Anyone who is involved in education is familiar with the achievement gap. In the past three years at my current school, we haven't had one staff development day that has not been about closing the achievement gap. My former principal said that if students weren't learning, if they weren't achieving, it was our fault, the teachers. When he said that, I was in my first year of teaching and agreed with him. I had three Transitions to Algebra classes (a dumping ground for students who needed math credits but that didn't care about school or education) that year and made it my mission to make them learn AND enjoy math! What a tall order! I was very naive. My "Dangerous Minds" antics worked well and they were all enjoying coming to class, learning math and, ultimately, ended up doing pretty well. I felt like I had succeeded. Then I had the same students the following year for a traditional algebra class, and we were back at square one.

The problem was that most of the students could learn the math I was teaching them, but had several holes in their education. They didn't know their times tables. They couldn't add or subtract numbers in their heads. They didn't have any concept of the difference between ¹/₃ and ³/₁. This was all knowledge that they should have mastered in elementary school and/or middle school. So this leads several high school teachers to blame elementary and middle school teachers. After all, how did an 18-year old get to senior year and not know what 6x7 was? 

Teachers of all grades blame parents for the achievement gap problem. Yes we teach the subject at school, but guess who sees his/her son/daughter for the remaining 16 hours of each day? We can teach the concepts, but if education isn't seen and shown at home as  important, kids won't value the education they receive.

Let's take a look from the parents' eyes. Parents can blame any and all teachers from pre-school through senior year for the achievement gap problem. It's easy enough — the teachers are the ones that are supposed to teach them the material for which they're tested, right? I actually had students and parents call me racist because their kid wasn't succeeding in my class. Nevermind that I was encouraging their son the entire semester and willing to put in my time to help them understand the concepts better!

Parents blame teachers. Teachers blame parents and teachers of younger grades. Where is this blame game getting us in closing the achievement gap? Nowhere.

The ancient African proverb says it best: "It takes a village to raise a child." Parents need to go into parenthood with the knowledge that it is an investment of time, energy and soul. They need to be willing to put time and energy into their children to ensure that their kids become respectable, responsible members of society with a great education. Yes, it IS important. Teachers need to go into teaching with the knowledge that it is an investment of time, energy and soul. They need to be willing to put time and energy into their students to ensure that their students become respectable, responsible members of society with a great education.

We all need to work together to ensure that kids are getting the best education. We all need to stop placing so much emphasis on whose fault it is that we have such a large achievement gap. The emphasis needs to be placed on working together to close the achievement gap.