Analysis Of Closing The Opportunity Gap By Gloria Ladson Billings 20

Education is an integral part of society, School helps children learn social norms as well as teach them to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. In West Trenton Central High School was only 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. These school have lower test scores and high dropout rates. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often form low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial factors to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and

For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused

The book, Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling, tells us about the problems that inner-city students face in schools across America. There is an apparent problem with discrimination towards black and poorer families within some suburban districts. The effect of this is a vicious cycle of limited/ scare resources of educational opportunities for students. Author, Lewis-McCoy examines a suburban area in which a “promised land” of educational opportunities and beneficial resources has failed to live up to it’s name. America’s suburbs are seeing an increase in diverse families, yet there is still a challenge of giving equal and high quality educational opportunities to them.

Unfortunately, these children cannot complete their education because they have to travel with their family and learn to manage at a young age a life of hard labor. This however does not diminish their dreams of completing high school and some day attending a university so that they will not have to live the life of struggle their parents did to sustain the household. In cities like Detroit, MI there is a large population of low income Hispanic and African American families. The public school system unfortunately cannot potentially promote a high-quality education. The majority of these students do not receive an entrance level education simply because of living standards. Income plays an important role in education opportunities regarding the quality education each student can pertain. Since the minorities in that area are low-income they cannot afford to attend a private high school that can better prepare them for college. According to a research done at the University of Texas-Pan American, “certain racial or ethnicity factors should play a role in the admissions decision.” (Marklein)

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

Geography played a huge part in my experience with K-12 education. In the study titled, The Geography of Inequality: Why Separate Means Unequal in American Public Schools (2012), Logan, Minca, and Adar noted that inequalities of performance between schools that have a majority of minority groups and found connections between the performance of school when looking through the lens of race and ethnicity. Key findings included that African American, Hispanic, and Native American students were most likely to attend a school that averages between the 35th-40th percentile (Logan, Minca, Adar 2012). Three types of high poverty schools were outlined; location in city center, majority African American and mixed location, and majority Hispanic (Logan et al., 2012). The school district that I attended for my K-12 education experience was nearly 95% white, located in the suburbs, and had low poverty. My education experience directly counters the education experience that my student engage in on a daily basis. This has created an internal motivation to

The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While

After reviewing the Government laws and policies that have been in placed and replaced in history and more currently to contribute and correct the issue. The most important question of all remains. Why does the Achievement Gap still exist? According to former Secretary of Education John King (2016) “Black and Hispanic students continue to lag behind their White peers in achievement and graduation rates.”After so many attempts made by the Government to close the Gap and create equality, clearly there is something that is not being addressed across American Public Schools. Frederica Wilson (2013) former state senate member stated in the Brown vs Board Documentary There is such a difference in going to one school in one community and going to another in another community. Why don't we tackle that problem instead of testing the students predicting they will fail, watching them fail and denying them a good life?”The question now that remains how exactly are the schools different in different communities?

Two articles, The Facts about the Achievement Gap by Diane Ravitch and From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid by Jonathan Kozol, provide facts about the crumbling education system in the inner cities of America. Schools there have shown to be segregated, poorly staffed, and underfunded. While the theme of both articles may be educational shortcomings, the content is surrounded by discussions of segregation. There are more underlying factors the authors are missing. Readers need to be rallied together in a unilateral cause to identify the issues affecting the nation’s education system, segregation is not one of them.

In the article “Still separate, still unequal” Jonathan Kozol describes the reality of urban public schools and the segregation in education, which is still a major problem in our educational system. According to the author the main problem for minorities is money. White students can afford a good education before they enter kindergarten, while minority students are limited in what they study. For example, suburban schools, which primarily consist of white students, have better education than urban schools which primarily have African American and Hispanics. If Jonatan Kozol is right that the educational system is still separate and unequal, as I think he is, then we need to reassess the popular assumption that the educational system is the

The federal government played a role in establishing and maintaining residential segregation in metropolitan areas. For example, Rothstein states that after the New Deal and World War II, federally funded public housing was explicitly and racially segregated (5). The projects were designated for either whites or blacks, later becoming increasingly black. Neighborhoods that were historically segregated still continue today with the very same characteristics – racially and economically homogeneity. Children who grow up in and attend schools in these neighborhoods encounter what Sherman refers to as “youth disconnection”. In essence, youth disconnection is the lack of exposure to important influences that help with human development. Sherman takes into account statistics about disconnected youth which include being twice as likely to live in poverty, three times as likely to leave high school without a diploma, half as likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree, and etc (“How Disadvantages Caused by Residential Segregation End Up Costing Billions”). How can students thrive in environments that are historically segregated and disadvantaged? Access to a better education along with other influences beneficial to development should to be decided based upon the location in which a student

There are several primary educational disparities that arise when race and income are considered. These gaps are due to the notion that the majority of minorities live in low-income areas that have underfunded public schools. Schools in impoverished areas tend to have fewer educational resources such as supplies, funding, amenities, and college preparatory classes. However, “students living in poverty require more intensive resources..., and many schools in poor neighborhoods lack the...resources to break the nexus between student background characteristics and student achievement” (Nielsen, 2013). Since race has already been found to be a significant factor in college readiness, poor racial minorities face a more complex disadvantage than their higher income or white counterparts. Concentrated poverty further prevents minorities from rising in economic status. With such a large population of minority children attending underfunded schools, they are learning in environment that hinders their ability to complete higher education.

Depending on the parent’s education and their degree, can influence their children path in life. (Sernau, 2012). Depending on the child environment can also determents if the children are provided with a good education or not. (Sernau, 2012) Some urban charter schools, in an attempt to carry out the mission of educating disenfranchised students, locate themselves in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and the resulting increase in minority segregation is simply a reflection of the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they serve. (Wong, K. K., Shi, J., Gao, H., Zheteyeva, Y. A., Lane, K., Copeland, D., & Uzicanin, A, 2014).) Unplanned school closures affect students, communities, and families every year, and understanding the characteristics of

There are a multitude of factors that contribute to the segregation of school systems. More to the point, we learned in chapter eight that the average median income of African American households was $34,598 in 2013. Whereas, the average median income of Non-Hispanic white households were around $58,270. During my youth, I moved out on my own and could not afford to live in the suburbs. Therefore, I moved into the city where the cost of rent was drastically cheaper. For instance, in order to rent an apartment in the suburbs, I would have to pay around $928.00. However, when living in the city my rent was only $435.00. Since it was more affordable on my annual income, I had to live where I could get by comfortable. If per say the annual income

“It is one thing to understand that in today’s society many minority groups are educationally disadvantaged due to their race, ethnicity, geographical location, socioeconomic status and gender. It is quite another thing to think that schools might actually be implicated in cementing rather than disrupting this disadvantage; but in this chapter that is what we will be suggesting to you.” (Groundwater-Smith et al, 2009, p.73).