EAST CHICAGO — Educators and advocates came together to discuss how to help bridge the divide between students from different backgrounds Tuesday at the school city of East Chicago’s administration building.
The Indiana Youth Institute (IYI) hosted a "Youth Worker Cafe" entitled “Closing the Achievement Gap: Advancing Equity through Student Support and Authentic Programming.”
Melba Salmon, an education consultant, counselor and the keynote speaker, defined the achievement gap as a disparity of academic performance and educational attainment between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds, races and genders.
Salmon’s presentation included statistical analysis of achievement and punishments for different races, showing that black kids and boys are disproportionately disadvantaged.
“We all have biases. It’s unconscious. Don’t hate yourself because of it. Don’t feel bad. We all have them,” Salmon said. “The issue, the biggest concern when it comes to bias, is how it impacts your behavior.”
Salmon shared a story about a black administrator whose students told him he disciplined more black students than white ones for loitering in the halls. After looking at the collected data, he discovered the students were correct and actively worked to correct the issue.
“We were in a project recently where we were working with 90 school districts across the state and we asked all the youth organizations what their desires were. They all say, ‘We want to collaborate more with schools.’ But there wasn’t really a welcoming tent. It was just about who was going to make it happen,” IYI CEO Tami Silverman said. “Part of our mission is to help make that happen.”
Madalyn Hurt, club director at the Boys and Girls Club of Northwest Indiana at Katherine House in East Chicago, said kids from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds need help.
“I think it’s important to get started with youth early,” Hurt said. “I’m hoping that we can use our resources — everybody comes with different resources — and if we collaborate with one another it’ll help breach that gap.”
Hurt said one of the biggest obstacles is school funding.
“If you don’t have the finances to accommodate the public schools, it makes it really difficult to get the children what they need,” she said.
East Chicago schools Superintendent Paige McNulty was there for the event, also.
“We’re trying to obviously collaborate with our community partners and agencies because there’s such a high need for our students,” McNulty said. “I’m a strong (critic) of the funding cuts to the urban schools. That’s been a travesty. The school, in my opinion, that need the funding got cut so it’s hard for us to be competitive.”