HAMPTON — As the beginning of classes approaches, the School Board got a glimpse of the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students and their peers Wednesday night.
Cynthia Cooper, executive director of school leadership for research, planning and evaluation, briefed Hampton School Board members on student performance on SOL scores, which have become more rigorous as a result of increased state standards.
The achievement gap for disadvantaged students — students who qualify for free or reduced priced lunch — dropped slightly for SOL tests in reading and math between the 2012-2013 school year and the 2013-2014 school year, according to Cooper.
For reading, the gap between disadvantaged students and their peers narrowed from a 21.6 percent lower pass rate to 17 percent. In math, the percentage of students that were disadvantaged narrowed the gap from a 17.2 percent lower passing rate to a 12.5 percent lower passing rate in 2013-2014.
Black students were nearly twice as likely to be economically disadvantaged as white students, Cooper said. Cooper said living in poverty was not necessarily the main cause of an achievement gap but intervening factors as a result of it, such as less time for parents to help children with schoolwork because of additional jobs, or less technology resources available at home. She recalled the example of a student who worked 35 hours a week to help with household expenses on top of doing homework.
"Poverty certainly doesn't help with schools," said Linwood "Butch" Harper, a member of the School Board.
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