Review of "Closing the Mathematics Achievement Gap of High-Poverty Middle Schools" by B. Balfanz and V. Byrnes

Balfanz, B. and Byrnes, V., Closing the Mathematics Achievement Gap of High-Poverty Middle Schools: Enablers and Constraints, Journal of Education for Students placed at Risk, 11(2). 143-159.

Review

This article was written as part of an analysis of an attempt to implement a series of reforms in the Philadelphia School District in regards to improving the district via a process called Whole School
Reform. The purpose of the study was to investigate how the achievement gap can be understood via a longitudinal study of students in middle school (5th to 8th grades) and its’ usefulness, as well as the challenges of such, in doing so. They concluded that while various types of individual changes (such as professional development, curricular changes, community involvement, etc…) could be effective at a local level that such improvements were only effective for the student body as a whole when implemented as part of such a system wide implementation of reform, yet even if such reforms were made intriguing challenges and tasks remained.
The article began by describing the prevailing research, the setting of the project and the methods used to analyze the success and failures of such an attempts. One of the strengths of the article is its’ clear and concise language, as it was easy to read and understand with relatively little jargon or obtuse references and yet retained a level of rigor and precision important for this type of article. Following a well done documentation of the research the authors clearly listed their methods and goals, such as number of students, attendance, test scores (particular attention was paid to improvement in test score per year), pre-testing and post-testing methods, student attitudes and activities, community involvement and addressed issues of validity and accuracy consistently and professionally. The authors also stressed that the lack of longitudinal studies of the size they were attempting and hoped that such an attempt would result in new discoveries and a better understanding of the challenges that faced modern education and what successes you might be able to expect following such a model as they were attempting.
The results of their research were presented in a clear concise fashion, with much of the mathematical tables and results summarized in the body of the article with the actual data reserved for its’ final pages. Some results were expected such as the need to implement such changes as administrative reform, teacher support and training, community involvement worked best when done as part of a whole system of reform system rather than as piecemeal projects. They also pointed our some surprising results and interesting discoveries that emerged from their study, phrasing these as avenues
for further research, interesting discoveries and surprising results, such as the fact that while many students were able to thrive in middle school while others in the same school and system sank further behind as well as the lack of an expected difference in performance due to gender, with a frankness and sincerity that made the article informative and thought provoking. As a weakness they did not really address how the results of the study could be generalized to other areas, as they clearly intended the article for such a purpose, but left this part of the discussion as inherently understood by the reader.
Overall the article was informative and well written. As an educator one can clearly see both the benefits and restrictions of such a study. While piecemeal reforms can work it is really only due to such a longitudinal study do the cumulative benefits of such an overarching system of changes become apparent? In fact I believe that it is the clear and frank discussion of the unintended discoveries of this study that point to its’ success. By opening up new avenues of research, such as an investigation of what is needed for those students not reached in such a system of change, we can clearly see both the advantages and limitations of such approaches, namely that a system of reform is clearly most effective when supported by the entire range of educators, administrators and parents as well as the manifold difficulties of reaching the students most at risk in such a well run system. What works for many students may fail to reach the most disenfranchised from the system and that at some point such students may well need assistance that goes beyond what is possible in the classroom and when school is view as a separate part of their life experiences. Of course solutions to such dilemmas may prove difficult to achieve given the limitations of the current education system but that is a subject for other, newer, research studies and another day.