The Achievement Gap Should be a Priority

Photo from Roseville Community Fools

If Americans were asked what the biggest and most pressing problem in the United States is, there might be a wide variety of answers. In these “tough economic times” that many television advertising commercials speak of, some Americans would undoubtedly cite the current recession. Others might mention the need for reforms such as new health care legislation or foreign policy. And in the “Green Age,” hot topics of debate include environmental concerns. But however urgent these concerns may be, none is more important than the need to narrow the achievement gap in United States’ public schools.

Among many other reasons for why this issue is so crucial to address, the achievement gap is a problem that affects every other problem our country currently faces. Education is pervasive; its effects leak into all of society. Seriously, what problem can’t be solved without more knowledge and understanding? The achievement gap in education, put simply in an article from Education Weekly titled “Achievement Gap,” is “disparity in academic performance between groups of students” and describes “gaps between many African-American and Hispanic students… and their non-Hispanic white peers, and the similar academic disparity between students from low-income and well-off families.” This gap, then, is related to both race and class. The “achievement” half of this term is almost omnipresent; there is evidence of the gap in “grades, standardized-test scores, course selection, dropout rates, and college-completion rates.” The gap shows up early and it persists. Astoundingly, fourth-graders going to school in a low-income community are already 2-3 entire grade levels behind. Only half of the high school freshman living in poverty graduate from high school. Taken one at a time, these statistics might not make a strong argument, but the point they make when evident all at once is unmistakable. The gap is there and it is a wide one.

The need to shrink this economic and racial disparity might seem obvious; of course inequalities should be battled. But some of the reasons are more complicated than that. One strong motivator for narrowing the gap should be the violent nature of literacy that J. Elspeth Stuckey argues in The Violence of Literacy. She makes the case that literacy is violent because it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer; literacy is tied to work because it is “the language of profit.” The richer you or your family are, the more secondary education you can receive, the better paying job you can get, and so on. This severs the already limited opportunities of the poor, and makes the stratification cyclical. But despite this seemingly violent and destructive behavior of literacy, the reaction should not be to abandon the pursuit of literacy altogether. The importance of literacy is too embedded and cultural to be thrown out completely. However, the violent nature of literacy should be included in the education reform discussion, especially with the achievement gap conversation.

Other steps must also be taken. Shattering unfair stereotypes about those in poverty is a mandatory step. People living in poverty are continually viewed as lazy, unmotivated, and generally all alike, as Paul Gorski discusses in “The Myth of the Culture of Poverty” for Education Leadership. He also found that poor people are viewed as “linguistically deficient” (or put more simply, they speak Black English) and more likely to abuse substances. However, none of these stereotypes are true. Those in the lower class work more hours per week on average, have just as many varied interests as anyone in any socioeconomic class, and speak a language variety that is structured and grammatically complex. (Black English is not just a version of “messed up” or “incorrect” English.) It has also been shown that the wealthy are typically more likely to be substance abusers. However, if the “culture of poverty” myth is not debunked, then few will be willing to tackle the responsibility of narrowing the achievement gap. Who would want to improve public schools in low-income areas if all the students there were viewed as lazy? Would they seem undeserving? Tied to these stereotypes are generalizations made about race, but these are generally noticed and discussed more frequently than those concerning economic status.

These stereotypes about the poor may have come about due to a variety of reasons. All stereotypes form from basic ignorance of the “other.” Economic classes are generally separated physically in this country, therefore separating the wealthy, the in-between, and the poor in their neighborhoods and cities. And what you don’t know or can’t see is easy to ignore or forget. Like the plight of the homeless, who are sometimes callously told to “get a job,” some think that those in the lower economic classes need to help themselves. But they should not be expected to help themselves when the level of public education is so drastically unequal.

Why is it that students and schools who need the most help are receiving the least? Resources such as equipment, effective and qualified teachers, and funding are completely disproportionate. But this sad fact is not addressed because the only schools that are rewarded are those who can pass a certain level on standardized tests. Yet how are low-income community schools supposed to improve test scores without the necessary resources? The No Child Left Behind Act was created for the specific reason of narrowing the achievement gap, but its principles do nothing to stop it; in fact, by rewarding schools due to their test scores, the problem only gets worse. Our government needs to do something that will actually address the issue instead of perpetuating it in disguise.

Long-time educator with decades of experience in inner-city and/or poorly funded schools Jonathan Kozol writes about the true state of schools in the United States. He argues compellingly in The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America that schools have actually reverted back to a state of segregation since attempts to integrate were made after the 1954 Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Kozol visited schools through the 1970s and 80s, but in more recent visits, he noted that “virtually all the children of black and Hispanic people in the cities that I visited, both large and small, were now attending schools in which their isolation was as absolute as it had been for children in the school in which I’d started out so many years before.”

The segregation is due to several factors, but one of the biggest is the growing number of charter schools, which only accept certain students. A very recent report called “Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards” (released February 4) found that “charter schools continue to stratify students by race, class, and possibly language, and are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country.” Charter schools were not intended to have this effect when they were first created; they were meant to improve public education.

This re-segregation, or what Kozol calls the “restoration of apartheid schooling” is both a reason for the existence of the achievement gap and a new perspective on the problem itself. With Kozol’s argument, the “gap” half of the achievement gap is not just related to a wide range of numbers and statistics; it is a physical, geographic gap of the separation in schools between the poor and often minority students and wealthy, non-minority peers.

It seems so obvious; integration of socioeconomic classes is clearly a solution to the achievement gap problem. In one of many interviews and discussions outlined in The Shame of the Nation, Kozol reports that Roger Wilkins, former attorney general, editorial writer, and professor, said that “integrated education creates better citizens for a democracy.” It is a well-made point that integrated education makes democracy possible because this argument, while frequent, usually leaves out the integrated part, which is related to the achievement gap.

The shortage of teachers in this country is well-known, but in addition to requiring more numbers, the quality and teaching philosophies of teachers must be adapted to encourage shattering the culture of poverty myth. Teachers must have respect for other dialects that students may speak. They must learn to set all students up for success, even against the odds (aka, lack of resources). The “equity pedagogy” laid out in Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society argues that the structures of schools must be challenged, transformative and diverse curricula is necessary, and the implementation of self-assessment plans for teachers to ensure that they, too, never stop learning.

In a so-called democracy, where fairness is celebrated but not fully acted out, public education should not be so stratified as it is today. Solving the achievement gap problem would solve so many other problems. This should be our priority.