Educational Achievement Gap Causes

In the Norton Field Guild, chapter four is about developing academic habits of the mind. Chapter four starts out with how the student needs to engage him or herself in to their academic studies. It talks about how you should raise your hand in class and you should ask questions in class and outside of class if you don’t understand what you are learning about. The other way you should be getting involved, is getting to know the students at the school and in your class because those who are engaged tend to study more and engage in their studies. The other main point of this chapter is about being motivated to do your school work and go to school. The way you should motivate your self is by thinking head of your life and where you want to go to college and what you want to achieve in life, either that be a job or achieving a medal or trophy. These were just a few points in chapter four.

Her excerpt was published in 2014. During the 2000s, up until today, there has been many debates and issues regarding the education system. Years before her excerpt was released, an act called No Child Left Behind No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001. This act provided poor children educational assistance and ensured that every child would have an access to education. However, schools would be held accountable for students who are not achieving the expected level of academic success. This act emphasized standardized testing a great deal and placed a lot of pressure on schools to get their students passed the proficient level. No Child Left Behind isn’t the only historical context event that affects Ravitch’s text. In the early years after the establishment of No Child Left Behind, many schools had trouble paying for materials. This is only one of the many examples that historical context is found in Ravitch's

Today more and more people are going to college. Most people go to college to build their knowledge and to study a specific field that they want to get a job in some day. College is marketed to most people as a creative place where they will learn everything they need to know to get a job and enter the “real world”. As college students right now, don’t get us wrong we do learn many things but, we have found that in many classes we take, we just focus on getting a good grade or a passing grade. At the end of the semester we walk out of some class barely learning a thing because we retain information just long enough to do good on a test or exam and then forget it all together when the class is done. This can sometimes be blamed on the student and how much they want out of a class but many times this is just way students are taught to learn and how they have always gotten through school. College’s need to take note of this problem and find a way to change it. Today’s education system and colleges are too focused on letter grades and not the betterment of students and expanding their knowledge.

Mantsios, Gregory. “Class in America: Myths and Realities (2000).” Rereading America. Ed. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, Bonnie Lisle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 331- 345. Print.

The purpose and main point of chapter one of Hope and Healing in Urban Education are that youth in low-income environments need extra hope and attention in order to succeed. Shawn Ginwright explains that while it may be difficult to reach these communities, it’s a worthwhile investment of time and resources to improve them. Ginwright uses personal examples of people who have been affected by the struggle of living in a crime-ridden and low-income neighborhood in San Francisco. The eldest sibling examined, Tanya, a community organizer suffered the loss of her younger brother, who was murdered while he was visiting her on holiday from college. While Tanya felt helpless and that her efforts were in vain, she reached a fork in the road and had to decide whether or not she was getting anything effective accomplished. In the end, Tanya, along with other community organizers, created a healing zone for anyone suffering trauma and offered the community hope and healing. This concept of hope and healing is the central message

Within the reading of chapter four of Our Kids by Robert Putnam one key point of his argument is that it really matters where kids attend school and who they are attending school with. The overall growing class gap is extremely evident within the American school system. However, schools are not responsible for the creation of the opportunity gap because the gap already exists before schools are put into the picture. While this may be true, the schools that kids from affluent families are attending are significantly different than schools that children from poorer families are attending. This could be a product of the fact that affluent and poor families are usually not living in the same areas. Adults with enough money are able to choose to buy houses in areas with good schools for their kids. The success of children is also affected by who they are going to school with because kids are strongly influenced by their peers. Therefore, if a child is in an extremely competitive school environment they are more likely to work hard and succeed. A negative school environment where kids don’t feel safe and no one is trying to learn

There are certain tools that are essential in schools for the success of education. Whether it be reading, writing, comprehending, or problem solving; these are all tools that are advantageous to possess in one’s education. Unfortunately, not all groups are able to acquire all these tools as easily as other groups are. It is unequivocal that education plays a major role in one’s future, but certain students cannot achieve their ideal education because of the lack of a proper education system. This is what leads to the inequality in education for students of color who are from an underprivileged area, compared to students on the contrary. This is also the cause of what we call “achievement gaps”, which is the disparity of academic performance between white students and students of a minority, along with students from low income families and those from higher income families. Jonathan Kozol and Diane Ravitch are two different writers who wrote on similar claims, however, they both had written their pieces with different strategies to convey their arguments.

Jane L. David and Larry Cuban do a great job of informing the reader of issues involving closing the achievement gap in education in their book, “Cutting Through the Hype”. David and Cuban, friends and colleagues for forty-five years, collaborated yet again to revise “Cutting Through the Hype” to re-address the “far more pronounced” effects of the federal role and the philanthropic foundations in funding and setting the policy agenda for reforming U.S. schools. Chapter three, Closing the Achievement Gap, begins with a realistic scenario of a fifth grade classroom of thirty students that range from six non English speaking students, limited English speaking students, and fluent English speaking, high performing students. The

When school finals approach, students act in desperate ways to find solutions for mental focus on selective subjects. Fifteen percent of college students have illegally been using Adderall the past year. Adderall impacts learning in various ways, but In the long run can cause more harm than aid. Adderall is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as part of a psychological and social issues. It helps to stay focused, pay better attention and stop fidgeting. Adderall is a combination of amphetamine and dextrose-amphetamine. It works by balancing certain natural substances in the brain. Today I’m going to discuss about the side effects of Adderall, the way it impacts students, and most importantly the learning of students in

Closing the racial achievement gap has been a major goal of education policy makers for at least the past decade. There has been some progress, but it has been slow and uneven. It isn’t surprising that it’s hard to narrow or close the gap if all groups are improving.

1.Robinson argues that education systems and society are at fault for the low amount of creativity found in students.

The extent that grades have on hindering the ability to learn is discussed in Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed, in which Shevek a college professor is troubled by the importance placed on the grading system as a mark of understanding of a subject at the university he recently started teaching at. One of the first points to be made is that understanding what you were taught isn’t the point of schools anymore, it’s about memorizing the information for a test or assignment.Second, is that achieving high marks in school doesn’t always equate intelligence or lack of it . Lastly, it’s not how well one is able to memorize what they are taught, but how they’re able to take that information, process and apply it to real world problems that shows the extent of one’s true education.

Achieving an accurate education system is not an easy function for any nation. The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way by Amanda Ripley, is a wonderful book that focusing on the important of the education and how can the changing on the education system and schools reforms change the whole country for the best. This book had a positive impact on me, it gives me hope that each country in the world can create stronger and more creative education system; a system that can achieve students and serves both equity and rigor. Importantly, that can happen if we think first what are our educational problems and how can we resolve them in a smart and wise way that can help us to have magnificent results that benefits everyone, the

Ken Robinson is a well-known professor, writer, and public speaker (Robinson, "Do school's kill creativity?). Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures

The study is anchored on the theory of educational productivity by Herbert J. Walberg. Walberg’s theory tackles about the influences on learning that affects the academic performance of a student. It is an exploration of academic achievement wherein Walberg used a variety of methods on how to identify the factors that affects the academic performance of a student. He analyzed his theory with the help of different theorists and integrated his study with over 3000 studies.