One may believe that the achievement gaps are not improving; however, that is not the case as explained by Diane Ravitch in her essay “The Facts About Achievement Gaps”. The achievement gaps have actually improved over the past decades. The achievement gaps are gaps in the academic level of each student or their ethnicity. The test scores of most minority student have been gradually increasing due to the availability of schools regardless of ethnicity; therefore, it has led to a gradual increase in the students test scores, but now the achievement gap is steady and not increasing or decreasing. In her article Diane Ravitch clearly explains the steps that need to be taken into account in order to close the gaps. She says that it is the schools
In Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Angela Valenzuela investigates immigrant and Mexican American experiences in education. Valenzuela mentions differences in high schools between U.S born youth and immigrants such as how immigrants she interviewed seemed to achieve in school as they feel privileged to achieve secondary education. However, she found that her study provided evidence of student failure due to schools subtracting resources from these youths. Both are plagued by stereotypes of lacking intellectual and linguistic traits along with the fear of losing their culture. As a Mexican American with many family members who immigrated to the U.S to pursue a higher education, I have experience with Valenzuela’s
In the text, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, author Diane Ravitch explores her ideological shift on school reform and the empirical evidence that caused this shift. Once a proponent and contributor of testing, accountability, choice, and market reforms, Ravitch’s support began to diminish as she realized that these current reforms were not viable options. She came to realize that the new school reforms focused entirely on structural and managerial adjustments and that no focus was given to actual learning.
In fact, she explained that “As other countries have been pouring resources into education, both their achievement and graduation rates have been climbing for all students, including recent immigrants and historical minorities...U.S. graduation rates have been virtually stagnant and now fall significantly below that of many other countries.” (Darling-Hammond 14) Darling-Hammond unsubtly aimed to awaken her readers to the fact that in a country which claims to be the greatest in the world, children are being poorly educated and therefore deprived of opportunities. She even addresses the commonly used achievement gap rhetoric in American education policy and counters it with the term “opportunity gap -the accumulated differences in access to key educational resources -expert teachers, personalized attention, high quality curriculum opportunities, good educational materials, and plentiful information resources- that support learning at home and at school.” (Hammond 28) By reframing the discussion Darling- Hammond placed the culpability of the struggling students’ failure to graduate and inability to achieve, on the shoulders of the education system, policy makers and those who determine where resources are
In Diane Ravitch essay “The Essentials of a Good Education,” argues about testing students in schools on basic skills that led to many public schools to abandon the importance of social skills and life choices. In her essay, it states that the federal law has demanded that all students must be proficient in mathematics and reading and that every state has been required to test those two specific subjects. Why do they demand that we are tested on mathematics and reading? Well in our lifetime, we will have to know how to do the math and also have reading skills for our career jobs. In the “No Child Left Behind” was an act in 2001 passed by congress that requires states to test children’s basic skills to qualify for federal funding. All students
Dragnea, C. (2008). The Effectiveness of Africentric (Black-Focused) Schools in Closing Student Success and Achievement Gap. Toronto: Toronto District School Board.
Many individuals have been affected negatively by trouble makers in school. Troublemakers have either disrupted classes or bullied other students. Yes, trouble makers may harm one’s learning environment, but should they be kicked out of school? Though many individuals argue that troublemakers will not change and hold the class down, they should not be kicked out because they need help. Most of these kids that are disobedient do not know the distinction between right and wrong. We should not withdraw trouble makers from school, rather, we should help these troublemakers and teach them right from wrong. In the article “Let’s Really Reform Our Schools” by Anita Garland, she states that American high schools are disasters because there are troublemakers (694). She asserts that the withdrawal of troublemakers in schools would make the learning environment peaceful for students who want to learn
In the minds of many, intelligence not only excels your experience in education, but is also the key to a successful career. In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell refutes this thought by expanding on the belief that intelligence can only take you so far, and that creativity and innovation tend to lead to just as much success. This thought process applies to many different levels of life including our interview and acceptance into the ACTION program.
When you look at the private schools they meet those goals. It all comes down to the haves and have not’s the people with the most money wins. In this case it is the private schools. The biggest gap between public and private schools is the budgets 14.6% of the public schools ...
The ability for all children from varying walks of life to receive a well-rounded education in America has become nothing more than a myth. In excerpt “The Essentials of a Good Education”, Diane Ravitch argues the government’s fanatical obsession with data based on test scores has ruined the education system across the country (107). In their eyes, students have faded from their eyes as individual hopefully, creative and full of spirit, and have become statistics on a data sheet, percentages on a pie chart, and numbers calculated to show the intelligence they have from filling out bubbles in a booklet. In order for schools to be able to provide a liberal education, they need the proper funding, which comes from the testing.
Outliers-The Story of Success is a sociological, and psychological non-fiction book, which discusses success, and the driving reasons behind why some people are significantly more successful than others. Malcolm Gladwell explains this by dividing the book into two parts, opportunity and legacy. Opportunity discusses how select people are fortunate enough to be born between the months of January through March, and also includes the idea that those who are already successful will have more opportunities to improve and become even more successful. The 10,000-hour rule proves the idea that in order to become successful in a certain skill, one must have practiced that skill for at least 10,000 hours. In addition to the 10,000-hour rule, timing is also a major component that implies being in the right place at the right time, which brings the author to discuss Bill Gates who was born during the time where programming and computer technology was emerging, therefore sparking his interest in computers, later bringing him to create Microsoft. Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion of one’s upbringing, race, and ethnicity can be a factor behind their success. And lastly, pursuing meaningful work will cause one to continue working with their skill and not give up. Legacy is a collection of examples that support the idea: values are passed down from generation to generation, which may cause a certain group of people to be more persistent in a skill, or occupation.
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 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.
Why would one hypothesize a change is needed? First, international comparisons show the decline in education. Tests show American high school students rank much lower than other nations on standardized math and science tests (United States 66). On a test given in twenty-one nations, American pupils only outperformed Cyprus and South African students. These results seem more devastating when one sees Asian nations, usually ranking high in competitions, did not participate (McNamara 73). Examinations also reveal pupils' performances decline as students climb up the educational ladder toward college. "We seem to be the only country in the world whose children fall farther behind the longer they stay in school" ("Nation" 1). Yet, just comparing our students to international standards does not divulge the whole story.
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.
The general pattern for people is that when they becoming older they are less able to vary life. Nikolas Westerhoff in his article “Set in Our ways: Why Change is So Hard” described the connection between humans’ brains and behavior during the certain periods of life. The key assumption is that in 20s people are more hazardous and tend to adventures, while after 30s this trend is less expressed. Author gives an example when the young generation can be even over risky and inconsiderate. The article includes the story about 22-year-old Cristopher McCandless, who gave his money for charity and hitchhiked around the USA and died in Alaska because of famine. When 40s – 60s are coming people lose their appetite for novelty due to the natural process, which reveal that old habits express themselves at those ages. The elder generation wants to feel stability continuing do customary things and taking care of their children or grandchildren. Also they are under the society’s pressure, when it is quite inappropriate being infantile or just make crazy travels instead of making a career and having a family. Author mentioned false hope syndrome, which means that people often procrastinate certain thinks that never be finished. That is why Westerhoff suggests doing everything “on a right time in a right place” because then it would be probably late.