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Inequality in education in america
Inequality in american education
Introduction for no child left behind act paper
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This paper explores the way social inequality affects schooling. In a classroom setting, one student can be treated unequally just because of their race, ethnic background or religion. Taking notes from Purcell- Gates and Boykin, A.W. & Noguera, P., the topics of ethnicity and the achievement gap will be discussed in the event that all students should be treated equal. Also bringing in the topic of the “No Child Left Behind Act” introduced by former president George W. Bush in 2001 and was signed into law in 2002. For a long time, social inequality places a negative effect on schools around the country. The common urban verse suburban educational battle has been going on for way to long and there is a fix that needs to be made.
Social Inequality Affecting Schooling
Numerous studies have found that social inequality starts before a child has begun formal schooling. First documented at the start of kindergarten, these gaps become more widely sufficient as the child moves up in grade level. Achievement gaps show up starting from preschool to college, with all subjects of academic skills and at home literacy. Where the educators and leaders have been trying to terminate the gap during the last several years, it has commonly been failed due to
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the lack of school funding and at home literacy. In a classroom, depending on the community, there exist Caucasians, African Americans, Asians, Muslims, and countless more students with ethnic backgrounds. One of these backgrounds do include the teacher and possibly a teacher’s aide. Now, how does this effect anything? Because of the achievement gap and possible racism, students who stand not up to par with the teacher’s standards can affect the student’s individual learning assessment. Students who are of those ethnic backgrounds do have a disadvantage because of society. One who is of a darker skin color has the same anatomy as one who has a lighter appearance. This ought not to affect any students leaning ability because in the end, we are all built to learn the same. Unfortunately, more or less teachers do play favorites with their personal race opinion. This harms student’s grades who do have high potential for excellent achievement. The “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) act was placed into law in 2002 by former present George W Bush. When NCLB was established, teachers were evaluated thoroughly. They were assessed on how successful their students did on the state testing. Even if the students had a learning disability, their grade was a reflection of the teacher. First of all, teachers blamed the knowledge gap on parents, stating that they were not providing a proper breakfast to enable students to learn to their full potential. Second, they blamed the gap on the students themselves. Finally, they blamed the knowledge gap on other previous teachers. If students don't understand the information, yet still acquire the grades, in later years they will struggle more for the reason that they didn't understand the information when it was first being taught to them. Overall, the school system has shied away from actual learning and more of the meaning of teaching for a test. Testing in a classroom setting has become more difficult over the years. Teachers sometimes will grade the paperwork on the student and what their appearance is, their motivation level and their ethnicity. As painful as that sounds it is an issue that classrooms are dealing with. A way to lower that issue is anonymous testing. Each student will be given a number, the teacher does not recognize the number the student is given. The student will take the test and the teacher will grade each test with just the material in mind. Although this may have been done before, this way of testing should be brought up into more. This can also boost children’s confidence with testing and ease test anxiety which is becoming and major issue these days. Testing is not supposed to be a challenging aspect of learning. Testing is made to lightly keep the students on track of what they identify and need to work harder on. Testing now has been the core part of the school. Which has made students to temporarily memorizing information for a test, formerly forgetting what they have learned because new material is being tested all the time. Teachers are being pressured to teach students in ways that will generate worthy grades, instead of teaching students to understand what is being taught. If there are children who do have a harder time grasping the material, for example, children who are deficient in literacy knowledge do not essentially say that they cannot learn depending on their social class or social inequality. Every student has a fair chance at learning and it is what they decide to do about it. If more or less students do not have the ability to learn greatly at home, they can ask for extra assistance from their teacher. If a student has a learning disability, there are special classes that create a world of a difference. Every single student has the opportunity to succeed and it is what they put into learning for them to grow from it. Therefore, it has led to students not thriving in the classroom and the educators expose a lost cause in which they seem to not know how to fix. There is a fight to close the achievement gap, however, it is a complicated process. Despite the faults and disadvantages, the NCLB constituted a fundamental break from the idea that the connection between race and intelligence was incontrovertible there are three achievement gaps that must be met simultaneously. The one between White students and their Black and Latino counterparts. The one between U.S students and students in other parts of the world. Finally, the one between urban and suburban families. To treat children equally and become that teacher who looks beyond the child’s test grades is what our country needs. To not take note in the gradebook that a child is Black, White or Latino. To not retain in the back of our mind if they are Catholic, Jewish or Muslim. Children are children, they want to learn how to read and write. They also want to create friends from school and have their birthday party at the local bowling alley. Every child should be included for the reason that they are all children with the same wants and needs. Analysis The social inequality affecting schools and how students learn as a whole.
