When African Americans were brought to the United States they were taken away from the lives they knew, the culture they knew, and the educational system they knew. African American slaves were not allowed to learn how to read or write, but some secretly learned by using the Bible. After the abolition of slavery there were many slaves who taught other slaves how to read, and freed African Americans who did so as well. In 1837 the first Institute for Colored Youth was created. African American students can now attend whatever schools they desire. In 2015 we now have 105 historically black colleges and universities, according to the UNCF. These historically black colleges and universities were created to educate Black Americans. Although there …show more content…
The United States places a great deal of importance on education and continuing to be a leader in the realm of education. If the United States wants to continue on this road it must take a good look at the achievement gap that has been created and growing. In a system where in high school 34% of black students are being held back, and are more likely to drop out before receiving a high school diploma it is essential to understand what has caused this gap and ways to help close it. When African Americans first came to this country becoming educated was not something they were allowed to do, they had to wait years and years to even learn how to write without there being consequences. When the opportunity did come along for African Americans to become educated and schools were created for them and by them, there have still being hurdles for them with chances of schools losing accreditation, and financial support for students. Policies, laws, and initiatives must really become priorities to help African Americans to ensure that they are allowed to succeed and achieve the same goals and lives as everyone else. Making sure there are able, understanding, and qualified teachers teaching students is also very important. Teachers play such a big role in the lives of students and helping them to succeed not primary and secondary school, but also continuing their journey’s into places of higher learning. This is a problem that can be fixed as long as we are serious about true equality and opportunities for
Even though we have witnessed a portion of Black people rising up such as Barack Obama, Lebron James, there are still a lot of Blacks suffering from enfranchisement, torture, and double standard of law. Being a developed and powerful country, the issue of racism is worth noticing. The critical part of the issue is that law seems ineffective to protect poor Black people. That’s why so many Blacks are powerless when bullied by people like police or associations like Ku Klux Klan. So it is crucial to consolidate the law to keep Blacks’ personal rights from being violated. Besides, we need to stress the education of Blacks, especially those in poverty. One of the reasons why Blacks have been treated unequally to Whiles is because they did not contrite as much to the nation as Whites, and education inequality could partially account for this result. Being more powerful is more likely to be respected by others. Thus. Shrinking the gap of education quality between the Black community and White community could alleviating
America is often thought of as the land of equality and opportunity. We have fought for many things like all people being treated as equals and women’s rights and seen change, but one thing that has not seen a lot of change is the equality for the students in the American education system. Many people think that the American education system gives all students an equal chance to succeed, but minority students such as Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, etc. have a harder time persevering in school than other students. Since our education system is based on strict disciplinary methods, curriculums for students that speak English, and funding for resources, the question that arrives in many people’s minds are, if all students are given an equal
Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.
Education has long been regarded as a valuable asset for all of America's youth. Yet, for decades, the full benefits of education were denied to African Americans as a result of the prevailing social condition of Jim Crowism. Not until the verdict in Brown V the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, would this denial be acknowledged and slowly dismantled.
In his speech, Obama says,” Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven 't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today 's black and white students.” Obama is saying that because of the effects of separation in the past, it still affects children. By having parents who have little interest in an education since they did not receive one. Lindsey Cook, a writer for U.S News, says “Black parents, most of whom are less educated than their white counterparts, don’t expect their children to attain as much education as white parents expect. Lower expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies, contributing to lower expectations from the student, less-positive attitudes toward school, fewer out-of-school learning opportunities and less parent-child communication about school.” This shows that because of 50 years ago, by having parents who did not receive a good education, are more likely to not provide their children a good education. The article Cook wrote continues to show how black students do poorer in all aspects than their white counterparts. With these issues since childhood, it is harder for blacks to get into a top college and a high paying job. Therefore there is a need to
Contrary to many beliefs the majority of HBCUs were not first established by African American educators. The founders were often white slave owners. With the land the federal government received they built many institutions to help improve public education. Getting an education as a former slave was not provided by the state; therefore they had to band together and teach each other to read and write. Any form of an education was a death wish. They knew that but they wanted to better their future and the future of those to come. For slaves that meant get caught and die or get lucky and manage to avoid detection and get a mediocre education. Abraham lincoln was known for...
