A qualitative study on African American students’ academic success on state-mandated reading assessments in elementary grades

The education field has been plagued with demands from state officials to raise standards in an effort to develop students who are more readily able to navigate a global economy. Along the way, such policies have lost sight of one critical aspect: the student. As demands intensify for more rigorous school criteria, government initiatives such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and now, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) place additional strain on an already overburdened educational system. This has resulted in many African American students failing to meet state-mandated expectations on the reading State Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test. For the past 5 years, African Americans have fallen below the 70th percentile mark in comparison to other subgroups such as White and Hispanic students on the STAAR test. White students have continuously averaged above 90% while Hispanic students have averaged at least 70% each academic school year except the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 school years. In order to ascertain the root cause of the reading achievement gap that exists for African American students, it is necessary to conduct an in-depth examination of the public education school setting and its frontline of defense, teachers. To this end, a qualitative study with teachers as participants has been conducted to discover the factors that may have contributed to or are currently contributing to the continuous decline in academic achievement and the gap that exists between African American students and other subgroups. More specifically, this study analyzes African American teachers’ perceptions of African American elementary students’ inability to meet academic expectations on the reading STAAR and to explore their views regarding what reform, system, or tools can be implemented for these students to attain greater academic achievement.