The Achievement Gap Among Minority Students

This paper is intended to explore and report upon the topics posited by Tyrone C. Howard in his book, Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in Americas Classrooms. Closely examining each and every chapter as they come and how the structure of this book gives a detailed framework and guidance system for novice and experienced teachers to take their pedagogical skills to more diverse and multicultural levels. Also, this paper will review a few lessons or projects that can be adapted and used within my personal educational institute in order to create

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

In my last paper, I discussed the achievement gaps within the low-income African American community at Steele School in Galesburg, IL. Now that I have looked into the history of low-income African American students, I am now going to research even more by exploring trends, issues, evidence-based remediation practices, the preferred learning styles and the identified achievement gap of low-income African American students. Through the chart I am going to display, this will show various ways that low-income African American students are struggling at Steele School. However, I am hoping with the information below I can use this to display to others how certain multicultural education, learning styles, and culturally responsive teaching can enhance learning environments for all underachieving students.

For example, analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2009 and 2011 showed that African American and Hispanic students were behind their white peers by an average of more than 20 test score points on the NAEP math and reading assessments at 4th and 8th grades, Which averages out to about 2 grade levels below their white peers. These gaps persisted even though the score of students tests between African American and white students narrowed between 1992 and 2007 in 4th grade math and reading and 8th grade math (NCES, 2009,

the term receivement gap is useful because it focuses attention on educational inputs-what the students receive on their educational journey, instead of outputs-their performance on a standardized test. This refocusing also moves attention away from the students as the source of these disparities, and toward the larger structure and forces that play a role in their education and development (p. 417). Venzant-Chambers (2009) asserted the issue of the Black and White achievement gap must be viewed through other lenses opposed to the single view of Black students cannot perform as well as White students. Venzant-Chambers (2009) offered other avenues by which to examine the achievement gap such as school tracking, examining the

These surveys give convincing evidence that the gaps have decreased over time, but are still widely spread. The authors conclude that it would take over 50 years to close the gap in reading achievement scores and over a century to close the gap in mathematics and science achievement scores. The adjusted gaps for social-class, family structure, and community variables were closing from 1965-1992. At this rate of change over the entire period, they would close in the same amount of time as the unadjusted gaps. The rate of change for the unadjusted gaps seem to have reversed after 1972. These results do not give a lot of support to the theory that the gaps in average test scores are caused by the differences in social-class and family structure. Thus, it supports the theory that the gaps in test scores are an outcome of other factors, such as discrimination.

Ravitch?s discussion on ?achievement gaps? points out that African American students academic scores have progressed remarkably since 1990 to 2011. She also states that the Hispanic and Asian have progressed as well. Achievement gaps will continue to be an issue, as long as there are different races, ethnic groups, the poor and the wealthy. The more disadvantaged one is, is going to lack in education and prosperity. To solve an issue like the achievement gap, we need to take action and begin at the root. These children are suffering because lack of proper education in the school system, which stems from the poverty in the segregated neighborhoods. Low income

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,

African American students in an affluent, suburban district have not successfully closed the achievement gap. These students’ are generally lower performing that whites and Asians and sometimes lower than Hispanic and/or socio-economically disadvantaged. According to Sohn (2012) the phenomenon of the black white achievement gap has returned. Slaven and Madden (2006) assert “The gap in academic achievement between African American (as well as Latino) children and their White peers is arguably the most important of all educational problems in the U.S.” (p. 389). This leads to continued disparity in educational goals and mastery and ultimately adulthood successes.

The Achievement Gap in America has separated and divided America's youth into more or less, two different cultures of socioeconomic placement. The first being the predominantly Caucasian students at American elementary schools, high schools, and colleges that excel greatly in their education. Most of the time earning them middle to upper class jobs in the economy, the aforementioned group contrasts significantly with its opposite culture of American youth. The second culture, the population that is mostly made up of the minority races, takes it's place in the American education system as the population of students who are less interested in getting a decent education and taking

Research shows that on average, there is an educational gap between different ethnicities. This gap is called the racial educational achievement gap and is often looked at as the difference in education between black, hispanic, and white students. Even though this gap is not true in all situations, it is a big enough problem that several organizations have taken extensive research to find out exactly what causes the racial achievement gap. Pinpointing the cause however is difficult because many factors contribute to the racial achievement gap. The more outstanding of

The achievement gap does not mean that African American and Hispanic students have not improved over the last years, in fact they have improved a lot, but white student’s test scores have also improved. The achievement gap is still a large gap because white, African American, HIspanics students are improving their test scores. The biggest reason that the achievement gap still exist is because not all students are treated equally; minority students are getting lower tests scores than white students because they don’t receive the same resources as white students. The author states the achievement gap started way before students even started school; it started when some students had better medicare, some children had parents who went to college, some students have more books than other. Thus, it all comes down to students not having equal resources, The only way to close the achievement gap is to try to close the inequality in America, this of course is impossible. As a Hispanic student I have been through the struggles and disadvantages minority students face. I know that as minority students we face many disadvantages, but I also know that we can surpass all these disadvantages and still succeed in

The achievement gap is defined as the an unequal or inequitable distribution of educational outcomes and benefits. Researchers have identified a variety of reasons why the achievement gap between whites and blacks continues to persist. Fryer and Levitt (2002) argue that initially there is no difference between equivalent Black and White children upon entering kindergarten. Supsequently as they continue in school they take very different paths due to Black children falling behind their White counterparts. Jencks and Phillips (1998) found that family experiences and preschool are instrumental in creating the achievement gap. They also argue that there is already a significant disparity between Black and White students as they enter kindergarten, which is different than the assertions of Fryer and Levitt.

The achievement gap is often described as the academic discrepancy in the test scores of minority and other low-income students and the test scores in their White and Asian peers. However the gap in scores affect many different groups across many different walks of life in America. Different groups may trail behind their peers at different points in their academic careers. Classic examples are boys in their early years of schooling and girls in high school math and sciences. The differences between students from various backgrounds are more apparent on the large-scale standardized tests. The gaps in test scores more than often lead to longer-term gaps, including high school and college completion and even in the kinds of jobs these

In his tables, Washington is listed as making a -2.7% difference to the achievement gap in mathematics (measured at grade 8) and a 1.0% difference in reading (measured at grade 4). When using just Blank, this state would appear to be missing their goals by a good margin. In an attempt to highlight effective teaching measures, the Washing State Board of Education (WSBE) published “Crownhill Elementary Case Study: Closing the Economic Achievement Gap”. This case study is written about Crownhill Elementary who has managed to start closing the SES achievement gap at their school and how they have managed it. The case study begins by explain that “Crownhill Elementary won three 2009 Washington Achievement Awards: overall excellence, math and language arts. They are closing the academic achievement gap in reading, writing, and math” (WSBE 2009). The study continues to state that when income effects are accounted for low income students have begun to outpace their counterparts with a higher SES. This shows that this school has become effective at empowering their lower income students to make greater gains than the rest of the state. WSBE continues to describe the demographics of the school. According to their statistics, Crownhill Elementary serves 59.7% of their student population free or reduced lunch, and it’s student body is 62% white, 8% Hispanic, 7% black, 4%