BOSTON UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS PROGRAM Senior Thesis CAN THEATRE CLOSE THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP? THE CODMAN ACADEMY/HUNTINGTON THEATRE PARTNERSHIP by JACQUELINE ANNE BENNETT Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts MAY 2006 1 Approved by First Reader: _____________________________________ Charles Glenn Fellow of The University Professors; Professor and Chairman of Administration, Training, and Policy, School of Education Second Reader: ___________________________________ Christine Rossell Professor of Political Science 2 Acknowledgements Thank you to Professor Charles Glenn and Professor Christine Rossell. Without your help this paper would never have been written. For Johanna, who showed me what theatre can do. 3 Table of Contents • List of Tables 6 • List of Illustrations 7 I.
The Achievement Gap 9 Evidence on the Achievement Gap 9 Explanations for the Achievement Gap 10 Effects of the Achievement Gap 17 Long Term Effects 17 Knowledge Deficit 19 III. Theatre and Literacy 21 Research on Theatre and Literacy 21 Correlational Evidence 22 Experimental Evidence 24 Theatre and Literacy – The Process 27 IV. The Partnership 31 The Partners 31 Codman Academy Charter School 31 The Huntington Theatre Company 33 Overview of the Partnership 34 Intro to Theatre 35 Intro to Literacy 40 The Texts 41 Approaching the Dramatic Works 43 Reading as Rehearsal 45 The ‘Threat’ of Performance 48 Learning at Codman 50 V. Measures of Success 55 The DRP 56 The MCAS 61 Collection of Data 63 Hypothesis 63 Independent Variables 65 Student Population Indicators 65 School Organizational Characteristics 68 Results 70 Prediction 74 4 VI.
Implications 77 Theatre in America’s Schools 77 What it Takes 80 VII. Conclusion 84 • References 85 • Appendix A 90 • Bibliography 96 5 List of Tables Table 1: Average DRP Scores by Class 59 Table 2: Change in Average DRP Score from Previous Testing 60 Table 3: Regression of the Percent of Students Scoring Advanced or Proficient on the 10th Grade ELA MCAS Exam on Student Population Indicators and School Organizational Characteristics for the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 School Years 71 6 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Average DRP Scores by Class 59 Figure 2: The Percent of Codman 10th Graders Scoring Advanced or Proficient on the ELA MCAS Exam – Predicted v. Introduction Despite desegregation, myriad education and social reforms, and countless theories, racial disparities in achievement persist to this day. Perhaps, then, it is time to seek out more creative solutions to the problem of the achievement gap.
My creative solution is theatre. Acting is something I have always loved, and as a high school student I constantly used drama to help remember and conceptualize things for school (e. putting on a Congress of Vienna puppet show for my AP European study group). Through acting I have gained a deep appreciation for words and have learned how to express myself.
Since theatre did so much for me in school (it even helped my friends learn history!), as I became aware of the achievement gap I naturally began to consider the role that theatre could play in closing it. My desire to answer the question “Can theatre close the achievement gap?” led to this paper. In this paper I will first look at evidence on, explanations for, and effects of the black-white achievement gap, with a particular focus on verbal ability. Following this, I will review research on theatre and literacy, and outline the processes through which theatre can improve literacy skills.
Next, I will describe a theatre-based-literacy Partnership between the Codman Academy Charter School and the Huntington Theatre Company and evaluate its success in boosting the achievement of minority students by analyzing test scores. Finally, I will examine the current status of theatre in schools and then assess the inputs needed to create a partnership similar to the Codman/Huntington model to see if widespread replication is possible. The Achievement Gap In every measure—in every grade—in every state in America, white students outperform black students on measures of academic achievement. 1 Although this phenomenon—the black-white achievement gap—has been the subject of countless studies, it remains one of the most perplexing issues in American education.
There is a great need for educators to determine effective methods that insure all students are able to reach their academic potential. Once found, initiative must be taken to implement these methods. Evidence on the Achievement Gap The National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP) has, since the early 1970’s, administered long-term trend assessments in reading and math to students ages 9, 13, and 17 in both public and private American schools.2 The tests have remained virtually identical to their original formats and the differences found in test scores over time are significant at the. Thus, the NAEP’s long-term trend assessments offer a reliable and accurate documentation of the achievement gap over time.
Overall, the assessments offer both good and bad news about the achievement gap in America. Both in reading and in math the gaps between white and black students in all age groups narrowed significantly from the late 1970’s through the late 1980’s. 1 While gaps in academic achievement exist between other student subgroups, these lie beyond the scope of this paper. 2 National Association of Educational Progress, “Trends in Average Reading and Math Scale Scores by Race/Ethnicity: White-Black Gap,” 2004 Long-Term Trends http://nces.gov/nationsreportcard /ltt/results2004/sub-race.
9 Moreover, the gap narrowed as a result of improvement in black students’ scores; white student achievement was not negatively affected. Throughout the 1990’s, however, black students’ scores fell and the gap between the two groups widened slightly. Although the results of the 2004 NAEP assessment indicate that the gap is again narrowing, differences in scores between the two groups are still great. Our work is far from done.
