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University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers are leading a five-year, nationwide study to find ways to close the achievement gap in education. Much of their work will take place in school districts all across Nebraska. NET News talks with Susan Sheridan, director of UNL’s Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools. Sheridan is leading a network of universities across the country taking part in the $26 million project.
NET NEWS: The goal of this study is not to identify what causes the gaps, but instead find a way to close them. Correct?
SUSAN SHERIDAN: Yeah, this study is aimed at identifying the particular kinds of factors that we can control and we do that by identifying what we call “malleable factors.” These are factors we have some control over in terms of their educational experiences, their interactions with adults, their interactions with peers, the kinds of resources that are available to them; even things like policies and how those educational policies impact children, not only early on but over time.
Susan Sheridan is leading a network of universities across the country taking part in the $26 million project. (Courtesy photo)
NET NEWS: What are some issues we can attribute the achievement gap to?
SUSAN SHERIDAN: We know a lot of things about what kinds of situations children are growing up in, what kinds of things they bring to the door of the classroom when they enter school. These are things like children growing up in economic disadvantage; growing up in households that have a lot of stress or challenges making ends meet so that parents are needing to spend a lot of time outside of the home trying to create opportunities to bring resources into the family. There are children who are growing up in situations where there’s a lot of mental health challenges or mental health problems in the family. Those are things that we can't really do a whole lot about, but we are beginning to learn that there's things that also impact children’s development, and in fact create big gaps in terms of their achievement in school and in the community. We can do something about those.
NET NEWS: Why is this time period (early childhood) so important in shaping how well a student will do academically later on, in say middle school or high school?
SUSAN SHERIDAN: We are learning an incredible amount about how important those early years are in a child's development; and in particular, things that will occur over the life of course that begin very early on. Much of an individual’s success in life starts in the very earliest years. In fact, one might argue it starts prenatally - though that's not the purpose of our conversation today - but certainly the things that happen in the earliest years of a child's life from birth to age eight have an enormous impact on how well they are able to achieve in academic or social realms, and just their own character development.
NET NEWS: You have a mix of schools in both rural and urban parts of Nebraska. How do those two environments present different challenges?
SUSAN SHERIDAN: Certainly both have their strengths and certainly both have their challenges. We have fewer students going to schools in rural communities, we have fewer teachers, and we have a harder time recruiting teachers and retaining really high quality teachers in rural schools. There's not a lot of professional development opportunities for teachers. However, those community schools are being very creative in finding solutions to that. The teachers that stay in rural schools are highly committed. They're connected not only to the academic goals that we have for students, but they're also very connected in the community. They know a lot of the families and they have ways of really creating strong connections.