The education gap between the north and the south has many roles in the African American community. The north has always been industrial while the south was agricultural, many of these children who was suppose to be attending school was helping on farms working and helping their parents throughout the day instead of getting an education. “The percentage of all schools with so called racial or socio-economic isolation grew from 9% to 16%” Today students still experience or has been a victim to social and racial differences. When segregation was abolished it allowed students to be in the same classroom together, be able to eat and go to the same bathrooms, also being taught by the same teacher. However many teachers failed to realized or wanted to teach these students based on the color of their skin, causing many students to drop out of school because of not being heard. The black community has a low rate of graduation rates in the south than the white community “In the last four years more than 69 percent of white louisiana males graduated making for a 16 point difference, while 59 percent of black louisiana males graduated” These school systems doesn’t care that they’re not being taught or graduation. Based on race in louisiana it’s a 10 percent difference that causing them to less likely become successful. Still causing the social differences teachers refused to teach an African American student
The theme of the research is to discover why there is such a vast educational gap between minority and Caucasian students. Many American are unaware that such an educational gap actually exists among today’s students. This article informs us of alarming statics, such as of African American students representing a majority of the special education population, despite only making up roughly 40% of the student population. It also breaks down key events that contributed to the poor education that minority children are currently receiving. For example, in the past, it was illegal to educate African Americans and when it became legal to blacks were treated as second class students. They were segregated from their white counter parts and given hand-me-down textbooks. This article also discusses others factors that contributed to the poor education of minority students such as moral principles, socio-political, and economic stat. Despite the amount of time that has past, today’s schools are similar to the past. Minority children are still in second-rate learning environments while white students enjoy the comforts of first class school buildings and textbooks. In summary, the theme of this article was to bring attention to the educational gap among African-American, Latino, Asian, and other non-white students.
The Schott Foundations Report (2008) on public education does a great job spelling out the educational inequities in graduation rates and achievement gaps impacting African American males in the United States, particularly in the south. The Schott Foundation on Public Education mission is to develop and strengthen a broad-based and representative movement to achieve fully resourced, quality pre K-12 public education (The Schott Foundation Report, 2010). The Schott Foundation has been proactive over the years by evaluating the success of national, state and local public systems in educating Black males (The Schott Foundation Report, 2010). One of ...
In conclusion, the Academic Achievement has been fueled by society's presets, minority students' lack of effort, and the failures of the schooling system in America. There has been some challenging setbacks, but the Gap can be fixed to create a common ground for all prospective members of America's society to excel on equally. By realizing that change can be achieved, there are little to no limits for minority students to create a better mindset towards education. Students, parents, and teachers have to be willing to work together, as well as tackle obstacles upheld by society, and the economic deficiencies that effect schools across America. This will, in turn, take America one step closer to closing the Academic Achievement Gap in America.
As of right now in the United States, the school system is not doing its best to promote the growth of African American students who speak Ebonics at home. Obviously something has to be done, because students from predominantly AAVE speaking areas are succeeding at a level well below students who are familiar with Standard English coming into school. The way the education system is set up, schools build upon existing skills that students already have especially in primarily white communities. Adding value to these skills promotes rapid growth causing them to excel past the AAVE speaking African American students. (Rickford, 1999) Those whom are n...
...e and prepared for college work. For a student in a black that is majority black and under resourced is highly unlikely to receive an education and graduate on time and won’t be college ready. Unfortunately this scenario happens way too often. Lots of black students do not receive the knowledge that they need to further their education in college and many students that do try to further their education do not end up finishing. Because they missed out on so much information they have a very difficult time doing their work and get the feeling that they need to drop out. It is unfortunate that today, not all students can receive a good education and have a chance a furthering their education and becoming successful. This is why it is necessary that the education system change immediately so that all students can receive an equal opportunity to further their education.
Back in the 1800’s, African-Americans were not allowed to get an education. However, when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, slaves were freed and education became legal for them. Bowie State University was one of the first schools to educate black students. This is the mainstay of Michelle Obama’s speech to the 2013 graduating class of Bowie State.
“If you don’t want them to know something, put it in a book, they’ll never read it.” This was a saying that was widely during and after desegregation of the schools, and as I know is still being used today, to display the ignorance and lack of knowledge of African-Americans. The sad fact is that it is true. If it doesn’t come across the television or radio, then most people don’t know what is going on. Most people that I know watches television rather than go to school. As an African-American, it was very important for me to learn to read, write, and obtain a quality education. It’s amazing to see the carelessness that many people take toward getting a good education. Many of my ancestors lost their lives for just wanting to read and write, but now that African-Americans have the opportunity to do these things, hardly anyone takes advantage of it. For me, as an African-American, education is extremely important because many affluent people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mary McCloud Bethune, and Linda Brown, fought “tooth and nail” and lost much of their blood, sweat, and tears to ensure that we were properly educated. Over the years I have adopted a slogan, “If it’s free, it’s for me”. Although public education is free today, someone no doubt lost his or her life for me to sit in a classroom to learn. I try to take advantage of every opportunity I get to read and write because I can never learn too much.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2004) reported that Black students continue to trail White students with respect to educational access, achievement and attainment. Research on the effectiveness of teachers of Black students emphasizes that the teachers’ belief about the Black students’ potential greatly impacts their learning. Teachers tend to teach black students from a deficit perspective (King, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Mitchell, 1998). White teachers often aim at compensating for what they assume is missing from a Black student’s background (Foorman, Francis & Fletcher, 1998). The deficit model of instruction attempts to force students into the existing system of teaching and learning and doesn’t build on strengths of cultural characteristics or preferences in learning (Lewis, Hancock...