The Urgency of Addressing the Achievement Gap in the 4th Industrial Revolution: The Remediation Paradox

I started my teaching career over 20 years ago, teaching social studies in an expulsion school. I taught students in grades 6-12 who had been removed from their home schools for various behavior issues and infractions. Many of my students were “repeat customers,” meaning that our school's recidivism rate was high, and we saw many of the same students repeatedly throughout the year. Because many of my students had significant learning loss, my principal requested that I spend most of my time catching students up in reading and writing. Not having much classroom experience, I thought the best way to remediate students was through constant drills. While this approach can be effective in certain circumstances, my students overwhelmingly rejected the strategy and disengaged even more due to boredom and monotony. A question that I have been asking myself for many years since is how educators should remediate students while at the same time keeping their interest and prepare them for the realities of the modern technology-rich world.     

The role of public education in the United States is multifaceted. It includes, among other things, teaching students to be “good citizens,” providing vocational training, and fostering personal and social development. Still, one of the most important roles of public schooling is that of the “great equalizer.

In other words, public schools are responsible for providing all students, regardless of their racial, linguistic, and economic backgrounds, with the knowledge and skills necessary for success in college, careers, and life. And while this aim is admirable, public schools have struggled to diminish the persistent disparity in academic performance between minority and disadvantaged students and their white and Asian counterparts. Federal laws, such as the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015), sought to improve the academic performance of at-risk students in reading, writing, and mathematics.

Despite their best intentions, achievement gaps still need to be addressed. The achievement gap refers to the persistent disparity in academic performance and educational attainment between different groups of students, such as White and minority students, economically disadvantaged students, English Language Learners, the physically and intellectually challenged, and neurally diverse students.

The disparity in academic performance has even larger implications today as the world of work is quickly changing in the face of transformative technology associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Industry 4.0, as it is sometimes referred to, is defined as the current and developing environment in which disruptive technologies and trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the way people live and work. In other words, the modern workplace requires new technical and critical thinking skills beyond the traditional academic subjects of reading, writing, and mathematics.

The new “knowledge workers” must possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required of the new economy or face potential economic stagnation. For example, The McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility found that automation and the rise of generative AI threaten to displace a disproportionate number of Black and Latino workers, as 24% of Black workers are in occupations with over 75% automation potential compared to 20% of white workers. Additionally, generative AI has the potential to widen the racial, economic gap in the United States by $43 billion each yea

r.Many educators, in their efforts to close the achievement gap through intensive remediation, have inadvertently narrowed the curriculum. This has led to a focus on testable subjects and less intellectually rigorous pedagogies like rote memorization of unrelated items and drill and practice. The result is a curriculum lacking opportunities for students to develop their “soft skills,” such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. These are crucial skills in the modern, information-driven economy and workplace. The Remediation Paradox occurs when historically marginalized students who are in need of remediation in academic subjects miss out on learning experiences that will help prepare them for the modern technology-based economy, exacerbating historical gaps.

To tackle the Remediation Paradox, educators must provide historically at-risk students with comprehensive educational opportunities. This approach should focus on remediating their skills while preparing them to compete in the technology-rich modern economy. As University of Colorado professor of education Kevin Welner aptly puts it, "Children learn when they have opportunities to learn. When denied those opportunities, they fall behind, and we get the devastating achievement gaps. But when they are provided with rich learning opportunities, they thrive, and the achievement gaps close.

"A powerful teaching approach that both strengthens skills in core subjects and gives students the opportunity to hone 21st-century skills is Project-Based Learning or PBL. PBL is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. In PBL, students work on a project over an extended period to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge. As a result, students develop deep content knowledge and critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills.

There is much research to support the efficacy of PBL. For example, a study of a PBL program in a Texas school district demonstrated that 7th—and 8th-grade students participating in PBL had higher achievement in reading and math compared to non-PBL students, with the effects being particularly strong for minority and economically disadvantaged students. Additionally, because PBL taps into students' personal interests, they are more likely to stay engaged in school. This is vitally important as chronic absences have become a serious problem nationwide. 

To compete in the 4th Industrial technology-based economy, today's students must have both “academic skills” and “soft skills” necessary to adapt and thrive in the rapidly changing workplace. In an attempt to remediate students, educators have inadvertently denied them the chance to cultivate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will enable them to thrive in the 21st-century knowledge-based economy. Shouldn’t educators do everything they can to help our most vulnerable learners?