Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2016 V46 No 1 | Page 19

a four-year degree,” Tough found. Follow
up interviews with students revealed some
startling findings. Students reported, although they felt KIPP had prepared them
well “academically,” they felt ill prepared
“emotionally and psychologically.”
Curiously, KIPP founders noted, “…the
students who persisted in college were not
necessarily the ones who excelled academically... Instead, they seemed to be the ones
who possessed certain other gifts, skills like
optimism and resilience and social agility.”
Based on this discovery, SEL, grit and
character education were incorporated into
the academic curriculum.

Educating the whole child
To some extent, the current controversy
over grit has become a pothole in the road
to SEL, transformation and social justice
for K-12 students. Despite educator support
of SEL, a lack of common language coupled with misuse of terms and techniques
has muddied the waters surrounding SEL
and grit.
The argument can be made that a great
deal of the controversy is simply a matter of
semantics and differing definitions of terms
and concepts. As Tyrone Howard, associate dean for equity and inclusion at University of California, Los Angeles, pointed to,
some contention surrounding grit can be
attributed to deeply rooted societal issues
and agendas.
According to Tough, a curious transformation in the political landscape surrounding education and poverty in America has
transpired in recent decades. What were
once two separate and distinct issues –
poverty and education – have merged into
one, “and it’s about the achievement gap
between rich and poor – the very real fact
that overall, children who grow up in poor
families in the United States are doing very
badly in school.”
In other words, we now know socioeconomic status and academic success are
inextricably intertwined and correlated.
Given an understanding of the influence
poverty has on student success, what programs can be implemented to counteract
negative effects and address the achievement gap? First, let’s examine the term.

What many students lack is a support system to meet their
social and emotional needs and keep them motivated and
engaged in school and beyond.
Bridging opportunity gaps
The gap, to which Tough refers, is a
term educators and researchers use to describe the signif icant divide that exists
in academic performance levels between
high- and low-performing students, as
evidenced by standardized testing. Typically, this great divide in performance levels falls clearly along socio-economic and
racial lines, with low performing students
of color, ELL and high poverty populations
falling far below their wealthier, white
counterparts.
Two problems exist w ith the term
“achievement gap.” Firstly, it identifies students based only on academic or cognitive
skills. Secondly, is achievement gap an accurate term when “research has shown that
lower-income students have far less access
to learning and enrichment opportunities than do their wealthier peers” (Davis,
2015)? Findings such as these have led
many in education to rename the so called
achievement gap to the more apt “opportu-

nity gap.”
Given what we know about the disparity
of opportunity between student populations, what can be done to bridge the gap
and level the playing field for all students?

Safe space for learning
The early origins of state and federally
funded afterschool programs, also known
as expanded learning programs (ELP),
arose from a societal shift in American
households struggling to maintain a worklife balance. In many cases, this demands
two working parents or must function as
single-working-parent households. The
need to provide a safe and supervised place
for children to spend their afterschool
hours has become the norm in America.
Not surprisingly, the greatest need is
seen in our most vulnerable populations,
primarily low SES, minority and singleparent households. According to a 2014
Afterschool Alliance survey, “…afterschool
programs help provide working parents
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