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Equality of opportunity in education
Reforms and changes in the education system
Reforms and changes in the education system
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The Achievement has been a reoccurring issue for many years within the education system. Achievement gaps refers to the academic performance within a set of students. The most vital indicators pertaining to the achievement gap is reviewing standardized tests, course selection, dropout rates, and college completion rates (Morris 227). This issue has been reoccurring because of the various attempts of reforms to close the gap. Some of the reforms to decrease the gap is “No child left behind act 2001”, recovery act, P-12 reform, and many more. It can be argued that these first reforms changed the education system to any extent. However it is evitable to find the most successful reform for the United States increase economically. Which is why this topic is important for North Carolina. The achievement gap is sustainably defined by the differences among not only racial groups but subgroups as well. …show more content…
This is followed by the P-16 education policy movement which seeks an aligned curriculum of learning across all levels of from preschool to post-secondary education. Obama also argued “that the shrinking proportion of American with college education and the growing high school and college drop-outs are a prescription for economic decline (Carey 445). Viewing economics from a national stand point one will have to understand the severity of an Americans civil duty. Understanding the achievement gap on racial groups and among socioeconomic lines refers to African Americans, Hispanics, and certain Asian groups. The gap has shifted to the conclusion of racial groups being a factor over the last five years from going from limited economic stability to achieve a smaller achievement gap. Although there has been many reforms over the past year one factor that is evident is the racial groups (Toreff
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 regard to the most effective way to close the gap. The gap appears before children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood (Jencks 1998). Since 1970, the gap has decreased about 40 percent, but has steadily grown since. Theories suggest the Black-White achievement gap is created by a multitude of social, cultural, and economic factors as well as educational opportunities and/or learning experiences. Factors such as biased testing, discrimination by teachers, test anxiety among black students, disparities between blacks and whites in income or family structure, and genetic and cultural differences between blacks and whites have all been evaluated as explanations for the Black-White achievement gap (Farkas 2004). The research that follows will elaborate on these factors as they affect the decline in academic performance of black males—particularly the literacy achievement of black males.
Achievement gaps in schools across America impinge on racial-ethnic and socioeconomic status groups. For generations school systems focus on improving the achievement gaps for low-income and minority students. Statistics have provided evidenced that the school systems made enormous progress between 1970 and 1988, but came to a halt thereafter. Presently in the 20th century the gap has widened and the need for improvement is challenging for the school administr...
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 advantage of the resources that are offered, for various underlying reasons. This in turn manufactures less people of this type of culture to be readily available for higher paying jobs, and often times unemployable for a job at all. The Achievement Gap in America is influenced by many cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors that separate lower and higher achieving students based on these factors, and leave a high amount of unemployed Americans as a result, if not incarcerated or deceased.
The United States places a great deal of importance on education and continuing to be a leader in the realm of education. If the United States wants to continue on this road it must take a good look at the achievement gap that has been created and growing. In a system where in high school 34% of black students are being held back, and are more likely to drop out before receiving a high school diploma it is essential to understand what has caused this gap and ways to help close it. When African Americans first came to this country becoming educated was not something they were allowed to do, they had to wait years and years to even learn how to write without there being consequences. When the opportunity did come along for African Americans to become educated and schools were created for them and by them, there have still being hurdles for them with chances of schools losing accreditation, and financial support for students. Policies, laws, and initiatives must really become priorities to help African Americans to ensure that they are allowed to succeed and achieve the same goals and lives as everyone else. Making sure there are able, understanding, and qualified teachers teaching students is also very important. Teachers play such a big role in the lives of students and helping them to succeed not primary and secondary school, but also continuing their journey’s into places of higher learning. This is a problem that can be fixed as long as we are serious about true equality and opportunities for
...he United States. With funding for this policy, there came a desire to prevent student loan interest rates, for college students, from increasing further. This goal is in the favor of college students who are, working towards, or who are hoping to work towards, an affordable degree. However, feedback from teachers throughout the country suggest that the aims of the policy itself are not effectively resulting in higher test scores and are instead causing greater problems within schools. With all of this being addressed, one could determine that the total effectiveness of Obama’s Race to the Top reform is limited in its successfulness on improving the United States education system. Despite this, future policies should continue to be implemented in an active attempt towards making necessary adjustments to the problems centered around the United States education system.
