Summary: The Widening Achievement Gap

Whether on the scale of a school district, a state, or the nation, achievement gaps exist. Wealth seems to be the deciding factor, with race coming in at a close second, but these do not (and should not) be deciding factors. The State of Texas has developed The P-16 Initiative which seeks to close theses performance gaps between the poor and wealthy. Our textbook reads: “The P-16 is an effort to work with stakeholders collaboratively to foster a more integrated education system, while addressing issues of college readiness standards, teacher education, and educational

According to Sanford Graduate School of Education research, almost every school district enrolling large numbers of low-income studies has an average academic performance significantly below the national-grade level average. Achievement gaps are larger in districts where black and Hispanic students attend higher poverty schools than their white peers. The size of the gaps has little or no association with average class size. The most and least socioeconomically advantaged districts have average performance levels more than four grade levels apart. According to Reardon and colleagues, one-sixth of all students attend public school in school districts where average test scores are more than a grade level below the national average. Also, one-sixth

The achievement gap is defined as the disparity between the performance groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, ability and socio-economic status. The achievement gap can be observed through a variety of measures including standardized test scores, grade point averages, drop out rates, college enrollment and completion rates. The Black-White achievement gap is a critical issue in modern society’s education system. Although data surrounding the issue clearly indicates that the racial performance gap exists in areas of standardized tests, graduation rates, dropout rates, and enrollment in continuing education, the causative reasons for the gap are ambiguous—therefore presenting a significant challenge in

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.

Are Black Americans Dumber than White Americans? Can it unequivocally be stated that European Americans hold more intelligence then African Americans? Are African Americans genetically wired to have a lesser mental capacity then European Americans? For a long time this was the explanation to a burning problem. African Americans score lower than White Americans on vocabulary, reading, and mathematics tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. “This gap appears before children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood. The typical American black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized

In 1965, Lyndon B Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in an attempt to achieve more equity among minority groups within the education system. Along with the numerous attempts to close the achievement gap came America’s first federally funded state assessments, created with the intention of holding the nation’s schools accountable for providing a quality education for every student. This legislation was revisited in 2001 by the Bush administration with the No Child Left Behind Act, which saw the achievement gap that still existed among ethnic minority groups, but also recognised a prominent gap within poverty- stricken communities. With this came state tests that were more difficult and more frequent in an attempt to further

As I read about the achievement gap (Taylor), I felt a sense of despair. Families of color are positioned between a rock and a hard place. When children enter kindergarten, the racial gap is half of its ultimate size because many children of color do not participate in high-quality programs. How can people of color "catch up" to their counterparts when they are behind at the age of 5? There are also institutional factors that continue this achievement gap and perpetuate racism by consequence. After Brown v Board of Education (1954), white families enrolled their children in private and suburban schools. Since school busing has been discontinued, school assignments based on residential neighborhoods have created racially segregated schools.

“The socioeconomic achievement gap in education refers to the inequality in academic achievement between groups of students. The achievement gap shows up in grades, standardized test scores, course selection, dropout rates, and college-completion rates, among other success measures” (Ansell, 2017). Typically, when discussing the achievement gap, educators are comparing the academic progress of African-American students or Hispanic students to the progress of white students. More-often-than-not the white students will have more educational achievements than their non-white colleagues (Ansell, 2017). The most widely accepted theory as to why students with higher socioeconomic status (SES) do better academically is high parental involvement, access to economic resources and access to highly qualified teachers (Huang, 2015. Pg.6). Students of low socioeconomic status often live in poverty. This means that the student may not have sufficient school supplies or even someone at home to help him with his homework. There are numerous children in the United States’ school systems that are failing due to the achievement gap. These students are at a disadvantage because the school systems and teachers do not notice or even care about their home life and how it comes into play in their education. It is important for our nation to not only understand the achievement gap but take steps toward correcting it.

Diane Ravitch advocates to “fix” schools and to coordinate with local to conclude the achievement gap between White American, African American and Hispanic American in The Fact About the Achievement Gap. First, to fix schools is a significant essential for decline achievement gap between different races. Although the reformer sustain that African American and Hispanic American should attend privately managed charter school or private or religion school instead of public school since reformers think that African American and Hispanic student do not have progress in the past decade, reformers ignore the increasing percentage of NAEP test, which test the students with the basic skills they need; however, instead of liberating from public schools,

The first public school in the United States opened in Boston in the year of 1821. By the end of the 19th century, public secondary schools began to outnumber private ones. Nevertheless, the education system started with many flaws. One of the biggest problems of the public educational system is that, although it gave the less advantaged an opportunity to learn, it did so in a segregated way. When we talk about the segregation of the past, everyone seems to agree that it was a real problem. However, when someone say the schools are still segregated today, many people (from advantaged social groups) would disagree. One thing to keep in mind is that, desegregation is not limited to having multiracial schools with students of color sitting next to white students. Desegregation goes beyond the school scope and family and community cultures also play an important role. To make things worse, the education system is having several problems on achieving its mission of preparing the youth to succeed personally and professionally. According to experts, the achievement gap shows how big those problems are. In order to understand why the achievement gap is related to today 's segregation, we need to understand what achievement gap is. The best definition of achievement gap, describes it as the difference in educational proficiency between students who come from high or middle class white families,

In the article "The Black-White Achievement Gap: When The Progress Stopped," NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress), discusses the past 45 years and how children in the black community have still not met the same success as their white counterparts. Not only has education been lacking in the black community but socio-economic growth and interpersonal relationships have seen a downward trend with little to no progress. Moreover, the resources available to higher income white children and low income black children is a stark difference. Focus on change has been slow. Progress to narrow the black-white achievement gap must be met with strong economic support not just from the government but from within the community.

Education is always indispensable, and every development comes from education. For example, the progression of manufacturing or devising the robot, phone and computer all establish in education. Without education, people could not have an advantageous life. In other words, the developments, convenient substances and achievements are from education. However, the society has been converting into complicated, and some inequalities and issues from education relate to income and the situation of families and communities which will beget achievement gap. For instance, The Facts about the Achievement Gap written by Diane Ravitch, mentions: “The children at the wrong end of the gap are likelier to attend schools in overcrowded classrooms with inadequate

“ Historically, low-income students as a group have performed less well than high-income students on most measures of academic success” (Reardon, 2013). Typically low-income families come from low-income parts of the state making a school that does not have as much funding as a higher economic schools does lack in resources for their students. The school then has lower paid teachers and administrators, with lower quality supplies. This results in a school which typically has faculty who do not perform as well as the well-funded schools. “The law fails to address the pressing problems of unequal educational resources across schools serving wealthy and poor children” (Hammond, 2007). Students from low and high income families will not be able to achieve the same education because their education simply is not the same.

This paper includes literature relating to the achievement gap with minority students verses non-minority students in America. In general, this literature seems to indicate that studies show that there is a large gap between minority students such as African –American, Native American, and Hispanic students’ vs non–minority students such as Caucasians in America. This is greatly seen in academics in the subject areas of math and reading. However this “gap” starts before students enter the instructional classroom; thus creating a challenge for many minority students to be successful academically and in their personal lives. Furthermore, the other unspoken factors that contribute to these student’s disadvantage are socio-economics, crime, poverty,

Firstly, the authors express that the wealth gap is one of the key issues that causes poverty and creates an abundance of inequality. Brink Lindsey, the vice president for research at the Cato Institute, writes “As of 2003, 80 percent of high school seniors from families in the top 20 percent of income enrolled in