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Impact of the no child left behind act
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Review of the no child left behind act
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The achievement gap in education is the difference in academic performance between groups of students. The achievement gap is most commonly found in grades, test scores, course selection, and dropout rates both in high school and college. It is most often used to describe the troubling performance gaps between African-Americans, Hispanic students, and their Caucasians counterparts. It also measures the academic difference between students from low-income families and those who are better off. In the past fourteen years, policymakers have begun to focus their attention on how to reduce the achievement gap. After passing the “No Child Left Behind” Act, closing the achievement gap has become a focus of the educational system. This in turn meant school districts were required to disaggregate data to compare student performance according to their subgroup. This new method reveals a greater awareness of racial disparities and other sources contributing to the achievement gap. This newly found attention has led to more interventions for different groups of students. Unfortunately, over the past fourteen years these “interventions” have failed to close the gap. …show more content…
For example, a study by the National Center for Education between 2009 and 2011 showed that African-Americans and Hispanic students trailed their Caucasian peers by an average of more than twenty points on the NAEP math and reading assessments. That point differential is a difference of about two grade levels. These gaps continued even though the score differentials between African-American and Caucasian students have shrunk between 1992 and 2007 in math and reading (NCES, 2009,
The first issue that has been identified as a significant problem involved in the Achievement gap, is that it is partially the fault of America's educational system. Because of the suffering economy that has spurred the increasing lack of basic necessities in schools across America, there are an increasing number of children who are not being properly educated. Whether it is a deficiency in supplies, poor teacher selection, or administration and staff who are indifferent to the students at their sch...
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.
In her editorial, Achievement Gap (2011), Susan Ansell claims that the major educational gap between black and white students is due to lack of parental involvement and influence by the community. She supports this claim first, by analyzing that, “One in three black and hispanic children,” live in poverty; second, by analyzing the lack of parental involvement due to, “Being raised in a low-income family;” lastly, by showing the effects of living in low ranking school districts. Her purpose is simply to educate readers that this educational gap is caused by influence from the negative community impacts. Although her work seems contradicting, Ansell is able to establish a connection with readers who are trying to better their communities.
Today's education is often viewed as failing in its goal of educating students, especially those students characterized as minorities, including African American, Hispanic, and Appalachian students (Quiroz, 1999). Among the minority groups mentioned, African American males are affected most adversely. Research has shown that when Black male students are compared to other students by gender and race they consistently rank lowest in academic achievement (Ogbu, 2003), have the worst attendance record (Voelkle, 1999), are suspended and expelled the most often (Raffaele Mendez, 2003; Staples, 1982), are most likely to drop out of school, and most often fail to graduate from high school or to earn a GED (Pinkney, 2000; Roderick, 2003).
Conflict theory and Symbolic Interactionalism provide a useful guide to understanding the complexities of the achievement gap. The simultaneous inspection at the macro and micro level may provide interesting perceptions of the project at hand. The debate is ongoing, and research continues to unearth simalarities found in the data. As the debate continues, it is important to remember that the achievement gap has been an enduring problem for decades and will not be solved overnight.
The controversial part is that he doesn't show that this gap really happens because black people have been oppressed for a long period of time, and until the last one hundred years (or less) they have been able to develop culturally and economically, so they have a economic deficiency that prevents black people from getting the best education possible. In the other hand, white people have an economic advantage so their kids get a better education and a higher chance to get a better score. Also, this deficiency changes the priorities of a black kid, because he is going to be more interested in going to a technical school or community college so that he can be able to start working faster and help to maintain the family.
Many people believe that “having an economy that places a greater value on skills and education is a good thing” and that is the thing that is needed to improve people’s lives and futures (Baicker, Lazear). If what our economy is trying to do a good thing they why are so many students still suffering? The main issues are the low-income education that many students have. Many schools are getting money from the government but that is not enough to pay for everything students need. Educational standards have continued to increase throughout the years but that does not help the students who are unable to pay for the better education. These students who cannot pay for the better education are stuck barely getting by with a low education. A low-education can affect many areas of regular schooling. The students who are at low-income schools do not know what type of disadvantage they have compared to other students across the country. These students believe that they are getting the best education, but there are many students who are getting a better education at a school that has the funds to pay for everything their students need. Low-income students are suffering due to the environment they are in at school and they continue to suffer throughout their life due to it. These students will continue to suffer unless something is done about the low-income schools and improve them for the future. Improvement has to come from all areas, not just one aspect of schooling but from all aspects. Although education has improved along with technology many low-income students still suffer from the vast inequalities. These inequalities will take many years to find a way to fix and even more years to actually fix, until this happens the students will...
It is obvious that for several years, policy makers in the United States have sought means to discourse the racial attainment gap within the K-12 education (Atkinson, 2010). In spite of the enormous steps in education expenditure at the federal government and national level, the role of the government in education and achievement of national academic levels have remained stagnant. However, the steps made by Florida state shows that black and Hispanic students are now outscoring several reading average for overall students
There are many factors that play a role in the deficit of how well our students of today are doing academically. From environment to the actually teacher plays a crucial roll in filling in the achievement gap. It’s more than just the basic knowledge of knowing how to read, write and do math. A lot of social and emotional problems play a huge role in how successful our students can be. In order to close the achievement gap we have to do more than just teach the basic. In this paper I will discuss best practices that are used in school throughout the country in hopes 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.
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 of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school 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 when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most important, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students.
I mentioned earlier that within my own school, we have a problem with segregation between students that take different classes. While not an official program, my school system does have a practice of tracking students together based on achievement levels. Starting in elementary school students tend to grouped based on their academic ability. Often times you will see students of color and students from low-income families in what are often called the “bottom” classes. The students many times are then stuck in the classes that do not have the same high expectations as the one or two classes of our “top” students. Those “top” classes are often times over represented by the white students as well as students from more affluent families. Going back to Orfield, et al (2010), one way to keep this from happening is by “detracking” students (p 25). Oftentimes students are labeled at a young age and sent on track that will carry on all the way through graduation. Minority students, ELL students and students from low income families generally do not test well at young ages and then are put on track of education that has lower expectations than their peers that are from affluent white families. According to Orfield, et al (2010), schools that use detracking strategies for their students often see increased
Racial differences in schooling outcomes begin with the simplest measure of success: years of schooling. In 2013, 91 percent of Whites, in contrast to 83 percent of Blacks and only 60 percent of Hispanics (over 25 years of age) had at least a high school degree. The number of adult Americans with higher degrees followed a similar pattern; “only 19 percent of Blacks and 13 percent of Hispanic...
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.
The enactment of standardizes testing given to students to measure their academic abilities and supposedly will close achievement gap only prove that the battle to the end achievement gap between racial groups is a failure. Buchanon elucidate statistics of the results from the national test under the “No Child Left Behind” program to infer that there is a huge gap between white students and black students (par. 19). On the same note, New Yorks state test scores reveals a large imbalance in academics between different racial groups (par. 16)