Student achievement for whom? High-performing and still ‘Playing the game,’ the meaning of school achievement among high achieving African American students

The preponderance of the research on African American students has generally focused on issues of school failure and underperformance. While the literature on high achieving Black students is sparse, very little is known about these students’ school experiences and the meanings that they assign to achievement. Using student-based inquiry research, this study investigates the meaning of school achievement among high-performing African Americans. The findings reveal that the students were not convinced that standardized examinations, and to a lesser extent course grades, were accurate or valid measures of achievement. Thus, they challenged the dominant achievement paradigm and created their own sense of school success, which included social dimensions such as community involvement and personal growth and development. Although collectively the students concluded that standardized exams and grades were not achievement or accurate measures of achievement, yet they clearly knew how to ‘play the game.’ While students must meet the norms of standardized measures and end-of-course testing related to the Common Core, schools can respond to their diverse assessment needs by incorporating broader measures that include, but are not limited to standardized tests. The findings of this study and student recommendations have great implications for teacher education and student assessment. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.