Proudly Diverse Schools

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.

The American education system is failing the generations of the future. Society neglects the children born into impoverished areas, while mainly white upper class children participate in superior educational activities. Low-income neighborhoods often produce schools with low scoring students. Therefore the government transitions these schools into impersonal factories. The phrase diversity masquerades the reality of re-segregation of schools. Many schools across the country are utilizing the phrase diversity, yet the statistics reveal that over ninety percent of the students are black or Hispanic. Creating successful environments is extremely difficult and subsequently results in serious consequences for the American education system.

In the article “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Education Apartheid” author Jonathan Kozol informs us about inequality and segregation in today’s school systems. Kozol talks about schools were minority’s makes up the student body. For example, Kozol refers to John F. Kennedy High School where the majority of the student body is made up by African Americans and Hispanic students, only a third of the students are white. Kozol states that schools like these are typically underprivileged schools that normally have structural issues and also lack behind in technology and resources for students. Kozol also brings up the predominately white schools where on average there is more money spent on students and funding is not a problem, these

After reading the text I decided to analyze Still Separate, Still Unequal by Johnathan Kozol. His call to action at the end of the article drives his point: just because we have laws set that says we are no longer segregated and that we should all be treated equally, does not mean that it is true. Different cultures are still treated unequally as proven by Kozol’s research into schooling in lower income areas. He trys to prove that even though Americans do not forcefully separate blacks and whites anymore, they get separated on their own. They get separated by class and location leaving schools with majority of Hispanics and blacks and sometimes only one percent white. Kozol wants the change that Brown v. Board of Education started.

While the educational gap among high-income neighborhoods and low-income neighborhoods is large, there is also a large gap between white and minority students in the United States. Educational opportunities for students have continued to be separate but equal; In the article “Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education” by Linda Darling-Hammond, she draws attention to “the striking differences between public schools serving students of color in urban settings and their suburban counterparts, which typically spend twice as much per student for populations with many fewer special needs” (Darling-Hammond). Students in states with low educational funding budgets and students who go to schools where the majority of students are minorities, often do

Historically, African-American, Latino and Native American students were educated in wholly segregated schools whose funding rates were several times lower than schools made up of all white students. These minority students were also being excluded from many higher institutions (Darling-Hammond). This happened until legal segregation came to an end in the 1960s and many efforts were made to equalize school funding. These efforts have made a substantial difference for student achievement and significantly narrowed minority and white

As a member of several clubs and organizations, I have always valued the wide range of people you can find within the walls of my high school. If you walk into my Physics lab, you will find me collaborating with a dancer strongly involved in his cultural heritage and a volleyball player in the engineering academy. If you come to my Calculus class, you will see me calculating derivatives with a football player, a snowboarder, a National Honor Society officer, and a painter. The word “diversity” is often used to describe a cross-cultural population, but it is so much more than that. At Bartlett High School, students originate from hundreds of different cultures, with an abundance interests, and participate together in an assortment of activities.

According to the 2014 Public School Review Diversity Report, the state of Maryland is rated the third most diverse public school system in the nation, with 43% White students, 37% African American students, 11% Hispanic students, 6% Asian students, and 3% Unknown. With a significantly higher population of African American students compared to the state average, the Baltimore City School District is a far less diverse agency than the state school system as a whole. Collectively, the Baltimore City Public School District is comprised of 85% African American students, 8% White students, 5% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacific Islander, and less than 1% American Indian, Multiracial, Native Hawiian/other (Baltimore City Public Schools, 2013a). Considering

The public school system in America is flawed and only seems to favor those of a higher socio-economic class. American students in poor and high minority schools receive fewer resources, fewer AP classes, and less qualified teachers unlike their white and higher-class counterparts. Which in return has lead to lower high school graduation rates, low-test scores, and less students going to college. Some public policy has been made to fight the inequality for black and Latino students in public schools by starting desegregation plans but little has it helped. High stake state exams have held students back from moving on or receiving their diploma. According to the article in paragraph 2 its estimated 58 percent or more of ninth grade minority students will not graduate high school in

Policies that Miamifield should implement are a required class on race, diversity and culture, club that meets once a week about race, diversity, and culture, a room in the school where students can go and talk about their issues with no judgement or consequences, changing the mascot, change the way that teachers are hired, make clear rules on what will cause a student to be suspended, and full day of school every year where the mayor, community, students all talk about what is happening in the school with race and other issues and how it can be solve. By requiring a class on race, diversity, and culture will allow for the students to learn about people that are different than they are and it will open up their eyes to a new perspective. I would make this class mandatory for all students

In the United States there is a long history of failure to provide every young citizen of this country with a good education. While there has been revolutionary advances to give every child their best possible chance to get an education; the same cannot be said about the quality of the education given to each child. Many studies have brought forth data that show minority groups within the United States have a much more difficult academic experience when you look at a child’s transition to kindergarten, a school required qualification for teachers, and their views on academic achievement based on cultural norms, and racism experienced.

I started taking advanced, honors, and AP classes as soon as I was allowed, starting primarily in middle school. After I began taking these courses, I started noticing that my classes were composed of the same grouping of students. Sometimes, I wouldn’t see a few of my other friends all day unless it was at lunch or between classes. I tended to realize that students who had both parents at home with stable jobs and more money tended to be in the honors and AP courses. People self-segregated in various ways at my school. Along with age, students separated by sport, arts, music, popularity, and wealth. Usually, freshman and sophomores rode the bus until they got their license while the rest of the students and staff drove to school. All our teachers and administrative staff were white while our janitorial staff consisted of other races and

Equal access to educational opportunities for all students was a primary goal of education reforms during the time of the Civil Rights Movement and it still remains a problem today. Today, we are focused on a broader range of ethnic groups and in a higher goal than simply “letting people in,” we ask questions about how to create educational institutions that serve all students equally well ("50 Years After Brown v. Board of Education: The Promise and Challenge of Multicultural Education"). In 1954 we did not ask whether schools’ would welcome and nurture students of color or whether the schools would adjust to a curriculum that made equal sense to all groups. Today, we ask such questions. Research shows that multicultural education and curriculum

Is the education system excluding minorities on the basis of gender and culture? The United States has become one of the most culturally diverse places to live in. The increase in minorities immigrating to the United States has drastically risen. With this in mind, should policies, laws, and institutions, such as education, be restructured and modified to include minorities? Due to their personal experiences, Adrienne Rich, Mike Rose, and Bell Hooks in The Presence of Others, believe education can be seen as the practice of exclusion (93). All three authors argue that in order to prevent the exclusion of minorities in schools, modifications must occur within the system. Mike Rose argues that

WWPS was established in 1925 and has approximately 211 enrolments, 40% of those enrolments are students who have language backgrounds other than English (My School 2014). WWPS is a diverse and inclusive school with an assortment of cultural backgrounds and multiculturalism. In addition, WWPS is classified as slightly disadvantaged as it is below the average value in the Index of Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) (My School 2014). The school’s background in conjunction with recent research and personal teaching experience will be a significant factors in the recommendation of BYOD