In an article published by Inequality.org entitled “How America Is Failing It’s Schools” (23 June, 2015), Salvatore Babones argues that “the real crisis in American education is not the schools system,” but rather inequality. He argues this point by providing statistics that prove that highly-concentrated impoverished communities result in lower test scores that, consequently, make America trudge behind international standards; by blaming the public for denouncing the schools that helplessly educate poor children without many resources; and by reaffirming that failing schools are not the result of parents, teachers, or the students themselves, but of inequality. Babones’s purpose is to address and hopefully better America’s equality, eventually…
Chapter 8 of Creating the Opportunity to Learn by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera discusses why some schools are making more progress than others in closing the achievement gap. The chapter describes how two schools that are similar in the demographics and challenges hindering achievement, can have two different results in their efforts to close the achievement gap. One school saw improvements because they recognized the problems and implemented research based strategies to help all students be successful. The other school did not because they did not fully acknowledge the gap, and accept their role in ensuring all students succeed. Boykin and Noguera described how some principal “do not merely admonish their staff with slogans or speak in platitudes about their commitment to academic success, rather they take on decisive steps to ensure that academic achievement remains the priority of their school” pg. 145). This quote highlights the purpose of the chapter because it is all about the actions taken toward raising achievement, not just the speeches and…
Since the founding of the public school system, students of higher SES with more engaged parents have done better and gone on to greater success after school. Furthermore, certain individuals are just born with higher IQ rates, often giving them an edge in the academic environment. Conservative arguments against low SES, funding, and race are irrelevant to the educational argument as they simply refuse to acknowledge them as key variables in education. Ultimately, inequality in education will only be solved when commonsense reforms are made. Increased funding for struggling schools and a workforce that can better relate to students of various SES will lead to an improved perception of the U.S.’ Education System for those in poverty who generally feel irrelevant in it. Once minorities and the impoverished feel included in the system, greater levels of education will ensue resulting in lower levels of inequality and prolonged economic…
Dr. Ron Ferguson., Harvard Graduate School of Education Institution, 2010 Harvard Closing the Achievement Gap…
According to Osie Wood (2012), “The nation’s young African American males are currently in a state of crisis (pg. 6). Concurrently, over the last four decades perhaps, the most persistent debate in education has been on how to close the achievement gap between White students on the one hand and Black and Hispanic students on the other (Green, 2001; Simpson, 1981). This achievement gap exists in virtually every measure of educational progress, including standardized tests, GPA, the dropout rate, the extent to which students are left back a grade, and so forth (Green, 2001).…
The achievement gap is the tested difference of performance between minorities and their counterpart on standardize test such as the SAT and rates of educational attainment. One central factor to the achievement gap is the belief in the black inferiority myth it most clearly affect the correcting of the achievement gap and was a huge part of creating the original gap. “If we are going to have this public conversation about African American student achievement, it will inevitable become a conversation that blames black parents, black students and the black community. The danger is that it will become yet another location for the recycling of the ideology of the African American moral, cultural and intellectual deficiency”(young gifted and black…
Currently, there exists a vast academic achievement gap in higher education between minority, low income students…
The act or law "No Child Left Behind" has addressed this difference. This law sets new standards for students, teachers and schools to follow. This law provides extra funds to spend on education, for those schools that meet the new expectations, to improve test scores, and maintain an adequate progress. However, there has been resistance to making schools responsible for the academic progress of those students who can reach their goals because of the use of archaic academic evaluations.…
There is an undeniable disparity in financial resources and educational opportunities among communities that reflects differences in standardized test scores. A recent Princeton study divided students into three socio-economic classes to compare standardized test performance. They found that the wealthiest third of students scored substantially higher than those in the bottom socio-economic…
