Re port er, Cont . needing math, comp and reading remediation tested out of all three. Such rapid gains require close scrutiny, but they are cause for excitement among educators searching for solutions to close the achievement gap between black and white students. Despite decades of litigation and over a billion dollars in payments from the state to PCSSD and the Little Rock and North Little Rock school districts to remedy persistent racial disparities in the educational opportunities Central Arkansas offers its children, African American students are still less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to attend college and more likely to require remediation of core courses should they make it to a postsecondary institution. In January, a settlement in the convoluted desegregation suit was finally agreed upon, which will end Arkansas’s payments to the three Pulaski County districts in three years. The deseg money will soon be gone, but the achievement gap remains nearly as wide as it was 30 years ago. In the eyes of John Walker, the veteran attorney representing the black families who brought the lawsuit, the settlement was hardly a victory for minority students. “The only thing that’s been achieved
here is that the laws are gone,” he said in January. Walker’s grudging endorsement of the settlement was a matter of pragmatism: He knew the suit would likely soon be ended by order of presiding federal Judge Price Marshall if a negotiation wasn’t achieved. The creation of the Scholars Academy is similarly pragmatic. The program is the product of a plan created by Walker in partnership with PCSSD Superintendent Jerry Guess, who was appointed to head the district following a state takeover in 2011. Judge Marshall approved the plan in June, paving the way for this year’s summer remediation camp. “My notion was [the K-12 schools] hadn’t taught these kids,” Walker said. “The best thing they could do for them would be to at least find a way to increase their options outside the [school] system ... so it began as an effort to find a way to make up for the education lost by inattention to the needs of minority students.” PCSSD will end or scale back several programs it has previously funded with the deseg money and instead direct $10 million over the next three years into a fund to help students graduating from the district attend UALR or Philander
Smith. The immersive, three-week summer experience is only one component of the Scholars Academy; students will also receive mentoring and support after they enroll in college and will be eligible for a $2,500 scholarship renewable for four years. Perhaps most importantly, in the coming 2014-15 school year, the program will begin targeting ninth-graders in PCSSD schools, pairing them with mentors from the university, educating them about career options, and nudging them into an abbreviated summer program at UALR to spark an early interest in college. Although this year’s summer cohort was small due to the rushed time frame (Marshall approved the academy’s plan only two months ago), Walker said he hoped that at least 4,000 students would participate over the next five years. “My opinion is, it’s spot on,” Guess said. “The most powerful part of this program for me is the awakening of kids when they’re still in high school. “I’ve spoken to my secondary principals, and they’ve spoken to their counselors. There’s a great sense of excitement about it. I haven’t seen many efforts that have generated this much enthusiasm.”
FULLY IMMERSED: Donaldson Scholars at work.
The wages of remediation
The optimism is at least partly backed by experience and data. The Donaldson Scholars Academy is modeled on a pilot program launched by UALR in 2013 called the Summer Bridge Academy, the brainchild of vice-chancellor Donaldson himself. Last summer, UALR invited its incoming freshmen who needed math remediation to attend a free immersion course (funded in part by aid from several charitable foundations). It drew 43 participants from around the state. Remarkably,
Thursday, September 11,11, 2014 Thursday, September 2014 6:00pm - 8:00pm 6:00pm - 8:00pm
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