Complexity Theories and Universal Student Achievement: Bridging the Opportunity Gap

• In Event: Methods and Models in Complexity Theories in Education

Abstract

Currently, educational opportunity in the U.S. is not equitable. Countless studies chronicle an ongoing achievement gap experienced by Black and Brown students. Yet as Oluo (2019) wrote, “[F]raming the matter as an achievement gap puts responsibility for improving the education system onto the shoulders of disadvantaged children” (p. 130). Believing this inequity represents an opportunity gap not achievement gap, we draw on insights derived from ten years of research with three urban principals and their schools through the Lynch Leadership Academy at Boston College, to generate an analytic framework, the systems transformation heuristic, which intends to help principals empower their school communities to enrich student achievement and eliminate the opportunity gap.

Authors

• Patrick J. McQuillan, Metropolitan Police Training Academy

• Ksenia Filatov, Boston College