What are the benefits and pitfalls of using this label? What are some successful instructional strategies for working with "at-risk" students?

The term "at-risk" is used broadly to indicate those students who may be in danger of dropping out of school due to a host of social, economic, and psychological factors. The list of factors that qualifies a student as "at-risk" (as defined by the Improving America's Schools Act) includes: children who live in high-poverty areas; children who are Limited English Proficient (LEP); migratory children; neglected or delinquent children; homeless children; immigrant children; American Indian children; children with disabilities; refugee children; and teen parents. In 1994 the U.S. Department of Education estimated that a full 20 to 40 percent of students may fit into this category.¹

This label is generally applied as a signal to educators that such students may need extra academic attention or psychological support. "At-risk" students, as considered by the above definition, are more likely to drop out of school, experience educational failure, or be involved in activities that are detrimental to their health and safety. The U.S. Department of Education has responded to this growing group by forming the National Institute on the Education of At-Risk Students (to learn more about the Institute visit http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/At-Risk/).

Constructivists (a group whose thinking supports standards-based reform in math as promoted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) take a different approach to thinking about "at-risk" students. Their model, as defined by Virginia Richardson and her colleagues, looks at the interaction of home, school, and community environments in defining who is "at-risk."² Moving away from a focus on the child alone, this perspective looks at the personal and background factors a child brings to the classroom, how these factors interact with classroom culture and practices, and how classroom practices in turn impact the outside factors. In other words, the cultures of the school and the classroom play a hand in whether or not certain background factors (e.g. language proficiency or family income) bring with them the label "at-risk." The notion of a child being "at-risk" is not something which remains constant, but rather is constructed through the interaction of teacher expectations, student background, and the school context. For example, in a school where 98% of the students speak English as their language of origin, a student whose first language is not English would probably be labeled "at-risk"; if that child attended a two-way bilingual school (all students learn two languages, typically English and Spanish) the term "at-risk" would not necessarily apply since the school was already tailored to the child's language needs.³

According to this view, the act of labeling a child as "at-risk" and the subsequent schooling that child will receive as a result of the label do more harm than good. Because the label is typically based on factors external to the child and the classroom (in particular, the child's family background), the teacher is freed from blaming the child or her own teaching practices for a student's academic failure.

Richardson and her colleagues also propose instructional strategies which may be beneficial for "at-risk" students. Systemic changes that reorganize schools and provide "stable and coherent social-educational" programs offer "at-risk" students bigger benefits than more traditional pull-out programs. The authors also suggest accelerating the pace of remediation instruction for students who fall behind, rather than slowing instruction down into small and fragmented pieces. While merely accelerating the curriculum may not be particularly beneficial, teaching material in new and challenging ways may be of particular benefit to students "at-risk" for academic failure.







Please note that much of the material for this equity challenge comes from Equity in the Reform of Mathematics and Science Education listed below.

¹Improving Possibilities for Students Placed at-Risk, http://www.ed.gov/bulletin/winter1994/atrisk.html

²Richardson, Virginia, Ursula Casanova, Peggy Placier, and Karen Guilfoyle. (1989). School Children At-Risk. London: Falmer.

³Powell, Mary Jo. (1994). Equity in the Reform of Mathematics and Science Education. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, pp. 113-116. To order call: 512-476-6861.

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