Socioeconomic Status And Race : The Role Of Teachers And Staff Members Of Urban High Schools

Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.

In his essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Jonathan Kozol brings our attention to the apparent growing trend of racial segregation within America’s urban and inner-city schools (309-310). Kozol provides several supporting factors to his claim stemming from his research and observations of different school environments, its teachers and students, and personal conversations with those teachers and students.

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.

Social Class and Education”. It opens by discussing research conducted in the 1960’s in an effort to identify factors contributing to differences in the academic achievement of Whites and Blacks (Banks & Banks, 2013). Researchers hypothesized that the achievement gaps were mainly the result of disparities in school resources and characteristics, but found that there is a high correlation between achievement and socioeconomic status (SES) (Banks & Banks, 2013). Furthermore, attention is drawn to the class stratification which exists in our educational system and works to maintain inequality through exclusion strategies such as ability grouping and tracking (Banks & Banks, 2013). Evidence of the correlation between social class and

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.

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

A school setting provides opportunities where issues of social justice, oppression, and discrimination can be addressed. According to Bemak and Chung (2009), students of color and economically disadvantaged students are likely to have low academic achievement, in comparison to their White middle class counterparts. These disparities in academic

Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol explains the inequalities of school systems in different poor neighborhoods. Kozol was originally a teacher in a public school in Boston. This school didn’t have very many resources and was unable to keep teachers for very long. After pursuing other interests, Kozol took the time from 1988-1990 to meet with children and teachers in several different neighborhoods to better understand issues relating to the inequality and segregation in the school systems. Kozol writes from his own perspective as he visits six different cities and the poorest schools in those cities. These cities consist of East St. Louis in Illinois, the South Side of Chicago in Illinois, New York City, Camden in New Jersey, Washington

Socioeconomic Status is where a particular person or group of people stand in regards to social class. The main measurement that determines one's socioeconomic status is level of education, occupation and income. Although it may not be considered a factor in child development, socioeconomic status can actually play a huge role in determining what kind of adolescent a child develops into. It can influence a child’s morals, self-esteem, grades and many more aspects of a child's life. Socioeconomic status can play a role in determining where a person resides, the occupation they end up getting, their education and their income as well. So, although one’s socioeconomic status is technically made up of these aspects, one can be born into a low socioeconomic status which could result in them continuing to have one throughout their life. It is a cycle that one must break in order to change the outcome. Low socioeconomic status can result in child poverty. Child poverty over the years has risen and fallen but has remained consistently apparent in America. Child poverty can have detrimental effects on developing children and adolescents. It may influence the way they are raised, taught, cared for and many more aspects of the child's life which are important for successful development. Low socioeconomic status can determine how well children and adolescents develop and the type of person they develop into, including

These children reminded me of the problems I too faced growing up poor in Baltimore. One consistency within these students’ stories was the lack of diversity and positivity in regards to their perceptions of the average man of color. Comparing these students’ stories to my own tribulations as a youth, I began to realize that there is a pattern of deficiency in quality representation within low income communities. Understanding that I have a gift for education, I sought to help fix this problem not only for the students in Justice for Juniors, but also many others. Since then, I have been dedicating to myself to developing my craft as an educator and continuing to educate and mentor those in lower income communities. To gain more experience, I joined Terrapin Teachers at the University of Maryland which is a program designed to teach STEM majors how to become effective teachers. Through this program I learned key organizational skills and teaching techniques such as; inquiry based teaching, investigative questioning, how to facilitate classroom discussions, and classroom management

Upon the premise of further exploration, Mari Ann Roberts found a definition of what is meant to care for underachieving African American male students. Roberts surveyed eight African American teachers to attain their point of view of what it meant to care for their students which included informing them about how to survive in the racism of the United States of America that they will and are exposed to (Roberts 456). The discussion of political clarity was addressed by several teachers to help students understand “the importance of education and emphasized that they believed, for Black people, academic achievement would eventually equal equality” (Roberts 458).

A third emerging theme was the emerging theme in this paper is how school leaders are thinking around issues of race. Two school leaders specifically—Drs. Grant and Kirkpatrick—discuss how critical

Growing up in the Portland-Metro area, I often heard about Portland Public School District, but only ever saw a Portland public high school when the football team I was a member of had an away game at Grant. I heard that Portland schools were rough, poor, and simply “not as good” as the suburban schools my friends and I attended. I grew up in the Beaverton School district went to Aloha high school – socially considered the “poor school” of the district and in fact the most ethnically diverse. * As a whole, the students of Aloha were distinguished as “others,” set apart from the more affluent and white high schools within our school district. Despite being labeled as “others,” there was an overarching social force that determined Aloha High still superior to any of the Portland Public schools. Now I have the chance to be a member of one of these Portland Public Schools that was constantly looked down upon as lesser by the kids within the Beaverton School District – and I love the opportunity.

Socioeconomic status has long been thought to correlate with a student’s academic achievement; numerous studies and research have been conducted in order to analyze this topic. Socioeconomic status (SES) is mostly defined by scientists as an individual’s income, occupation, education, and prestige in society. These elements often go together, so SES is frequently measured as a combination of an individual’s income and years of education because these are most easily quantified (Slavin, Robert E. pp. 71.) It has often been discussed by researchers, the correlation between SES and academic achievement, however, this study, by the Department of Psychology of the University of Minnesota, addresses the degree to which SES can be considered an environmental influence on academic achievement. In a previous meta-analysis, Dr. Karl R. White, from Utah State University, found that when measured at the individual level, the correlation between SES and academic achievement was low. While measured at a larger level, for example through the school or neighborhood, the correlation was found to be higher (Johnson, Wendy, et al. pp.1) This begs the question: do hereditary factors play as significant a role as environmental factors do in the case of SES and academic achievement?

There is more to urban schooling than meets the eye. Often, urban schools and the families that rely upon them are portrayed as a stereotypical monolith. Biased new reporters, researchers, and educational leaders reinforce a narrative that draws on the deficit theory to avoid assigning any responsibility for the plight of people living in poverty and together work to create a culture of poverty. Introduced in the article by Gorski (2008), the culture of poverty that persists in the mindsets of Americans is “the idea that poor people share, more or less, monolithic and predictable beliefs, values, and behaviors.” This myth prevents society from challenging their understanding of class and how it affects all aspects of the lives of those who are of low socioeconomic status. Institutionalized classism and racism, perpetuated by public policy, continues to affect students in urban schooling, however many refuse to acknowledge this cause and effect relationship. Rather, they rely on tired stereotypes and the culture of poverty to justify the lack of access and equity allowed to those living in urban areas. While I already knew that these structural flaws existed in our society, ED 7438 has given me the research to back up my argument and the needed push to remain committed to incorporating a level of social justice in my classroom that will ensure I continue to push back on false notions about students living in urban areas around the country. In this reflection I will