preview

The achievement gap is often described as the academic discrepancy in the test scores of minority

Decent Essays

The achievement gap is often described as the academic discrepancy in the test scores of minority and other low-income students and the test scores in their White and Asian peers. However the gap in scores affect many different groups across many different walks of life in America. Different groups may trail behind their peers at different points in their academic careers. Classic examples are boys in their early years of schooling and girls in high school math and sciences. The differences between students from various backgrounds are more apparent on the large-scale standardized tests. The gaps in test scores more than often lead to longer-term gaps, including high school and college completion and even in the kinds of jobs these …show more content…

Statistics show that children from low-income families and low-income areas do not do near as well on standardized test as other children’s. A lot of the time this is because the low-income family living in the low-income area also lives in a low-income school district. These school districts are usually filled with bad teachers or good teachers that just don’t care anymore. Also because of the apathy towards learning presented by the surroundings of the students these children also develop the aforementioned apathy for learning. If you do not think learning is important then you will not apply yourself and this will lead you to doing poorly in the classroom and on these standardized tests.
The major problem is that the achievement gap is not a problem that can be easily fixed. It will require billions upon billions of dollars and even then it is not a problem that money alone can fix. It will take better students, better teachers, and better administrators in some of the worst public schools in America. However, this is not a problem that only affects the worst schools. Even the best of public schools show that their lower income or minority students do poorer in the classroom then their counterparts. How can we solve this seemingly unsolvable problem? It has to start from the top. From the legislatures that lead America, they need to give the American school districts the tools to reduce this

Get Access