Community Perspective Vs School Perspective

High school is often considered a microcosm of society. Beliefs, social order, and current issues present themselves through student’s interactions and the environment they learn in. One of the oldest and still prevalent issues in the United States today is race and equality. So it is no surprise when racial issues are exposed in public education. Although many believe the civil rights era fixed most discrimination, racism remains in schools. Even after court ordered integration, classroom disparities have led to harmful segregation to continue within schools.

How should society handle the perceived differences between races when it comes to education? The goal of both researchers is to narrow the academic gap between white and black students. Both authors attribute the gap between the academic scores of black and white students from opposite sides of racial identity. As Dr. Beverly Daniels Tatum, President of Spelman College and clinical psychologist has written an article entitled “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” Her approach is from the perspective of the student and how they perceive their role and upper limits while maintaining their place in their peer group's expectations of their race. Dr. Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, has written an article entitled "The Facts about the Achievement Gap.” Her approach is from the perspective of how schools and society implicitly or explicitly cast students into achievement tracks based on their race. Both approach the same idea about racial identity, but they have different solutions, such as peer groups, the school board, and who is right about the solution.

She often found herself the only Black face in her classroom, and sometimes felt she did not fit in with the larger culture that surrounded her.

Companies and educational institutions greatly benefit from the guidelines of affirmative action because they profit from the different ideas, work styles, and contributions unique to each diverse individual. As quoted in Paul Connors’s compilation, Affirmative Action, President of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, addresses the importance of a diverse educational system by stating, “The experience of arriving on a campus to live and study with classmates from a diverse range of backgrounds is essential to students' training for this new world, nurturing in them an instinct to reach out instead of clinging to the comforts of what seems natural or familiar” (12-13). A statement by Southeastern Oklahoma State University further supports the idea that success in modern day society stems from diversity saying, “Our country is strong because of the rich diversity of our culture, not in spite of it” (Affirmative Action).

Diversity teaches us to accept. I have lived in a very diverse community for much of my life. Highland Park consists of a lot of white people, but also there are a lot of Mexican immigrants. In the high school the races tend to separate themselves, but we also teach each other about our cultures and we learn a lot from each other. Many people have experienced diversity. They learn so much and become more understanding and accepting of other people because they have seen much of their

Diversity is more than a racial term. While we are at a school that has a high concentration of nursing and engineering majors, we also live in a city that thrives on the arts. This encourages both mindsets to coexist together in a symbiotic relationship, both benefiting each other. Diversity also plays into a cultural aspect. Different cultures come together at the University of Louisiana to create an overall culture that focuses on the aspect of family. While there is a strong sense of Cajun culture, as embraced by the city of Lafayette and of the university as a whole, this does not drown a sense of pride of different cultures existing together, encouraging individuality in a community context.

Quality public education should be available to everyone regardless of race. Putting an end to racial segregation has had positive effects on the students. African American students are able to learn about new career pathways from white students, and are also able to be

Those of color are almost always faced with obstacles, while white people have support through the governments system. For example, the media portrays black people as “criminals,” or Latinas as “sexy,” where as whites are seen as “rich” or “smart.” In the United States, the “melting pot” society is believed to protect us, because we are able to find agreement with one another no matter the skin color, which is false. Everyone fears something, so being able to see the variety of cultures in this world, could actually distinguish us into more tolerant human beings. The more diversity there is in America, the more abundant a society can become of those different cultures, and possibly even tone down the system of hierarchy.

During the 1950’s and 60’s, racial segregation was unfortunately still occurring in our society due to centuries of discrimination as well as the heinous act of slavery. In 1954, a critical turning point was reached during the famous Brown v. Board of Education case. Educational institutions could no longer discriminate based on the color of a student’s skin (McKenzie, & Kress, 2015). Although, Brown v. Board of Education worked in theory, there was still a long path ahead for achieving complete equality in education. Furthermore, in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson passed a law called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) which could be considered the parent of most modern education laws (McKenzie, & Kress, 2015). Under this law, all students, regardless of race, poverty level, gender, or

In some workplaces in the United States, there appears to be a lack of diversity amongst employees. Although it might not be intentional, an example of this can be seen in college campuses. “While the numbers of undergraduate and graduate students of color on college campuses have risen over the years, the growth in the numbers of faculty of color has lagged far behind” (Antonio, 2003; Villalpando & Delgado Bernal, as cited in Jayakumar, Howard, Allen, and Han, 2009). Having a more diverse faculty and staff would increase the sense of connection among others, as well as decrease the amount of privilege certain groups have over others. Employees would be able to see things from different types of perspectives, rather than one point of view. According to Nancy Cantor, a former college administrative officer in Michigan, "Diversity really is intellectual and social diversity, and that is what interdisciplinarity does.

American society likes to believe that race relations in our country are no longer strained. We do not want to hear about the need for affirmative action or about the growing numbers of white supremacist groups. In order to appease our collective conscious, we put aside the disturbing fact that racism is alive and well in the great U.S.A. It hides in the workplace, it subtly shows its ugly face in the media, and it affects the education of minority students nationwide. In the following excerpts from an interview with a middle class African American male, the reader will find strong evidence that race plays a major role in determining the type and quality of education a student receives.

I never saw the significance that race can play in anything, and now I’m starting to see the subtle ways it works, like it has in the case of this article. I probably would have assumed the dropout rate was due to external factors that were not mentioned in the article. I would not have understood the connection between lower income families being those of colour. I also probably would have assumed that the reason that community colleges had such a high dropout rate was because it was full of kids who didn’t want to be there in the first place.

Its exciting to see such strong statements about the importance of having diverse student bodies and classes" Said Donna Maeda. Students will also be poorer for the experience. They will not hear other arguments and other voices. If a teacher was just teaching a class full of men or full of women the class would be different, the arguments would be different, the learning process would be poorer for the lack of men or women in the class. The same goes for race, because race is a major issue in America, so we cannot but agree that members of different races see thing very differently and have very different views about how history

Back in 1978, the University of California had reserved 16 of its 100 acceptees to be a person other than white. This was ruled unconstitutional in the case of excluding whites from acceptance in 16 spots. Otherwise though it has been shown that if affirmative action wasn’t put into place across the country, then colleges and other schools would be predominantly white men and Asian Americans. So to provide more chances for minorities, there would be tweaks to include affirmative action while being constitutional. Asian Americans and white males have been found to score higher on standardized tests given, and in turn have a higher chance of being accepted into schools. So the United States has been trying to induce a more diverse society in the hopes of creating a more united nation. The first step to achieve this goal is to introduce different backgrounds into schools across the country. While doing this, there can be an easier dispersion of cultural and ideological backgrounds among students across the US. These different ideas and cultures can help increase understanding and knowledge among the student body to increase diversity. This would also help to unite students with their peers, forming bonds and relationships that may not have been possible before affirmative action had been put into place in schools. If the possible leaders of our country are exposed to

The problem as identified in this essay is the issue of racial discrimination of African-American students within the school system. By African-American, this essay not only