Superintendent Alvin L. Crawley has been honored as one of the top leaders in the region making a difference in education by the AFRO-American Newspapers – the nation’s oldest Black newspaper.
Dr. Crawley, a tireless champion for closing the achievement gap in education throughout his 37-year career, received his award at a dinner in Baltimore on Thursday evening.
ACPS has seen significant progress in closing the achievement gap among all groups of students in recent Standards of Learning (SOL) tests, and particularly high rates of improvement with Black and economically disadvantaged student subgroups.
“I am honored to receive this award. It acknowledges the work we are doing at ACPS to ensure every student succeeds, no matter their background. It is clear that we are closing the gap between our historically under-performing students and other students at ACPS, but we will not stop until all groups are performing at high levels,” Superintendent Alvin L. Crawley said.
Over the past three years ACPS has shown considerable gains in the focus areas of reading, science and math across all subgroups, narrowing the achievement gap while raising achievement across ACPS as a whole. ACPS reading pass rates have seen a seven percentage point increase, math a four percentage point increase and science a three percentage point increase over the last three years.
Black and economically disadvantaged student subgroups have seen a 10 percentage point increase in reading over the last three years. Similar gains have been made in both math and science, where Black students have increased their performance in math by 6 percentage points and science by 10 percentage points. Black students also made gains in all content areas, including writing where they saw a 4 percentage point increase over three years.
In addition to his practical accomplishments in closing the gap at ACPS, Dr. Crawley is co-author of the book Gaining on the Gap: Changing Hearts, Minds and Practice, which focuses on efforts to address the achievement gap between low-income students, students of color and their peers.