Effort to Eliminate Achievement Gap
Turns to Next Steps

SAN JOSE, CA – Having launched an initiative to eliminate the achievement gap in San Jose, organizers of SJ2020 have turned their attention to next steps.

Strategic committees are being formed to identify best practices and resources, and to develop toolkits and action plans around each of the nine strategies at the core of the initiative. (For more information on the nine strategies and SJ2020, visit www.sccoe.org.)

Charles Weis, Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools, stressed the urgency of the initiative and the need to avoid delays. We know what needs to be done; we know how to do it,” he told the enthusiastic audience of over 200 attending the Oct. 29 event at the City Council chambers. “And the time to do it is now.”

In the timeline he laid out at the event, Weis said the Strategic Committees should be developed and chairs named in November; and their work should be completed by June.

Weis and San José Mayor Chuck Reed were joined at the event by local educators, business leaders and community organizations. The initiative seeks to eliminate the achievement gap in San José and ensure that all students test as proficient or advanced on state assessments by the year 2020. “I am totally confident that we will be able to do it,” Reed said, “but only if we collaborate.”

Capping off the list of speakers Thursday was John Porter, superintendent of the Franklin-McKinley School District in San Jose. Porter discussed his first-hand observations of education reform in countries such as Singapore, Denmark and Scotland, and said in each case there was a “tipping point...a change of beliefs and expectations.” He expressed hope that in 10 years, someone would come to study education reform in San Jose, and “go right back to this day, this time, this event” as the tipping point here.

Among those announcing support for the initiative was U.S. Rep. Mike Honda of San Jose. “The adverse impacts of the achievement gap reverberate throughout our society,” he said in a statement. “We cannot wait any longer in our efforts to eliminate it and to ensure educational equity for every child.”

Date last updated: November 2, 2009