Most educators and parents would desire an educational system where all students receive a balanced education that will afford all students the ability to compete in our ever changing society. This desire is great among students who live in economically challenged environments and those who attend poor schools. These students are at most risk of receiving a a proper education. This is partly due to lack of funding, and the inability for those poor schools to afford highly qualified teachers. Much controversy stems from this issue, poor schools not being able to afford highly trained teachers, students not having access to improved curriculums and extraordinary dropout rates. In an effort to combat these issues, the Bush administration implemented an act that purported to help schools to receive necessary funding for qualified teachers and to close the racial and ethnic gaps, known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA). However, the NCLBA failed to deliver on its promises and left already struggling schools and children in disarray attempting to reach government mandates rather than ensuring a balanced education for every student.
Many efforts have been made to bridge this gap between these various groups. Endeavors like teacher incentive programs, alternative route programs, the No Child Left Behind Act provide examples of attempts to increase quality educational opportunities offered to individuals from underprivileged communities. In attempt to reach out specifically to the African American community, an array of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has been founded nationwide. For years, these institutions have been a great source of pride and accomplishment for the black community and the nation in the effort to close the achievement gap.
One important lesson of the past decade, however, is just how difficult it is to close longstanding achievement gaps experienced by students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English Learners, and racial and ethnic minorities. We know from research that these gaps often start during the first years of life, even before children enter our education system, with children from low-income families starting kindergarten, on average, 12 to 14 months behind their peers in language development and pre-reading skills.
Develop an argument on or some ideas of understanding about curriculum as multicultural text by relating the works of Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, Delpit, Duarte & Smith, Greene, Nieto and Sletter to your experience of curriculum, teaching, and learning as affirming diversity. You could think specifically about the following questions: Is there a need for diversity in curriculum studies and designs? Why? What measures do you think will be effective in incorporating such a need into curriculum studies and designs? What is the relevance of diversity to your career goal, to education in your family, community, and school, to education in Georgia, and to education in general? In which way can you develop a curriculum which helps cultivate empathy, compassion, passion, and hope for citizens of the world, and which fosters social justice?
In society, education can be seen as a foundation for success. Education prepares people for their careers and allows them to contribute to society efficiently. However, there is an achievement gap in education, especially between Hispanics and Blacks. In other words, there is education inequality between these minorities and white students. This achievement gap is a social problem in the education system since this is affecting many schools in the United States. As a response to this social problem, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed to assist in closing this achievement gap by holding schools more accountable for the students’ progress. Unsuccessful, the No Child Left Behind Act was ineffective as a social response since schools were pushed to produce high test scores in order to show a student’s academic progress which in turn, pressured teachers and students even more to do well on these tests.
United States Commission on Civil Rights. (2004). Closing the achievement gap: The impact of standards-based education reform on student performance. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.
Social inequality is a concept that is growing in today’s 21st century. It can be seen at work but as well in education. Recently social inequality has become popular in education. In the article "What’s Causing the Gap?" written in the Los Angeles Times, explains the causes for the achievement gaps in low income communities and high income communities, but as well as deciding whether it is worth trying to close the achievement gap. Another article, "Education Gap between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider," by Eduardo Porter written in the New York Times, illustrates the idea of why there is a gap in education giving many examples like the neighborhoods they live to the pre-kindergarten they attend. This education gap affects the children in
In our education system there is a long list of factors that can have an impact on one’s racial and ethnic background. There are three of these factors which are Tracking, the lack of Mentors and, Achievement Gaps. Tracking is the separation in the Education system of students and their performance. Lacking mentors is the ability for children of lower income populations to receive extra help that mentors can provide. Achievement gaps are the huge gaps between the academic performance between African Americans and Hispanics compared to White/European Americans. These factors are just small in compared to the amount of problems total in the education system of America.
Over this past year, there was a single utmost outstanding accomplishment that has given me a constant source of pride and achievement above all else. During the summer prior to my senior year, I took part in Miami Dade’s paid internship program. During the school year, my Information Technology teacher personally told me about the internship program and emphasized that I attend the presentation taking place. After attending the presentation, I became interested but uncertain what to expect from this internship experience. Prior to this, I had never worked in a corporate IT environment. Despite that, I realized this experience would ultimately benefit me more than anything I have ever accomplished.
In urban schools that have access to technology on the daily bases are exceling on their state exams. For example, An Achievable Dream is a school that is design to give our students who are at risk of failure in school due to socioeconomic factors, a chance to succeed. Students in kindergarten through 12th grade are offered a quality education in a nurturing environment, technological support as well as the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with caring adults. This school has a student body of approximately 100% minority and 83% of these student are at an economically disadvantage. In the Subject Proficiency Test these students are exceling. Student exit exams receive grades among multiple proficiency levels established by the state. These figures displayed below shows how the school as a whole performed in different subjects.