Yeehaw!

I teach ESL at a school with a student body that is 54% free and reduced price lunch and about 48% Multi-cultural (that means Hispanic, Asian, and Polynesian + the 2 Russian kids who moved in during November).
For kicks and giggles my good friend/ELL Chairperson broke down the grades for this past term. Approximately 49% of the Multicultural students in the school have a 3.0 GPA or higher. How's that for closing the achievement gap?
This is especially weighty considering that in most schools around the country 3rd term (or the 1st half of second semester in areas with different grading periods) is abysmally low. Students start off the year with high marks, mostly due to the fact that the material is largely review. They start to sink around November, but then rally during December (mostly due to the large number of "holiday" themed assignments which are, let's face it, busy work). After they come back from the break, though, they've forgotten a lot of what they learned in November, which puts them at a disadvantage because they start to face some really meaty content across the curriculum and actually learn the bulk of the material that they will be graded on during the end-of-year State Examathon that occurs in April and May across the country. Bad weather, lack of exercise, and poor nutrition are also rampant during the months of January through March.
What does this mean? Grades usually tank 3rd term. Our school, however, at least among the multi-culti's had a general increase in GPA's.
Yay! Go us!