Posted by student TEZIRA JAMWA – Clinton School students Alejandro Aviles, John Memmer and I attended the first hearing on the achievement gap from the joint education committee on education which was held at the state capitol on Monday. This was part of our voluntary service project.
The purpose of the hearing was for the communities to influence legislators to adopt certain salient resolutions from research entitled “What is Arkansas doing to close the achievement gap?” The study was authored by a former Clinton School education policy professor Dr. Keith Nitta and Hendrix College professor of politics Dr. Jay Barth. Dr. Donna Elam, a senior research associate at the University of South Florida and Barth presented the report of the study.
In their findings, Barth stated that there are diverse and deeply rooted reasons for the gap in test scores and graduation rates between white students and African Americans and Latino students, as well as between middle class and low-income students. Elam stressed that a multitude of problems exist in the education system because teachers lack cultural competence.
Representative David Rainey of Dumas said that opportunities must be extended to all children in the state. “We need to address the issue of equity urgently if we are to achieve anything,” he said.
My classmates and I helped the Arkansas Public Policy Panel manage volunteers and documented the legislative hearing. We observed that the citizens’ active participation democratically in the hearing put a human face on the entire process.
As a former legislator in Uganda, I discovered that the legislative process is similar in most aspects apart from the issue of lobbyists which is absent from our parliament. Another thing that struck me is that our citizens are not given opportunity to state their issues of concern directly to the legislators. Instead, it is the legislator who advances their issues in parliament.
Tezira Jamwa (far right) visits with Marie Peters from the Arkansas Office of Minority Affairs about closing the achievement gap in Arkansas.
