Educational Leaders Should Promote Equity Among All Students Regardless Of Race, Ability, Socioeconomic Status

The follow assessment will have a brief description of the importance of inclusion and inclusive practices in work with children and young people. And it also contains an exploration of how our own attitudes, values and behaviour may lead to that inclusive practice, how to challenge discrimination and how to promote some important anti-discriminatory and inclusive practices.

The stance Terry P. Husband articulates in an (2012) article regards the commitments teachers and administrators must opt to improve the reading gap concern of African American males. It points out the reading differences; male learning differences, text selection, curriculum standards, disciplinary options expectations and learning styles utilized in the classrooms go against increasing reading achievement of African-American males in the classroom.

This author discusses the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB) and it mandates that every student in K-12 public schools will reach basic proficiency in math and reading by 2014. The goals of the accountability component of NCLB place emphasis on closing the achievement gap for all public school students, regardless of their socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or disabilities. The Federal Government mandates annual testing of all students in grades three through eight on challenging state standards for mathematics and reading (Beisser 2014). The author noted that the federal mandate didn’t intend on leaving any students behind, but after the law was passed it became evident that the United States has provided more, time, attention, resources and policies in the direction of students who scored below achievement level in reading and mathematics.

There is a persistent achievement gap that has continually taken place within the educational system that needs to be secured. The National Center For Educational Statistics indicates, “gaps appear when one group of students out performs another group and there is a statistical difference in scores” (NEA, 2014). There is statistical evidence exhibiting gaps in performance between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts in math and reading. Efforts to reach equivalence should start at home during early childhood and continue throughout the high school years (NCES, 2011).

As a whole, Black Americans are behind in comparison White population in terms of education. In elementary school, Black children have been found to be behind their white peers in regards to language acquisition and reading abilities. This has been attributed to the percentage of children who are being read to at home prior to entering into school. While 89% of White children were being read to prior to entering school, only 71% of Black children were (Hoffman, Llagas & Snyder, 2003, p. 37). Being read to as well as learning how to read at the levels of their peers has a positive correlation with school outcomes later in life. This leads to an increased likelihood of a Black child being held back due to skills that are not up to the same standard

Grade 5 students within a local, public elementary school scored in the lowest 25 percentile in reading on the legislatively mandated annual criterion-referenced tests. The data from 2016 state assessment indicates 15% of the students scored 2.0 or lower on a 5.0 rubric. An Intensive Intervention Instruction (iii) and Response to Intervention (RTI) plan has been developed to target and address intervention strategies supporting struggling students. The iii Intensive Intervention Instruction (Tier 3 Supports) is needed when data indicate that student progress is inadequate. (2014) Through the Collaborative Problem Solving Process (CPSP), the school-based Literacy Leadership Team members are responsible for supporting

Children living in the poor and students who are Hispanic or Black are statistically likely to be at risk for academic failure. They are more likely to face challenges associate with poverty, such as poor health, inadequate shelter, unhealthy environments, emotional stress, and limited access to reading materials. These risk factors might bring negative effects on a child’s cognitive development, and thus causes lower level of preferment in academic achievement. Take literacy as an example, According to Reading Is Fundamental (2014), the largest nonprofit children’s literacy organization in U.S, “61% of families living in poverty do not have age-appropriate books in their homes. Consequently, children living in poverty already have a 50 percent weaker vocabulary than their wealthier peers at the start of school.” And approximately 40% of 4th graders do not achieve basic levels of reading proficiency, and the percentage is even higher among family living in poverty and certain minority

The use of formal and informal reading assessments provide important data that allow educators to identify at risk students (Tompkins, 2010). The data collected from the assessments address any factors that may prohibit the development of students’ reading and writing skills. In addition to the assessments, the more an educator can learn about students’ backgrounds and their past reading, language development, and writing experiences the more instructional strategies can be designed to specifically meet the needs of diverse learners in the classroom.

In Detroit, for the academic year of 2014-15, only 17.2 percent of all 8th grade students scored proficient in reading and only 6.9 percent of all 8th grade students scored proficient in mathematics (“Annual education report Detroit city school district M-STEP grades 3-8,” 2016). This is compared to an annual

This presentation examines and compares the 2015 and 2016 FSA reading results from South Miami Senior High School and presents a plan to improve the reading performance of the 9th 10th , 11th and 12th grade by focusing on the subgroup of ELL students. In order to achieve it, we will utilize specific plans for improvement, data collection pertaining to these specific students, and appropriate professional developments for all teacher. Additionally, we will discuss and implement a variety of classroom strategies that can increase our student’s academic performance.

Reading, writing, math, science, and other skills learned in school are instrumental for a child to have in order to be successful both in higher education and in life. Many factors contribute to a student’s acquisition of these skills such as their learning environment, preschool education, mental and emotional development, parental involvement, and dedication to learning. The issue that many young children are facing, however, is that all of these factors can be greatly influenced by the Socioeconomic Status (SES) of their family. Unfortunately, up until recently it was virtually unknown how teachers could help these “at risk” children, which caused an increase in the likelihood of children dropping out of school or repeating a grade.

An analysis of reading data from state, district, school, and five grade level 5 classrooms yielded the following results. The Asian-Pacific Islander subgroup across all grade levels significantly outperformed all subgroups at the state level. Because there were no Asian-Pacific Islander students at the district level, this data will not be considered. Thus, at the district and local levels white students outperformed all subgroups. In reading, the percentage of mastery among Whites (45%) was triple than that for the mastery of Blacks (15%) and Hispanics (15%). ELL and Special Education students across all grade levels had stable and low performance.

Education has a substantial influence when determining the quality of life in a country. While some may claim that America has the best education in the world, America’s literacy rate currently sits at eighty-six percent. Currently, many countries-- such as Finland, Iceland, and Sweden-- have literacy rates close one hundred percent. However, literacy rate does not necessarily represent the quality of education. America’s minority populations are disproportionately undereducated, performing at below basic levels on both standardized reading and math exams. State governments attempt to design standardized tests that encourage urban students to work hard and achieve success. Unfortunately, standardized tests have unintentionally

Over the past few centuries, the education system has had several changes, some positive, some negative, and some controversial. But ultimately the goal is to format and build the educational school system, we need to support our students so they can be successful in their life’s. “During the past 30 years, local school districts have gradually yielded policy-making discretion to state legislatures and bureaucracies. States' efforts to achieve equity and improve student and teacher performance have considerably diminished local controls over funding, standards, and curricular content” (Hadderman,1988). Though I think that local control of schools does deal side by side with the schools, I believe that the state can offer more support during the policies discussion and along with input into the budgeting of each state, for education.

Equity and equality, both of these concepts are very important in many things like in the educational system; however, equity is more important than equality when dealing with education. Equity is more important than equality because, with equity, you give the student what he or she may need in order to be successful. Equality can be useful in the education system; however, it can hinder one's own education since everyone will have to receive the same education as each other rather than receiving the necessary education for those students to prosper. In the works created by James Baldwin, Sherman Alexie and Ralph Waldo Emerson, respectively, they all give substantial evidence that can further prove why the concept of equity is greatly needed in the educational system rather than equality.