Ways to aid minority students offered

Raising scholastic expectations for minority students. Getting more diversity on school faculties and administrations. Weeding racism out of schools. Creating a more diverse curriculum.

These and many more ideas that might help minority students to perform on a level with their peers were posited Friday by some 30 leaders from minority and other community groups gathered at the Capitol to discuss ways to tackle an achievement gap in Utah schools.

It was the first of a half dozen meetings that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s Working Group on Student Achievement will hold to explore ways to combat the persistent pattern of minorities lagging behind in student achievement.

"The objective is to create some recommendations for the next legislative session, and in order to get there, we have a lot of research to do," Huntsman told the group. "We need to find three or four recommendations that we can take to the Legislature that might represent ways of improving student performance."

In robust and emotional discussions, members explored numerous ideas. Besides those mentioned, there was talk of such things as reaching out to minority students before kindergarten and bridging the gap between schools and communities.

"The goal is to be able to raise the awareness about issues in our student achievement and become a catalyst," said Yvette Donosso Diaz, co-chairman of the group and executive director of the Department of Community and Culture. "If we have these three or four recommendations, it will set the groundwork for other work to follow."

One of the most common recommendations from group members was getting more minority representation among teachers and the administration in schools with a diverse population. That could require teacher exchanges from other states or heavier recruiting in minority teaching pools.

But Tim Bridgewater, the governor's education deputy and co-chairman of the group, said another objective of the group is to make the recommendations based on proven methods.

"I hear a lot about diversifying the teacher workforce, but if we can't prove that it is effective, then we should keep it off the list," Bridgewater said. "We would need to find out if that approach is really the best use of money."

Other main suggestions from more than 60 ideas tossed around in the discussion were firing teachers who aren't cutting it and cleaning up data and creating an accurate, uniform system that all school districts could access.