Modesto Schools Looking At Plans To Close Achievement Gap
MODESTO (CBS13) — The Modesto City School District has worked for two years to help at-risk schools and students, but one group says the district is failing.
That group has developed a 10-point plan to address an achievement gap between black students and their white peers. The school district says it's made progress in serving African-American students, but it needs to do more.
In an effort to close that gap between white and black students, and others, the board will consider the plan submitted by Advocates for Justice, a local organization made up of community members and families. Jacq Wilson, the group's founder, says one part of its plan includes funding a parent-proposed group mentoring program . That would fund up to six staffers mentoring 40 to 50 students. They are services the district would pay for, but not control.
"When it comes to who has the highest needs they're still falling through the cracks," Wilson said. "We're asking them for $98,000 but we're bringing in $100,000 to $225,000 to the table. He says those would be in-kind donations.
But the group and the district have had their differences in the past. The district says the organization's budget in the plan isn't in line with district's goals.
"The budget is around $100,000, 42 percent [of] which is administration costs, and typically with a vendor, we want to majority of the funds going towards students," said district spokeswoman Ginger Johnson.
Wilson says the budget is actually between 10 and 20 percent. And he says when he worked with the district before, his project was under budget.
"We came and 60 percent under budget and the reason why is my brother and I were the administrators—we did not charge the district $1," he said.
Both sides agree that more needs to be done to reach out to black students to foster future success by closing the achievement gap. How that will be done is still up in the air.