This long going debate has been perceived as the social norm for years to come, however, this demeaning way of schooling should not be included in the curriculum any longer.
Conclusion
Social Inequality Affecting Schooling is what makes or breaks children. Any child can exceed in school if they work hard. Not memorizing a couple chapters for a quiz, or failing a paper because they are Black. Learning is a tool that is a right. In conclusion, classrooms do not and should not be demeaning, in the future of educators there is a goal that no child will not lack the educational experience they deserve because of social
inequality.
In the essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal” by Jonathan Kozol, the situation of racial segregation is refurbished with the author’s beliefs that minorities (i.e. African Americans or Hispanics) are being placed in poor conditions while the Caucasian majority is obtaining mi32 the funding. Given this, the author speaks out on a personal viewpoint, coupled with self-gathered statistics, to present a heartfelt argument that statistics give credibility to. Jonathan Kozol is asking for a change in this harmful isolation of students, which would incorporate more funding towards these underdeveloped schools. This calling is directed towards his audience of individuals who are interested in the topic of public education (seeing that this selection is from one of his many novels that focus on education) as well as an understanding of the “Brown v. Board of Education” (1954) case, which ties in to many aspects of the author’s essay. With the application of exemplum, statistics, and emotional appeals, Jonathan Kozol presents a well developed argument.
The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the reality of inner-city public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems.
Savage Inequalities, written by Jonathan Kozol, shows his two-year investigation into the neighborhoods and schools of the privileged and disadvantaged. Kozol shows disparities in educational expenditures between suburban and urban schools. He also shows how this matter affects children that have few or no books at all and are located in bad neighborhoods. You can draw conclusions about the urban schools in comparison to the suburban ones and it would be completely correct. The differences between a quality education and different races are analyzed. Kozol even goes as far as suggesting that suburban schools have better use for their money because the children's futures are more secure in a suburban setting. He thinks that each child should receive as much as they need in order to be equal with everyone else. If children in Detroit have greater needs than a student in Ann Arbor, then the students in Detroit should receive a greater amount of money.
The article I chose to research is entitled Cultural Code-Switching: Straddling the Achievement Gap by Jennifer Morton. It was published in September 2014 and placed in the journal of political philosophy, with regards to education as well. The goal of the article was to point out the inequality that comes with the educational achievement gap and how to begin to fix the issue that has arisen. Morton explains that political, institutional, and structural factors lead to the segregation of poverty in minority communities because of their lack of access to educational and health service, reliable public transportation, and job (Morton 275).
After watching the Teach Us All documentary on Netflix, it opened my eyes to many of the issues regarding educational inequality. The study looked at schools in Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles to show us the current state of U.S. education and how far we have come since the school desegregation crisis. The thesis of this documentary is that since the efforts of the Little Rock Nine, our belief is that educational inequality has improved when in reality, it hasn’t improved and the actions of our country have had negative effects. Teach Us All emphasizes the need for unity and collective action to improve our education system for the kids in poor communities that are in the most need. Our country has devoted all the resources to the middle and upper class for education and are taking money away from where it needs to
The inequality in Australian education can be attributed to a history of low expectations and discrimination placed on Indigenous people by the government and society. Aboriginal children were denied the right to education until the 1970s due to the discrimitory views of the government and society. The Indigenous population were the sub-standard race of humanity with little to no chance of succeeding in life and these attitudes affected the educational choices offered to them (Ray & Poonwassie, 1992). As the superior race, the Anglo-Celtic Australians, considered themselves both intellectually and socio-culturally more advanced than their inferior Aboriginal neighbours (Foley, 2013). As a consequence of these racially and culturally motivated preconceptions, children of Aboriginal descent were considered unskilled outside of their own and were deemed incapable of excelling in ‘civilised’ white society (Foley, 2013). As a result, the Australian Government, in an effort to civilise and nurture politeness within the Aboriginal people, constructed “structured” (p 139) education training institutions in 1814. However, these problems only provided sufficient schooling for menial work: Aboriginal male children were prepared for agricultural employment, while girls were trained for domesticated services (Foley, 2013). Thus, as a direct consequence of low expectation for life success, Aboriginal children were offered minimal schooling ‘consistent with the perception about the limitations inherent in their race and their expected station in life at the lowest rung of white society’ (Beresford & Partington, 2003, p43). According to Foley (2013) this combination of low expectations and poor academic grounding meant that Indigenous children we...
