emotional skills needed to function in a structured environment like school before they reach school age. These capacities, which are just as essential as cognitive skills for school success, include: the ability to manage emotions, follow directions, take turns, share, take responsibility, work independently and cooperatively, and stick with a task; motivation; enjoyment of learning; and the executive function – an ability to control oneself, make plans, learn rules, act appropriately, and think in abstract terms.

“The readiness gap becomes an achievement gap when children enter school, and this gap persists over the students’ school experience. McKinsey & Company found a gap of two to three years of learning between low-income and higher-income students in its analysis of average NAEP scores (10 points on the NAEP test are roughly equal to one year of education). For many low-income students, the achievement gap is exacerbated by low-performing schools; chronic absence; summer reading loss; and stressors like childhood hunger and food insecurity, housing insecurity, and family mobility.”

http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECF-Early_Warning_Full_Report-2010.pdf

Again, stop and consider. School readiness is one of the greatest determinants of early learning success. Children who demonstrate social and behavioral deficits in Kindergarten and the primary grades have great difficulty in achieving academic successes. Their social and emotional problems beget learning problems which beget further social and emotional instability. It is essential that primary teachers and staff have the time and resources to extinguish problematic behaviors and build productive behaviors. This cannot happen in the flow of a normal school day. Over-staffing and over-resourcing is necessary to pair and commit teachers with students who demonstrate these learning needs. Again, this is not inequity, but strategic and necessary intervention.

Additionally, although some causes for learning deficits appear to be extra-school, they still must be addressed by school interventions. Needs for nutrition and school supplies are relatively easy to satisfy. Transportation needs also should be easy to satisfy, as is the provision of enrichment materials for children to have at home. Supporting the parents of children with early deficits is more difficult, but not impossible. The key to these issues is the willingness of those responsible for closing achievement gaps to overload their resources toward all of the learning needs of primary grade children.

We must stop trying to put horses that have bolted from the barn back into their barn stalls year after year. It has and still proves to be a “too little, too late” remedy to problems that seem insurmountable given our record for closing achievement gaps. Instead, teach the horses while they are colts. Educational leaderships, by design, must become pre-emptive instead of ineffectively responsive in ensuring that all children are prepared to learn (reading skills, social and emotional readiness) as they enter fourth grade.