State officials recommended on Monday that the commonwealth create a timeline for closing the achievement gap between white and minority students.
At a special meeting of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, officials addressed this gap in performance on Massachusetts' standardized test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.
"It's not enough to get a specific score [on MCAS]," Banta said. "You need to be able to get through all those other obstacles. . .it's really about identifying how we get all people, at any level of proficiency. . .how we move all of them forward."
The meeting followed up a May 14 DESE Report of the Proficiency Gap Task Force, entitled "A Roadmap to Closing the Proficiency Gap," which highlighted a 25 percent decrease in the minority performance gap.
Despite this improvement, in 2009 the proficiency gap in Massachusetts for black and low-income students was similar to that in the rest of the country, according to the report.
Even worse, the gap was wider for Hispanic students in the Bay State than in the U.S. as a whole, the report said.
The report defines the proficiency gap as "a measure of the shortfall in academic performance by an identifiable population group relative to an appropriate standard held for all."
The meeting, held at the board's Malden headquarters, suggested that the board needed to set timelines for achieving specific, smaller goals within the state's larger goal of making 85 percent of all students "proficient" in MCAS standards by 2020.
Others suggested that they needed to create a system to hold the education commissioner accountable for achieving these standards.
Board member Vanessa Calderón-Rosado stressed the need for urgency in addressing the achievement gap in Massachusetts.
"The time is now. . .we have to set the right goals," Calderón-Rosado said.
"My personal point of view is that the department has the ability to work outside the office and coordinate and drive those efforts," she added. "How will collective action lead to a reduction in proficiency gap?"
Massachusetts Administrator for Special Education Carla Jentz focused on creating administrative strategies for better coordination in solving the achievement gap.
Secretary of Education Paul Reville emphasized the need to set achievable targets.
"Our focus is closing the achievement gap. We should think about targets not in absolute terms, but in relative terms," Reville said.
The meeting was held on the same day that a Northeastern University report was released claiming that Boston and Springfield schools are among the most segregated in the country.
This was not addressed, however, at the meeting.
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