The Achievement Gap: Urban vs. Suburban Schools The public school systems goal in the United States is to provide every child with equal education. Unfortunately somewhere along the lines the education system in our country has failed to provide this equal education to many of our children, especially minority. It isn’t that the education is not there, but many other things such as urban parents, teachers, and the urban society itself affect a child’s education. When looking at the mandatory test scores of minority inner city students, specifically African American students, they are significantly lower than White American suburban students, hence the achievement gap.
Allowing them obtain better paying job opportunities. Create more jobs with better benefits for low income families as well as a way to get a better education. As stated by Arloc (2005), in figure 1 below, exams done to the Census shows that the U.S public benefits system helps to reduce the poverty in nearly half of Americans. Some of these children may not develop well-mannered vocabulary due to the majority of their parents having difficulty speaking proper English. In a poor socioeconomic group, students are more likely to drop out of school; this happens since the environment around them does not allow them to achieve an academic goal or have parents who support them.
For example, Wright (1992) found that teachers perceived and treated minority ethnic pupils differently from white pupils. Afro-Caribbean boys were often expected to behave badly and they received a disproportionate amount of negative teacher attention. Other sociologists claim that non-school factors such as family structure and home background have a greater impact on the educational achievement of different ethnic groups. Assess the claim that ‘ethnic differences in educational achievement are primarily the result of school factors’ (20 marks) Patterns of ethnic achievement are complex, cross-cut by gender and social class. For example Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students do worst compared to Indians and Chinese who do best.
Ethnic minorities are in there first generation of wealth and Marxist believe they primarily underachieve due to their class. Also they may not have the time and space at home to do school work. They may not have the funds for educational trips; and they
3 Globalization maintains a level of inequality between and among rich and poor countries. Globalization has increased international inequality in many ways; for example, being that poor countries may have been exploited in the past or present due to imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism or exploitation. In this situation, the Marxian point of view on imperialism and even the anti-globalization movement may be appropriate. These countries have had little time to recover their sovereignty, and are now expected to play in an international global market. Internal national inequality may also be an important factor in an underdeveloped country.
The Achievement Gap Between African American and White Students The low achievement of African-Americans in school is a reflection of a number of constant problems not only in the education system but in the society as a whole. Despite the fact that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test results showed that black students have made great progress when improving their performance in the subjects of reading and mathematics, a gap still separates them from their white peers. For example, there was a special examination completed by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2009 and 2011 that showed that black students trailed 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, a difference of about two grade levels. These gaps persisted even though the score differentials between black and white students narrowed between 1992 and 2007 in 4th grade math and reading and 8th grade math (NCES, 2009, 2011). Among the reasons for this problem is the issue of poverty, a very poor distribution of tax money for education, and some cultural conflicts.
Although tracking lets high achievers move rapidly and gives low achievers more help and easier goals, it is unfair to low achievers. Tracking is unfair because it provides poor peer models, teachers have low expectations, and minorities are conveniently concentrated in lower tracks, and low achievers are locked into the lower tracks because of a slow instructional pace that doesn't begin to keep up with other tracks. Tracking also increases the likelihood of failure for low achievers where the least is expected, and increases racial isolation as minority students are systematically placed into lower tracks (Meyers). “According to Rob Meyers, “When low achieving students are isolated from high achieving peers, they have little opportunity to acquire the high achievement norms and abilities required for future success”. According to the article “Tracking”, “Opponents of tracking trace the practice to the turn of the century when most children attending public schools were from upper-middle-class families, but large numbers of black and working-class students were starting to enter the schools as the result of compulsory schooling laws and rising immigration.” In response, a Separate curriculum was developed for the relatively small percentage of students destined for higher education and for the masses that went on to unskilled industrial jobs.
There are different social classes that divide poverty people from the richest people in every society. Many opinions are that globalization has led to the increased income inequality in the US and globally. In contrast, some opinions believe income inequality is due to improvements in productivity and technology. As we know, these inequalities have a profound impact on business and opportunities to expand in to foreign markets. We will see the existence of inequalities in the US and Egypt, and how each differ.
Just as some Hispanic students have difficulty getting help with their homework because there is not an English speaker at home to offer assistance. Minority students are more likely to come from low income households and poorer living areas resulting in the minority student to be more likely to attend poorly funded schools based on the districting patterns within the school system. Schools in lower income districts tend to employ less qualified 2 teachers and have fewer educational resources compared to students coming from middle and upper class families and homes. Many states have initiated several strategies to close the achievement gaps among children. Achievement gaps are being closely
Children with a lack of cultural capital are more likely to use the restricted code (limited vocabulary) which disadvantages them at school as they feel excluded and are therefore less successful. Working-class children typically use the restricted code. Bourdieu argues that cultural capital affects academic achievement as it ties in with educational capital. Middle-class children with cultural capital are better equipped to meet the demands of the school curriculum.