Access to grade-level, standards-based instruction
Teachers communicate high expectations by delivering grade-level, standards-based instruction through developmentally responsive strategies. Frequent informal and periodic formal assessments help teachers know when students are falling behind and when to provide early, accelerated interventions for specific areas of difficulty.
The actual delivery of standards-based instruction is difficult work that requires daily modifications, planning, and care. The collaboration of professional learning communities is required. By working in teams, teachers share strategies, develop common assessments, review assessment results to modify instruction, and brainstorm new solutions for specific learning difficulties. In addition, they collaboratively develop and review grade-level student assignments and create rubrics. By reviewing assignments collaboratively, teachers ensure a consistent level of rigor.
Ensuring equity is especially important in science and mathematics, the two academic areas that historically have not been widely open to females, ethnic minorities, or students from less affluent communities and families. Jobs of the future will require workers to be highly skilled in technology, science, mathematics, and writing.1 It is up to the schools to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to gain meaningful employment. The article “On Equity and Inclusion in Math and Science Classrooms” (Outside Source) analyzes equity issues in mathematics and science as they apply to subgroups identified in the No Child Left Behind Act.2 The article includes comprehensive resource lists on providing accommodations for students with special needs, as well as contact information on centers that specialize in equity issues.
Chapter 2, “Instruction, Assessment, and Intervention,” covers many of the topics related to grade-level instruction. In addition, the SchoolsMovingUp Web site contains many links to resources about differentiating instruction (Outside Source) in a variety of settings and courses.
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Access to facilities and instructional materials
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Access to heterogeneous groupings to the fullest extent possible
Footnotes
1 Keeping California’s Edge: The Growing Demand for Highly Educated Workers (PDF; Outside Source). Prepared for the California Business Roundtable and the Campaign for College Opportunity. Sacramento: Applied Research Center, California State University, April 2006.
2 Arlene Hambrick and Asta Svedkauskaite, " Critical Issue: Remembering the Child: On Equity and Inclusion in Math and Science Classrooms” (Outside Source). Naperville, Ill.: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), n.d.