The Global Achievement Gap Analysis

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.

“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.

To survive in such a multifaceted and diverse world we as people must possess the ability to think critically in highly complex situations. The world is an extremely challenging place, all of us are forced to adapt by constantly challenging existing principles and performing certain methods to ensure our growth both physically and mentally. Many claim that contemporary society needs a skill called critical thinking to adapt and survive. Critical thinking is a higher level of intellectual progression that makes use of diverse information, skills and attitudes in interpreting situations and confronting problems. Critical thinking is done

       Public schools have discovered the importance of critical thinking, many people are trying to teach children how to do it. The problem is that very few teachers know how to do. Robert Sternberg, an early advocate of critical thinking in teaching,

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

The widening achievement gap contributed to inequality of wealth in the classroom is a topic that educators tackle on a daily basis. In his article The Widening Income Achievement Gap, Sean Reardon discusses how, historically, lower income students have not performed at the level of higher income students (Reardon, 2015). What causes this disparity in academic achievement? Is it simply access to money that gives students from higher income families a leg up when it comes to school or are there deeper, farther reaching contributing factors?

The achievement gap is difficult for children just entering school because the bar has already been set to where some of those children are going to land. At the age of three, children of people with careers have vocabularies that are nearly 1.5 times greater than those of working class children, and nearly double the children whose families are on welfare.” This statistic shows that even children at the age of three experience the achievement gap because of their own home life. It is imperative to reduce or eliminate the Achievement Gap in the U.S. To do this we must identify the problem, balance and control the funding, increase our teachers’ abilities and explain the benefits of closing the gap permanently.

The achievement gap is difficult for children just entering school because the bar has already been set to where some of those children are going to land. At the age of three, children of people with careers have vocabularies that are nearly 1.5 times greater than those of working class children, and nearly double the children whose families are on welfare.” This statistic shows that even children at the age of three experience the achievement gap because of their own home life. It is imperative to reduce or eliminate the Achievement Gap in the U.S. To do this we must identify the problem, balance and control the funding, increase our teachers’ abilities and explain the benefits of closing the gap permanently.

“Achievement Gap.” These are two of the most powerful and controversial words in the educational field today. Professionals use the term achievement gap to refer to the differences in performance, whether it be test scores, attendance, drop-out rates, graduation rates, etc., amongst the various student populations in education. There have been many educational policies and reforms in an attempt to narrow the achievement gap amongst the various ethnic groups namely, “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB), whose goal is the acquisition of English for all students (Spring, 2013). While this may indeed be important, one cannot simply dismiss the cultures represented by the plethora of students enrolled in public schools. Only through teacher education of different cultures and the adoption of other forms of language education can steps be taken to reduce the achievement gap in American Education.

Tony Wagner’s book, The Global Achievement Gap In 2008, provided a wakeup call to educationalists, especially in the US. A Harvard education professor, Wagner’s view is that schools should be turning out adolescents who are ‘jury ready’. By that, he means able to reason their way through conflicting arguments, weigh evidence, detect bias and come to an well-versed ending. His informed conclusion is that secondary education – at least in the US – is failing sadly. It sort out this matter, he mentions that the education system needs serious transformation and a step back from preparing students to pass standard tests and must be training oriented in seven skills which in return will prepare them for today’s fast-paced global knowledge economy.

This generation of students are called unmotivated, and unwilling to learn. Many gaps won't allow educators to educate these students adequately. The global achievement gap which “is the performance of our students who are economically disadvantaged or who come from low-income backgrounds compared to our middle-class students” (). Many factors attribute to this achievement gap, but two main factors that have to attribute are assessments achievement and negative views of low-income students. These two factors are highly responsible for contributing to the achievement gap in the United States.

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

According to Supon, one of the fundamental purposes of teaching critical thinking is to enhance the abilities of students to become critical thinkers. Corporate leaders, educational researchers, employers, and parents have continually pushed teachers to assist their students in the development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that ?involved not only knowledge of content by also concept formation and analysis, reasoning and drawing conclusions, recognizing and avoiding contradiction, and other essential cognitive activities? (Supon, 1998).

When defining the term “critical thinking” it can seem overwhelming and daunting, especially for young learners. In laments terms, you are teaching your student how to think for him or herself when it comes to problem solving. Instead of giving the student the answer, you give them the tools to discover the answer him/herself. Critical thinking is an important component of any classroom. No matter the age group, these skills stay with a child for the rest of his or her life. As a teacher, it is important to understand what critical thinking pertains to and how to structure part of your lesson plan around developing critical thinking skills.

Education plays an imperative role in developing these skills. Young and Warren (2011), in their review of the education literature, stated that a number of cross-sectional research studies have shown that a student’s critical thinking ability can improve while at college. While Parcarella and Terenzini (2005) approximate that a student can improve their critical thinking skills by 63% by the end of their sophomore year. According to Hurt (2007) these skills must be developed consistently, purposefully and rationally over time to enable students to appropriately respond to the intricate issues that the working environment