Educational Disparities in Children

Since Jen mentioned children, and their experiences with race, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the disparities in education between children of different races. There has generally always been a large gap which seperates the achievements of white and black students, but this report is stating that this gap of grades is now bleaker then we once thought:

Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected

The study comes from the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which is an American program that gives tests to students in the eighth and fourth grades testing their math and reading. They released data that states "only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys" (Gabriel, para. 3). The Council of Great City Schools which is an advocacy group for urban public schools recently released a report entitled 'A Call for Change,' hoping that the new shocking data on the disparities between black and white students will spark a need for reform.

Poverty has usually been the explanation for such staggering differences in achievements between races, but this report looks further to find reasons.The article states that poor white boys do just as well as the African-American boys who do not live in poverty. Ronald Ferguson, who is a director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard states that there are differences between races that take place before these children even start kindergarden. It has a lot to do with historical and social forces beyond poverty, and is about having conversations that people are unwilling to have with their children. Conversations about parenting practices for young children, and what parents do with kids who are 2, 3 and 4, for example, "how much we talk to them, the ways we talk to them, the ways we enforce discipline, the ways we encourage them to think and develop a sense of autonomy"(Gabriel, para. 11).

A possible way to close the achievement gap could be a change in teaching. A school reform which involves offering charter schools as another choice, or closing failing schools, raising the quality of teachings or possibly providing 'black mentors.'

This is a alarming article, because of how big the gap is when the children are just in grade 4 and 8. It really only gets wider, as shown  by the drop out rates in high schools. Does anyone have any ideas about how to close the gap between races in terms of achievements? Why do we think that these disparities can exist before a child even begins school?

Any ideas?
-Alex Denis

Gabriel, Trip. "Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to be Far Lower Than Expected."The New York Times. 9 Nov 2010. Web. 1 Dec 2010.