Closing the Achievement Gap: How Comprehensive Changes in Program and Curriculum Design Can Improve Achievement for All and Narrow the Gap between Minority Student Achievement and Caucasian Student Achievement.

Beginning in 1981, the Bay Shore (New York) School District initiated comprehensive changes in its instructional program. The process, which involved long range planning for 1982-1987 and 1987-1992, used focus groups, survey data, community input, and school-based feedback. Several of the overall goals of these plans are concerned with assuring equal education opportunities for all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, or handicapping condition. This paper summarizes the school district's efforts to bring about positive changes and increase student achievement, and presents an overview of data and results that indicate substantial gains by at-risk students. Bay Shore's long-range planning, accomplished through a participative-consultative leadership model, elicited contributions from a broad cross section of the educational community. Major action objectives of the two plans focused on instructional development, program evaluation, and staff development. Each of these three foci has facilitated closing the achievement gap between White majority students and Hispanic and Black minority students. The paper includes discussion of the implementation and evaluation of a full-day kindergarten program, effects on minority group students and students from lower income backgrounds, and referrals to special education and remedial mathematics and reading. Students' achievement in mathematics as measured by New York State tests rose from 87% of students exceeding the State Reference Point (SRP) to 100% of students exceeding it, while reading achievement rose from 79% to 89% of students scoring above the SRP. (AF)