What Are The Structural Factors In A Tale Of Two Schools: Race And Education On Long Island

In the article “Fremont high school”, Jonathan Kozol describes how the inability to provide the needed funding and address the necessities of minority children is preventing students from functioning properly at school. He talks to Meriya, a student who expresses her disgust on the unequal consideration given to urban and suburban schools. She and her classmates undergo physical and personal embarrassments. Kozol states that the average ninth grade student reads at fourth or fifth grade level while a third read at third grade level or below. Although academic problems are the main factor for low grades, students deal with other factors every day. For example, School bathrooms are unsanitary, air condition does not work, classrooms have limited

non-colored students. To obtain more details about these, I will be utilizing outside sources including, Gillian White’s article, “The Data are Damning: How Race Influences School Funding” and Seth Gershenson’s essay, “The Power of Teacher Expectations: How racial bias hinders student attainment”. These two sources directly correlate with the aspects of schools I want to focus upon. In fact, both of these are multi-modal as they have not only historical facts and personal testimonies, but also statistical data that illustrates how much racial bias is incorporated when deciding how much funds a school receives or how some faculty decide to treat certain groups of students. Referencing this data will definitely strengthen and give my claims a lot of credibility, leading me towards the end of my essay. To convince the remainder of audience who wants even more evidence than what I have presented, I will be ending my essay explaining the negative impact racial bias not only has upon lower grade public schools, but how it is affecting future college students as well. Jackie Kerstetter’s article “Racial bias hinder college degree attainment” extends upon my previous claims about teachers exhibiting racial bias has a negative impact upon colored students for the rest

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

Today, we know integration has a positive effect on almost every aspect of schooling that matters. We also know integration matters for all students. Both minorities and whites are disadvantaged by attending racially isolated schools, although in somewhat different ways. Predominantly minority schools as a whole had inadequate and unfair educational opportunities. First, these schools tend to serve predominantly poor students. Due to poor situations at home and by the student's friends and sometimes relatives these schools routinely had lower rates of achievement than students in mostly average income schools. This holds true regardless of a student's race or socioeconomic status. More importantly, predominantly poor and minority schools find it extremely difficult to attract and retain high-quality

In addition to wealth contributing to separated education, teachers based on their type of social class school perpetuate behaviors and learning strategies that either limit or expand students’ focuses and values, thus creating unequal development across different curriculums.

Geography played a huge part in my experience with K-12 education. In the study titled, The Geography of Inequality: Why Separate Means Unequal in American Public Schools (2012), Logan, Minca, and Adar noted that inequalities of performance between schools that have a majority of minority groups and found connections between the performance of school when looking through the lens of race and ethnicity. Key findings included that African American, Hispanic, and Native American students were most likely to attend a school that averages between the 35th-40th percentile (Logan, Minca, Adar 2012). Three types of high poverty schools were outlined; location in city center, majority African American and mixed location, and majority Hispanic (Logan et al., 2012). The school district that I attended for my K-12 education experience was nearly 95% white, located in the suburbs, and had low poverty. My education experience directly counters the education experience that my student engage in on a daily basis. This has created an internal motivation to

     Why do some groups not succeed in academic settings? One theory brought up in “Understanding inequality” suggests that the gap in the socioeconomic status drives the inequalities in the school system. The low and working class have less time and income to intervene with schooling. This means they have less time to meet with teachers, hire tutors, and provide continuous transportation. Therefore the lower class can’t possibly compete with the middle and upper classes. Angela Valenzuela gives the accounts of some Hispanic students’ experiences in school. These students feel that it is the inferior nature of the schools in the US that contribute to the low success

This paper includes a reference list of literature relating to the impact socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity has on academic achievement and what can be done to combat the achievement gap. In general, the literature seems to indicate that socioeconomic status has a greater impact then race or ethnicity on achievement. However, these constructs are often intertwined. The greatest source for combatting the achievement gap are teachers high in self-efficacy, strong and well directed principal leadership, having a positive and accepting racial climate, smaller class sizes, less harsh discipline with more support

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

spent about $8,000 yearly on the education of a third-grade child in a New York City public

The American education system is failing the generations of the future. Society neglects the children born into impoverished areas, while mainly white upper class children participate in superior educational activities. Low-income neighborhoods often produce schools with low scoring students. Therefore the government transitions these schools into impersonal factories. The phrase diversity masquerades the reality of re-segregation of schools. Many schools across the country are utilizing the phrase diversity, yet the statistics reveal that over ninety percent of the students are black or Hispanic. Creating successful environments is extremely difficult and subsequently results in serious consequences for the American education system.

In the article “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Education Apartheid” author Jonathan Kozol informs us about inequality and segregation in today’s school systems. Kozol talks about schools were minority’s makes up the student body. For example, Kozol refers to John F. Kennedy High School where the majority of the student body is made up by African Americans and Hispanic students, only a third of the students are white. Kozol states that schools like these are typically underprivileged schools that normally have structural issues and also lack behind in technology and resources for students. Kozol also brings up the predominately white schools where on average there is more money spent on students and funding is not a problem, these

In the primarily African American cities within the United States education in school systems is absolutely terrible. Not only that but also the children in the schools wouldn’t stay in them long enough to get a high school diploma. This mixed with the preconceptions southern white plantation owners had of African Americans circa 1860 led many people to believe that African Americans were not psychologically equal to people of other races and ethnicities. This series of transitive thinking made me wonder why are these school systems so bad? The answer was simple lack of

Secondary education is a highly debated subject. Many critics of secondary education say that inner-city high schools and students are not receiving the same attention as students from non inner-city high schools. Two of the biggest concerns are the lack of school funding that inner-city high schools are receive and the low success rate in sending inner-city high schools graduates to college. Critics say that while inner-city high schools struggle to pay its teachers and educate its student’s non inner-city high schools don’t have to deal with the lack of school funding. Also students from non inner-city high school are not being given the opportunity to attend colleges once the

In the era after WWII, families were frequently moving to the suburbs, creating more of a gap between lower-class families and African American families that remained in the cities. In the cities, suburbs, and the south, schools were mostly segregated and limited opportunities African Americans to attend secondary schooling. In the 1940s and 1950s there was backlash to the idea of integrating schools, regardless of the students circumstances. Most Black students had to attend a school that was further than a predominantly white school.