Explanations for the Achievement Gap In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate but equal (education)” was unconstitutional.3 In the 1960’s the long and intricate process of school integration began. Integration helped but did not eliminate the gap.4 Explanations for the post-desegregation era continuation of the achievement gap are numerous and varied. It is clear, however, that the gap is not simply the result of differences in innate ability.
While behavioral geneticists link genes to about one-half of the variance in a child’s IQ, “genes can affect variation within groups without having any effect on variation between groups.”5 Indeed, while genes likely play a role in individual achievement, there is no evidence that between-race genetic differences cause the gap. Among the findings that have discredited the role of genes in the black-white achievement gap: black children raised in white households achieve initially at levels comparable to those of white children, even so-called innate IQ scores are subject to 3 Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. 4 Charles Glenn, The Social and Civic Context of Education, revised ed.
Boston: Boston University, 2004, 16. 5 Meredith Phillips et al., “Family Background, Parenting Practices, and Black-White Test Score Gap,” in The Black-White Achievement Gap, ed. Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips (Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press, 1998), 109. 10 environmental change, and over the past half-century black-white differences have already narrowed substantially.6 Alternate theories for the gap’s existence include socio- economic status and family background, parenting strategies, teachers’ expectations and students’ self-esteem, ability grouping and tracking, and unequal school quality.
One of the most often heard explanations for the black-white achievement gap is that differences in socio-economic status (SES) between the two races lead to differences in student performance. This makes sense: in America disparities in wealth persist along racial lines. While 23% of all white 4th graders in American schools were eligible for free or reduced lunch in 2003, 70% of all black 4th graders were.7 Moreover, “black families with low income in a particular year are more likely to have been poor for longer than white families with similar income.”8 Yet, when Meredith Phillips and her colleagues analyzed the link between a child’s family’s income over his or her lifetime and achievement, controlling for factors that affect income, they found that white and black differences in parental income account for only about one point of the fifteen point test score gap in verbal ability (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised). 9 As Phillips et al.
suggests, this may indicate that the economic component of socio-economic status accounts for little of the difference in test scores.10 6 Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, “The Black-White Test Score Gap: An Introduction,” in The Black-White Test Score Gap, ed. Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips (Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press, 1998), 3. 7 National Center for Education Statistics, The Condition of Education 2004, NCES 2004-07, (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office), 2004. 8 Richard Rothstein, “Wising Up On the Black-White Achievement Gap,” Education Digest 70, no.
9 Phillips et al., “Family Background, Parenting Practices, and Black-White Test Score Gap,” 118. 11 Indeed, the socio component of socio-economic status appears to be a predictor of academic success. Carl Bankston and Stephen Caldas analyzed the impact that single- parent homes, race, parental education level, family poverty status, and parental characteristics of schoolmates have on student achievement. 11 They found that single- parent homes and low levels of parental education have a strong negative effect on test scores.
These family background measures, however, cannot alone explain the black- white gap: even when parental characteristics are identical, the average black student still scores below the average white student on academic measures.12 This may mean that past inequities continue to play a role in the achievement gap. When Phillips and her team analyzed the effects of grandparents’ education and quality of life, in addition to traditional measures of family background (which focus on parents) on test scores, they found that racial differences on these measures accounted for more than half of the variation in scores.13 This could explain why blacks continue to score below whites with equal parental income and parental education levels. It may take more than one generation to alter parenting practices.14 Parenting practices, in addition to other measures of family background, play a large role in determining how prepared children are when they enter school. This is particularly true for reading: when reading and math scores are standardized, family characteristics are more strongly linked to reading scores while school characteristics are 11 Carl L.
Bankston and Stephen J. Caldas, “Family Structure, Schoolmates, and Racial Inequalities in School Achievement,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 60, no. 12 Glenn, The Social and Civic Context of Education, 17. 13 Phillips et al., “Family Background, Parenting Practices, and Black-White Test Score Gap,” 104.
12 more strongly linked to math scores.15 The average black child starts school with lower oral language, pre-reading, and pre-mathematics skills than does the average white child.16 Some studies have found that up to 75% of this difference in skills seen in kindergarten is the result of social class differences.17 Racial divergence on this measure, then, is not surprising: black children are more likely to live in single-parent homes and are more likely to have parents with low education levels than are white children. Black children are more often from poor families that lack the time or resources necessary to prepare fully their children for school. Moreover, the social aspects of low paying, menial jobs may influence the vocabulary that parents use when speaking with their children.18 Together, these factors probably explain why black children arrive in Kindergarten with fewer of the skills needed to be successful readers than do white children.19 “Different child-rearing patterns are one way class differences affect children’s academic performance”20 but not the only way. Poorer children simply have less access to resources at home.
Kindergartners in the highest SES quintile own an average of 108 15 David Grissmer, Ann Flanagan, and Stephanie Williamson, “Why Did the Black-White Score Gap Narrow in the 1970s and 1980s?” In The Black-White Achievement Gap, ed. Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips (Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press, 1998), 198.