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 with schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school system 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 though the American Revolution constituted represented a tremendous strike against the old social order, its founding ideals could not be realized within the socioeconomic framework that existed in colonial America.
The means of justifying these inequalities are important for the entire world. Education played and will always play a big role in everyone’s lives. Equality in education will eventually guarantee every person a better position in society. Educational inequality is the difference in learning effectiveness and results as faced by students with varying backgrounds. The effects of educational inequality are not only left within the circles of education, but also remain further to have an impact on other life aspects. All over the world, there have been unending calls to reform education at each level. With various causes that are very much connected to society, history and culture, the educational inequality has apparently been one of the most difficult challenges to address. Regardless of the challenges faced in removing educational inequality, education has continued to be a very important part of society with a big expectation of moving it forward. In the current-day America, very many disadvantaged children have continued to grow up missing key skills. Discrimination has continued to persevere in educational achievement between racial issues. Above all, low performance levels among these disadvantaged children have over the years been responsible for the long-term issues, especially in such an society with higher levels of skills and a failing incomes offered to those people that are less-skilled.
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.
As we have discussed in class, the schools in neighborhoods with low economic status are not as good as those in west Los Angeles or Beverly Hills. I grew up in a bad neighborhood and have witnessed the severity of how bad the LAUSD School system is. My experience in the LAUSD system is the main reason why I choose to write about the disparities in education. Speaking from personal experience, for the most part, high school did a poor job in preparing me to be successful in college. The habits of a good student are developed at an early stage, which is why it is critically important for kids to receive proper education as early as possible.
"Growing Income Inequality and the Education Gap." Economist's View. N.p., 8 May 2006. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
Socioeconomic status can be defined in terms of family wealth and assets as well as educational background. For this reason, many comparisons can be made between socioeconomic status and education. Furthermore, academic achievement and the level of education reached by an individual, is determined by socioeconomic status. Research has shown that environmental circumstances and family issues greatly influence a child's future because the impact of the socioeconomic status depends on the level to which an individual becomes successful in life. Research also shows that family conditions can impact a child’s education and their quality of life. For example, being raised in a high-economic culture increases the chances that a child will attend
Obtaining a good education is probably one of the most sought out dreams in America. Although education is free for all American citizens, there are several obstacles that impact the population from receiving equal education benefits. Two groups that experience a difference when receiving an education are the rich and the poor. Inequality among different social classes in America can make it extremely difficult for the poor to receive the same type of education as the wealthy. These inequalities can lower the chance of individuals living in poverty stricken communities from receiving a reasonable education. Education can be impacted by location, wealth, and state funding. Each factor plays an important part in the education citizens across
Many people don’t want to believe that we are living in a social injustice environment in this country. They choose to ignore the fact that rich are getting richer while the poor are just getting poorer. The rich public schools are giving their students the necessary opportunities to live a decent life while the poor students are left out and have to struggle for those opportunities. The social injustice is visible to every citizen in this country and it continuing to grown; however, there is a few solutions to minimize and possibly to solve the social injustice problem we have in American. One of them is give equal education in all public schools so everyone can have an equal opportunities in getting the jobs and careers they choose. Second