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A study conducted by The New Teacher Project (TNTP) found that students can spend up to 500 academic hours each year to remedial tasks or assignments that are not on grade level. A disproportionate amount of those students with lesser and more inconsistent access to grade-level content are members of communities which have historically been systematically marginalized. This correlation suggests that students who may need the most support are often at greater risk of falling further below grade-level expectations due to the often persistent, obstructed access to grade-level content. 

Bailey Cato Czupryk from TNTP, notes that “denying students access to current grade-level work and merely assigning lower-level content is not sufficient. This strategy “practically guarantees” that the most vulnerable learners will lose more academic ground and get even less access to grade-level work in the future.” (2018)

As an example, imagine a student who is struggling with basic multiplication. If they leave their primary classroom to receive intervention in another space, for 30 minutes twice a week, they miss an hour of core-content, grade-level instruction weekly. Or consider a student who is chronically absent due to illness. While the rest of their class continues with the grade-level task, they are given alternate assignments of lower complexity to fill in the gaps. Compared to their peers, these students, despite the intentions to meet them where they are, receive unequal access and opportunity to engage with grade-level content.

As inequitable access to grade-level content widens gaps, our practices should be increasingly mindful of remediation encroaching on the time reserved for students to acquire new knowledge and skills. This, of course, is not to say that remediation is never appropriate or necessary. Rather, all students should have multiple opportunities to learn and develop proficiency of their relevant grade-level standards even when interventions are needed to further support a student who has fallen behind or has not yet mastered previous grade standards.

The good news is we can take steps to counteract missed opportunities by protecting students’ rights to exposure and engagement with standards aligned grade-level content. Research shows that students can (and do) rise to meet these high expectations. By being steadfast, we can provide students the opportunity to:

• show mastery of grade-level standards,
• engage with complex content, and
• advance socially and academically.

Key Takeaways

• Ensuring students have access to grade-level content every day allows them to:
  • Show mastery of grade-level standards,
  • Engage with complex content, and
  • Advance socially and academically.
•  When students' access to grade-level content is protected, achievement and opportunity gaps may shrink.
• Needing intervention, remediation, enrichments, or other supports should not continuously interfere with opportunities for regular and meaningful access to grade-level content.
• When students are given the opportunity to prove themselves, they almost always do.

External Resources

• Awareness of Implicit Biases | Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning (yale.edu)
• Culturally Responsive Assessment Tools and Strategies
• The Curriculum Support Guide | Instruction Partners

New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) Resources

• Designing and Evaluating Instructional Materials
• Maximizing Schedules to Support Learning Acceleration (PDF) [New Jersey Partnership for Student Success]

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