The Importance Of Academic Differences In Education

In Why Children from Lower Socioeconomic Classes , on Average, Have Lower Academic Achievement, Richard Rothstein poses the question, "Should the color of a child 's skin or how much money his or her family earns affect whether he or she can absorb the instruction of an effective teacher?" (61) According to Rothstein, people need a sophistication about the behavioral and academic differences that typically come from socioeconomic status to understand the answer to this question. One of the main points brought up that this reading helped me to understand was the achievement gap. Before this course, I had only heard of the gap, but had no instruction on what it actually was. From reading this article and being in class, I comprehend that the achievement gap is an observed difference in educational measures between groups of students. These groups are mainly groups of students by gender, race, and in this case, socioeconomic status.

Family has a huge effect on a the achievement gap. According to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, only 48 percent of families below the poverty level read to their preschoolers each day, compared with 64 percent of families whose incomes were at or above the poverty level. This tells us that if a child reads aloud and is read aloud to, they are more likely to strive in school. Along with this, family life brings on many other factors. For example, home, health, hunger, and experiences are all factors that are effecting a child 's life and future. The littlest thing can impact a family and particularly, the student. As we learned in class and in George Count 's article Dare the School Build a New Social Order, having experiences outside of the classroom, for example, traveling to a museum, is part of a pedagogical learning method. Also, these experiences give the student new funds of