Every individual who has experienced some form of education throughout his or her lifetime knows very well that there are many assessments and testing that takes place within a single school year. This movement in education that focuses on student excellence and school district performance is nothing new, these notions of wanting the best for and from each student and school district have been around since the 1980’s and even before that. One specific topic of controversy within this excellence reform movement in K-12 education is that of the No Child Left Behind Act that was signed into law in January of 2002.…
Rebecca Strauss, associate director for CFR’s Renewing America publications, wrote “The real scourge of the U.S. education system — and its greatest competitive weakness — is the deep and growing achievement gap between socioeconomic groups that begins early and lasts through a student’s academic career, and while America does spend plenty on education, it funnels a disproportionate share into educating wealthier students, worsening that gap,” All this does is allows rich kids to higher education through expensive private schools and forces the middle to lower class people into public schools where the standards of education are low but on the rise. This…
2000, August 3. Acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. Available on-line at http://www.2000gop. com/convention/speech/speechbush.html Coleman, James S., Ernest Q. Campbell, Carol F. Hobson, James M. McPartland, Alexander M. Mood, Frederic D. Weinfeld, and Robert L. York. 1966. Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Cross, Christopher T. 2004. Political Education: National Policy Comes of Age. New York: Teachers College Press. Gamoran, Adam. 1986. “Instructional and Institutional Effects of Ability Grouping,” Sociology of Education 59:185–98. Kane, Thomas J., and Douglas O. Staiger. 2003. “Unintended Consequences of Racial Subgroup Rules.” Pp. 152–176 in No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of Accountability, edited by Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Klein, Stephen P., Laura S. Hamilton, Daniel F. McCaffrey, and Brian M. Stecher. 2000. What Do Test Scores in Texas Tell Us? Available on-line at http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP202 Lee, Valerie E., and David Burkam. 2002. Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. Meier, Deborah, and George Wood, eds. 2004. Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools. Boston: Beacon Press. Orfield, Gary, Susan Eaton, and the Harvard Project on School Desegregation. 1996. Dismantling Desegregation. New York: New Press. Rothstein, Richard. 2000. “Equalizing Education Resources on Behalf of Disadvantaged Children.” Pp. 31–92 in A Nation at Risk: Preserving Public Education as an Engine for Social Mobility, edited by Richard D. Kahlenberg. New York: Century Foundation Press. Wilson, William Julius. 1998. “The Role of the Environment in the Black-White Test Score Gap.” Pp. 501–10 in The Black-White Test Score Gap, edited by Christopher Jencks and…
The education system has improved in many ways, however we still face many problems as a nation. Among many current education system problems is the academic achievement gap between different races. The academic achievement gap has existed for many years but has really been brought to the attention of United Stated citizens in the last decade. Statistics show that on average African American students score lower than white students on examinations, performance and overall grades in school (Camera, 2016). Many theorist have stated what they believe the problem behind the academic achievement gap is, however we have yet to close the gap. There have also been administrative acts set in place in the hopes of closing the…
Ramona is a hard-working, loving, single mother of two preschool aged girls, Theresa and Rosa. She works overtime every week, just to make ends meet for her and her children. Ramona and her children are in poverty. Unfortunately, statistics indicate that Theresa and Rosa will struggle to receive the quality preschool education they need to in order to succeed throughout Kindergarten, grade school, high school and into adulthood. According to one study by Sum and Fogs, students living in poverty rank in the 19th percentile on academic assessments, while their peers who are part of mid-upper income families rank in the 66th percentile on the same assessments (Lacour and Tissington, 2011). “The achievement gap refers to significant disparity in low educational success between groups of children: low-income and minority children as compared to higher income and non-minority children” (Early Education for All). This academic achievement gap is unacceptable and every child deserves the chance to excel to their fullest potential in school, in order to prepare for adulthood.…
Disparities in educational achievement and accessibility within different communities and ethnicities have been a common topic of conversation in higher education for several decades. Culture and Social Structure are two key sociological justifications for the discrepancies of educational attainment amongst various ethnic groups. Common variables presumed to affect individuals educational attainment includes, but not limited to, family income, family principles and expectations, and cognitive ability. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that there are major gaps in scholastic attainment between Asians, Whites and minorities. Significant disparities in graduation rates is identified when comparing students from lower-income…