THE NUMBERS, ABOVE, represent the number of children enrolled in the Ann Arbor Public Schools who qualify for free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches. One in four children enrolled in the Ann Arbor Public Schools qualifies. This number corresponds exactly to the percentage of children in Michigan who face food insecurity. Put simply, food insecurity means that the children face chronic hunger.

Hungry children, particularly chronically hungry children, don’t learn well. This is a well known fact.

The cluster of elementary schools in the district where MEAP scores have been chronically low in math, science and reading, are also the schools where large percentages of the children quality for free or reduced cost meals. At Mitchell Elementary, 201 of the school’s 279 students qualify for subsidies. At Pittsfield Elementary, 122 of the school’s 245 students qualify.  At Northside Elementary, 100 of that school’s 212 enrolled students qualify. In all of these schools, fewer than 10 percent of the 5th graders demonstrated advanced mastery of reading, science and/or mathematics. At Mitchell, the inability of more than 10 percent of that school’s 5th graders to demonstrate advanced mastery of reading, science and mathematics on the MEAP has been an annual event since 2008.

The new Superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools, unlike the previous one, has not announced she came to Ann Arbor to eliminate the achievement gap. That, at least, should be a comfort to us all. In not making pronouncements about the achievement gap that has haunted her district for decades, one is left with the impression that the new superintendent, unlike the last one, understands the challenge before her.

The achievement gap in the AAPS is such a stubborn and pernicious problem that Ann Arbor has been written up in Time magazine as  Ground Zero insofar as achievement gaps are concerned. It is a problem that has only gotten worse with time, despite the best efforts of a parade of superintendents who drafted plans of action and implemented those plans with the best of intentions.

However, as  Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote in the 12th century, “L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs” (Hell is full of good wishes and desires). This has come to be translated thusly: “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Students who show advanced mastery in the subjects tested with the MEAP earn higher GPAs in high school and more of them go on to be successful in college. As luck would have it, predicting how a 5th grader will do 15 years down the road, academically, is  possible, according to researchers who have drawn direct correlations between advanced mastery of subjects on the MEAP and high school GPAs. What this means is that since at least 2008 while the Board of Education has been fiddling with hiring new superintendents and paying them out-sized salaries in order to attract the best candidates (the past two times hiring their second choices), Rome has been burning. The academic outcomes of thousands of students have been adversely impacted.

It’s likely, during her three month “listening tour,” that our current superintendent has heard parents fret over academic outcomes. Will their children be adequately prepared to succeed in college?  In August, shortly after she was hired, Dr. Kerr Swift briefly spoke about the achievement gap. It was reported that she “charged teachers to ‘roll up their sleeves’ to tackle graduation rates below the 80 percent accountability requirement among African American, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students.”

Dr. Kerr Swift went on to say, “We must be courageous and confront and embrace the challenges that lie ahead of us. We will meet our challenges, particularly in the areas of student discipline where we have seen progress.”

The Board of Education’s first choice for the job wrote in his application that he was “drawn to the district’s ‘strength’ in facing achievement gap challenges.” This is akin to saying one is drawn to an alcoholic’s love of vodka in facing her/his drinking challenges. Dr. Kerr Swift is still listening. What this means to yet another cohort of 5th graders at the district’s cluster of under performing elementary schools is clear. The MEAP is over and unless some miracle happens, the same students at the same elementary schools will demonstrate that they do not have advanced mastery of reading, science and/or mathematics.

Eradicating the chronic hunger that impacts learning in these schools is not about courage, rolling up sleeves or classroom discipline. It is about those who have the ability to provide food doing so—and not just to hungry students, but to their families, as well. Principal Kevin Karr at Mitchell Elementary is on the right track. His school is providing a free community Thanksgiving meal on November 27th. All participants need do is RSVP for the event.

The Ann Arbor Public Schools does not have the money to provide over 4,000 families with regular meals. However, the AAPS does have land. Officials should explore partnerships with Food Gatherers, local community farmers, food security groups and locavores to replicate the Food Gatherers’ Gathering Farm model. In 2013 Gathering Farm workers and volunteers harvested and donated 78,726 pounds of produce to the needy.