Education: The Effects Of Poverty On Minority Education

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The Effects of Poverty on Minority Education
Poverty and its effects on educational performance of minorities is a societal issue with many facets. First understanding the implications of poverty, and then offering creditable interventions to combat the problem is necessary. First, one must understand that belonging to an underrepresented minority group does not necessarily imply that a student is disadvantaged, but those belonging to those ethnic groups in addition to having low income offer a risk of low academic achievement (Olszewski-Kuilius & Clarenbach, 2012). Statistically, students from minority groups score lower on standardize testing than their white counterparts (Tomlinson & Jarvis, 2014). The reasons for this are numerous. Having
Solutions to these disparities are improving minority student readiness and providing support for families in areas related to academics. Improving the opportunity to succeed in education for poor minority students will likely enhance the future options and support future social mobility (McKinney, 2014). In keeping with this logic education policies such as No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) have been introduced. The focus of NCLB is to close the achievement gaps among students in the US. The framework of NCLB includes benchmark accounting for schools to be proficient in teaching. NCLB also intends to ensure that any teacher providing instruction at the core levels be suitably qualified. This initiative offers many opportunities for success but also create its own set of challenges. Challenges based on student role performance, environment, teacher roles, family, and peers. Student role performance is how well a student meets expectations and obligations based on their achieved roles. Environmental factors that affect NCLB are teacher selection, class size and school rules and regulations that must be enforced. Teacher roles are characterized by if a teacher is fair, caring and provides quality instruction. The family demands of NCLB
Some research will argue that maximizing schools resources is not the only option. In addition to intervention programs, schools and teachers must create a “culturally responsive” educational environment for minority students that are based on being collective. These differ from the classroom environments that are only modeled after the interests of middle class students from Anglo Saxon backgrounds. A prime example would be if a minority low income student is ask to complete an English essay about their favorite family vacation. There is a large possibility that a disadvantaged minority student may have never been on a family vacation as oppose to a middle class Caucasian student that could possible relate. Would it be equitable to grade these two students, although one has never had the experience? These inclusive environments are based on: social competences, problem-solving skills, autonomy and purposeful futures. They produce students that have high self-esteem and self-efficacy (McKinney,

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