The Problem Of Ineffective Schools And Teachers

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

According to the discussion, “Our failing schools. Enough is enough!” by Dr. Geoffrey Canada, who has spent decades as head of the Harlem Children’s Zone. Canada says "The education system look so similar to the way it did 50 years ago, millions of students were failing then, as they are now, and it’s because we’re clinging to a business model that clearly doesn’t work" (Canada, 2013). Instead of coming up with a new plan that could help students advance academically, the system chooses not to contribute because they are afraid of innovation. Ted encourages "the system to look at the data, think about the customers and make systematic shifts in order to help greater numbers of kids excel"(Canada, 2013).

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

African Americans are not the only ethnicity group to be singled out with behavior. Racial and ethnic minority students report experiencing low teacher expectations, having less access to educational resources, being placed on lower educational tracks, and being steered toward low-paying employment (Kozol, 1991; Olsen, 2008).This low expectation is causing

From my school experience I have seen many teachers who seem indifferent about their teaching. Most of them just teach you what you need to pass a test, and never talk about it again, even if you do not fully understand it and did bad on the test. This experience is only from twelve years of schooling, starting in preschool and now to my senior year. This makes John Taylor Gatto’s claim that much more interesting and believable, considering he was a teacher in some of the best and worst schools of New York City for almost thirty years. He claims that the American school system as it is structured now, it is not beneficial to either the teachers or the students. The teachers are bored and unmotivated to teach, which leads to the kids being

Currently, general education classrooms have increasingly become diverse with both disable students and students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In order for educators to ensure that they effectively teach these classrooms, meet the needs of each student both successfully and individually, effective research that is based on strategies need to be implemented. The U.S. Department of Education suggest that, the current school-age population is becoming more diverse as time passes, yet, majority of the teachers in these schools are white non-Hispanic women. According to another report by The Condition of Education in 2006, American schools are portraying increased diversity and growth. The report suggested that, forty two percent of students in public schools were ethnic or racial minorities in the year 2003; this increased from twenty two percent since 1972. Owing to these reasons, teachers in these schools are expected to educate a diversified class of students including those that come from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Teachers are therefore, required to implement a number of key strategies that will ensure that every student in specific classroom feels that he or she belongs there (Worrell, 2010).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the detrimental effects institutional racism in education has on Latino academic achievement. Consideration is given to the role of educators in perpetuating racist attitudes; the ineffective acculturation measures and the adverse effects resulting from the diminished academic expectations. Latino children exit K-12 systems deficient of the necessary skills to thrive in higher education or in the workplace; facts which foster complacency. Qualitative and quantitative data are used to support arguments and observations.

Research has been conducted and the study showed that, "Latino students perceived that teachers' actions escalated disciplinary problems and believed that administrators used unfair and discriminatory practices"(90). Educators will never be able to teach students if the students perceive them as being racist. The degree to which education for cultural diversity is realized depends on the teacher's attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. They make the mistake of mismatching their own life experiences and professional training. Le Roux realizes that an increasing diverse school population encounters a mostly middle-class teaching force that is inadequately prepared to manage the reality of diversity in schools, and that is due to lack of knowledge of diversity (46). He also states that some teachers make the mistake of generalizing about particular ethnic groups and cultural groups, as a result of being exposed during training to information about culture; that is very dangerous in itself. Educators also focus mostly on general characteristics of a group instead in a single individual, and this is wrong because each individual is unique and should not be generalized by culture (Le Roux 46).

According to Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell in the book “Hispanics and the future of America” another problem may be teacher’s perceptions of their student’s abilities.

Every teacher tries their hardest to cater to every student in each of their classes. Anytime I hear them talking it is always about what they can do for this student or they’re asking another teacher on what they do for a certain student. Everything they do here is in order to see the student succeed. It may not be easy all the time but it gets done if everyone does their part. I do believe the students need to appreciate this school more than they do. They act as if this school has nothing to offer and does nothing for them. What they don’t realize is how easy they have it here, they get fed reality piece by piece unlike students in other places who get thrown into a huge abyss of confusion and told to fend for themselves. They get after-school tutoring from teachers who stay late to help and content recovery when they haven’t done well on their assignments; I don’t of many schools who do that for their students.

As I began my teaching career, I observed the same phenomena. My male African-American and Latino students were performing at a lower rate than other subgroups. At a newer high school in

A study on self-fulfilling prophecy was conducted and the threat on the Latino community and its relationship with academic achievement. This study, sought to discover the negative influence that self-fulfilling prophecy has on the widening gap between advantaged and disadvantage groups. Teachers hold lower expectations for Latino/students than for Euro-American students (Guyll, Madon, Prieto, & Scherr, 2010). Self-fulfilling prophecy may begin with classmate resisting to work collaboratively with a Latino/a student because of language barriers. This may cause them to disengage from school and decrease motivation. As a result, they internalize feelings that they lack academic abilities making the self-fulfilling prophecy a reality. Latinas

This question has always been part of my daily thinking since I was in middle school. I grew up in Mexico, so I went to Mexican schools until third semester of college, before moving to California. Since I was a kid, when I was in elementary school, I could see how teachers treated in a different way a student from another. It was common to see favoritism, more than the one I can see here working for the school district here in Long Beach. Sadly, since the beginning of the scholar year, some of my classmates were more focus to gain the teacher’s trust or her/his love rather than trying to learn and pay attention to classes. At the same time, most teachers would judge a kid from its family background.

After many years in the classroom and several as a facilitator, there were many situations that I have observed and or been a part of that did not make me happy I found myself saying what I would have said or done if I was the principal of the school. My heart began to break for those students that were in classes with teachers that did not seem to really care about whether or not the students actually got it but more so doing the bare minimum to say that the skill had been taught. I saw children struggle. I saw children and parents with hurt feelings and then angered by the way a teacher had treated or talked to them. I even saw some teachers that just did not care. I wanted that to change. For years I put off going back to school. I got my Masters in Education right after I

When analyzing the problem with college students and their lack of vocabulary there are noticeable problems with the attrition rate, percent in reduction, of teachers due to either retiring, stopping teaching, or transferring to other schools. When teachers stop teaching, it greatly impacts the students who lose the ability to be taught by experienced teachers. This impacts the education high school students receive. According to Alliance for Excellent Education, “…the single most important factor in determining student performance is the quality of his or her teachers” (Issue Brief 1). If the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in a students education shouldn’t states and school districts focus attention on helping new teachers stay teaching and become experienced rather than spending money to hire and re-train new teachers every year? Since experienced teachers are not teaching students the results are detrimental on high school graduates. “Only about 30 percent of high school students read proficiently, and more than a quarter read