A Tale Of Two Students
The Achievement Gap
The concept of the achievement gap is very simple. Every substantial and enduring inequality in academic success or educational attainment between various classes of pupils, such as white students and minorities, or students from higher-income and lower-income families, is referred to as the achievement gap. Now achievement gaps can be wildly different and vary from slight deviations to massive disparities but what makes something truly an achievement gap is the level of consistency of each disparity. The most common of these achievement gaps are those between Whites, Asian Americans, And Blacks and Hispanics. Another common achievement gap is the one between students from higher-income households and students from lower-income households. These concepts apply to the education system through the fact that Blacks and Hispanics tend to perform worse in school overall when compared to their white and Asian American counterparts. This problem is compounded if the Blacks and Hispanics come from lower-income households. Now many look at this problem at face value with a bit of ignorance and simply believe that if every student is being afforded the same opportunity to learn and some just perform better then what’s really the issue? The issue is that big “IF” I mentioned. The reality of the country we live in is that things have not always been equal between minorities and whites in America. Through the systematic oppression of minorities, whites in the past have left a lasting socio-economic impact on minorities that does not simply fade away the moment we declare all people to be equal whether it Jim crow laws or blatant everyday racism or segregation all these actions had a profound negative impact on the progress of minorities within America. This is evident in the wealth and income disparity that is rampant. As referenced by How America’s Structural Racism Helped Create the Black-White Wealth Gap a study from The Center For American Progress by Angela Hanks Wealth and income inequality is nothing new has actually gotten worse in recent years. An example to highlight this disparity is that black people as a whole own roughly 1/10th of the wealthy white people within America but it isn’t just black people. Latin American wealth as a whole doesn’t even come close to white people in America either. Furthermore, these trends do not change as for minorities based on Marital status, Income, Age, or education. It simply doesn’t matter at every stage Minorities are set to benefit less from their work than white people. These issues are intertwined with the problems for Blacks and Hispanics within the Education system. With less money for minorities comes fewer opportunities to excel in an educational environment. With fewer opportunities, students perform poorly and eventually as a whole develop a stigma around them as “Unteachable” or “Stupid”. The article by The Glossary of educational reform called “The Achievement gap” highlighted many instances in which a student’s economic situation had a negative impact on their education. One instance is that the schools with the highest concentration of low-income students are also the worst-performing schools in their area and also are often mostly taught by ineffective teachers or teachers who simply do not have the resources to meet the student’s needs. These underperforming schools have become black sheep in their areas and often times are deemed as not worth pouring more resources into it by governments. Teachers are often aware of this and so quality teachers avoid these types of schools to go to places where it is easier to succeed at teaching. Another effect due to Low-income situations for students from the article is that family income goes down so too does parent involvement in their children’s education often parents have multiple jobs or other children to care of and simply can’t spare the time. Without this involvement or at the very least attention paid to the child’s education the children in question often can’t foster motivation to succeed since If their teachers don’t care and their parents don’t care why should they? But achievement gap doesn’t stop there even in schools that are relatively well of and score well in the standardized tests there is still a disparity in students that is apparent in test scores and the participation rate in various schools’ gifted programs. According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, author of “Is There a Gifted Gap? Gifted Education in High-Poverty Schools” Nationally Black and Hispanic students participate in gifted programs at a lower rate than their Asian and White peers. I don’t have the solution to these issues but I do have suggestions or ideas that are worth discussing especially in and at the very minimum recognizing that there is a issue is the first step to solving a problem. In regard to the wealth disparity between Whites and Asian Americans compared to Blacks and Hispanics that is something that is far too broad to easily “Fixed” all I can say is we simply have to be aware of our past and how it has impacted us and never stop striving for progress in our goal for true social equality which involves the empowerment of all, not just one racial group. Moving on to the struggles of those from low-income households we must reintegrate these “Black sheep” schools. No school is a lost cause and no student is a lost cause through effort and innovation within the schooling system any student can be as bright as the next. I would say simply more funding should be dedicated to the education system because it’s been a low priority for a long time and we have suffered for it. Finally to address the issue with the gifted disparity we simply need to address the method in which we designate gifted students oftentimes programs such as this rely on teacher nomination of students which is a heavily biased and archaic system of recognizing students Perhaps through a standardized test or dedicated board of teachers we achieve more accurate representation of gifted students.
