Exploring the effectiveness of the Region IX AVID Leadership Colloquium

THE PROBLEM. After decades of educational reforms, the achievement gap still exists. The achievement gap refers to the disparity in academic performance between groups of students. It is most often used to describe the troubling performance gaps between most African-American, American Indian and Latino students and their White and Asian peers. The achievement gap also shows up between students whose families are low-income, and their peers from higher income families. Today, with the achievement gap again in the public eyes as a result of the publication of schools' test scores by subgroups, there is renewed pressure on school districts to determine ways to systematically address this gap. Closing the gap has become a focal point of school reform initiatives. METHOD. For the past 4 years, Region IX AVID has offered a 2-day staff development retreat called the AVID Leadership Colloquium for schools with AVID programs. Participants attend in 7-12 vertical teams consisting of administrators, counselors, AVID teachers and coordinators, AP teachers, and other content teachers. This study examined the impact of the November 2003 Region IX AVID Leadership Colloquium in fostering school-wide change for those schools participating to bring about the closure of the achievement gap. RESULTS. The study found that the colloquium had more of an impact on engendering positive attitudes on the participants than it did on their schools. Participants felt they benefited from the time to dialogue on important issues with their vertical teams