Achievement Gap Theory

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

The causes of the achievement gap which mention in The Fact about the Achievement Gap, written by Diane Ravitch, relate to race and income. The racial achievement gap forms by an unfairness of obtainable teaching resources, and it appears between African Americans and White Americans. Comparing African Americans and White Americans, African Americans are the group that experiences the poorer life and the lower educational level because as Ravitch mentions: “African American have been subject to a long history of social and economic oppression and disadvantage.” The society tries to alter the situation by opening up some opportunities for African Americans, and it offers more opportunities to yield African Americans obtaining the educational

Differences in race have been proved not to be biological by scientists; as a result the issue of racial inequality shown in differences in economic standings and academic results between blacks and whites is not an effect of racism but is rather caused by differences in conducts. This disparity according to the writers of this article has been attributed to improper conducts and customs. In line with this frame, if black people were to conform to prevalent and seemly customs such as diligence, school attendance and also refrain from drugs and crime they would rise above their present social standing and be a part of the elite. Therefore black disadvantage is warranted and should not come as a surprise; it is “a kind of natural disaster not produced by

How should society handle the perceived differences between races when it comes to education? The goal of both researchers is to narrow the academic gap between white and black students. Both authors attribute the gap between the academic scores of black and white students from opposite sides of racial identity. As Dr. Beverly Daniels Tatum, President of Spelman College and clinical psychologist has written an article entitled “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” Her approach is from the perspective of the student and how they perceive their role and upper limits while maintaining their place in their peer group's expectations of their race. Dr. Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, has written an article entitled "The Facts about the Achievement Gap.” Her approach is from the perspective of how schools and society implicitly or explicitly cast students into achievement tracks based on their race. Both approach the same idea about racial identity, but they have different solutions, such as peer groups, the school board, and who is right about the solution.

Schools can’t solve the problem alone,” and” without local initiative, reformers cannot succeed.” The neighborhood is where the children grow up, so some of the small level programs depend on local promote. Third, do not ignore the stupendous gap of income. The achievement gap begins when children are young because some of them have had better medical care and have memorized more vocabulary than others because of highly educational parents. According to what Sean Reardon found, the income achievement gap is growing, and it is two times larger than black-white achievement. Therefore, to mend the schools, to act in concert with local, and not to neglect the large income achievement gap are the points that Diane Ravitch

Minnesota is known to have one of the largest academic achievement gaps between whites and minorities. Due note though many articles and studies focus more on between whites and blacks. Heather Brown states in her article Good Question: Why Such A Large Achievement Gap In MN Classrooms?, that only 4 out of 25 black students are college ready. In the 2010 census 19% of Minnesota comprises of black and American Indians. Minnesota has the lowest graduation rates for Hispanic and Native american in the country and the second lowest for blacks. THe AVID (Advancement through Individual determination) program may be the best way to reduce or eliminate the Achievement Gap.

A pathology that is linked to racial minorities with high crime rates, unstable families and disorganized communities with cultural values that prevent social or economic progress. Though immigrant crime rates were lower in the past with less homicides or violent attacks this was due to existing generations that hadn’t experienced poverty, unlike the black nation with about five-to-ten generations in poverty. Another example of how society has tried to blame existing ethnic problems on the ethnicity itself is the educational difficulties of black children. Creating myths such as them having a “biological defect” or saying that it was the cause of “cultural deprivation” within their homes and communities. An example of this is Clark, Glazer, and Moynihan stated that “Educational problems of black school children are from defective institutions of the black community…in home, family and community…heritage of 200 years of slavery and 100 years of discrimination…create obstacles in using a free education system to advance into higher occupations and eliminate social problems…” (Clark, Glazer, and Moynihan,

As minority students increased in urban public schools, they have now become the majority of the school population and have brought difficult topics to the surface; race and ethnicity. In Another Inconvenient Truth: Race and Ethnicity Matter, Hawley and Nieto published their beliefs on how cultural differences are not to be tucked away and hidden in an educational setting, but embraced and celebrated to promote education by the teacher in an academic journal: Educational Leadership. Their appeals and claims provide various instruction to guide professional educators to overcome the achievement gap.

In 1965, Lyndon B Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in an attempt to achieve more equity among minority groups within the education system. Along with the numerous attempts to close the achievement gap came America’s first federally funded state assessments, created with the intention of holding the nation’s schools accountable for providing a quality education for every student. This legislation was revisited in 2001 by the Bush administration with the No Child Left Behind Act, which saw the achievement gap that still existed among ethnic minority groups, but also recognised a prominent gap within poverty- stricken communities. With this came state tests that were more difficult and more frequent in an attempt to further

Whether on the scale of a school district, a state, or the nation, achievement gaps exist. Wealth seems to be the deciding factor, with race coming in at a close second, but these do not (and should not) be deciding factors. The State of Texas has developed The P-16 Initiative which seeks to close theses performance gaps between the poor and wealthy. Our textbook reads: “The P-16 is an effort to work with stakeholders collaboratively to foster a more integrated education system, while addressing issues of college readiness standards, teacher education, and educational

the term receivement gap is useful because it focuses attention on educational inputs-what the students receive on their educational journey, instead of outputs-their performance on a standardized test. This refocusing also moves attention away from the students as the source of these disparities, and toward the larger structure and forces that play a role in their education and development (p. 417). Venzant-Chambers (2009) asserted the issue of the Black and White achievement gap must be viewed through other lenses opposed to the single view of Black students cannot perform as well as White students. Venzant-Chambers (2009) offered other avenues by which to examine the achievement gap such as school tracking, examining the

Are Black Americans Dumber than White Americans? Can it unequivocally be stated that European Americans hold more intelligence then African Americans? Are African Americans genetically wired to have a lesser mental capacity then European Americans? For a long time this was the explanation to a burning problem. African Americans score lower than White Americans on vocabulary, reading, and mathematics tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. “This gap appears before children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood. The typical American black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized

The black/white racial gap dates back about fifty years to the Civil War. This gap is an ongoing problem. As stated in a previous discussion, the best way to look at this is to place a white and black student in a race. Not only does the white student have a head start but they have less obstacles to overcome. While through no fault of their own, these black students could have obstacles such as: their parents not graduating high school or college themselves which in fact contributes to a lower success rate for them, improper education where the teachers shorten the curriculum or even outside factors such as family or neighborhood interfere with the quality of education they receive or even being unable to attend school all together to take

As I read about the achievement gap (Taylor), I felt a sense of despair. Families of color are positioned between a rock and a hard place. When children enter kindergarten, the racial gap is half of its ultimate size because many children of color do not participate in high-quality programs. How can people of color "catch up" to their counterparts when they are behind at the age of 5? There are also institutional factors that continue this achievement gap and perpetuate racism by consequence. After Brown v Board of Education (1954), white families enrolled their children in private and suburban schools. Since school busing has been discontinued, school assignments based on residential neighborhoods have created racially segregated schools.

The socioeconomic gap that exists between white and black Americans is a topic that no one seems to know how to solve. In previous years it was easy to collectively point to one factor that caused this gap but in more recent times it has became a point of discussion and disagreement in the black community. The debate rests in the question of whether or not the socioeconomic gap between blacks and their white counterparts is a result of blacks being lazy or it is because of structural discrimination that are embedded in the laws and policies of the United States. The general consensus is that it is a mixture of the two explanations. People differ on how many of each explanation contributes to the problem and in turn they disagree on what the solution should be.