Disparities In American Student's Underwhelming Academic Performance

According to Sanford Graduate School of Education research, almost every school district enrolling large numbers of low-income studies has an average academic performance significantly below the national-grade level average. Achievement gaps are larger in districts where black and Hispanic students attend higher poverty schools than their white peers. The size of the gaps has little or no association with average class size. The most and least socioeconomically advantaged districts have average performance levels more than four grade levels apart. According to Reardon and colleagues, one-sixth of all students attend public school in school districts where average test scores are more than a grade level below the national average. Also, one-sixth

Rendon (1994) points out “students from underrepresented backgrounds often experience isolation, a lack of self-efficacy, and a lack of a sense of belonging in college contexts”(p. 48). Furthermore, one needs to take it one step back and realize that most students of color are much more likely to attend schools where most of their peers are poor or low-income. Therefore, socio economic status (SES) determines the education a person receives throughout K-12. Walpole (2004) also describes how “low SES parents are more likely to define success as a secure full-time job after graduating from high school. College attendance is not an expectation and often means enrolling in a community college or technical school when it does occur” (p. 47). When a student reaches the

The participants were from a Texas University, 43 were European and 62 were Hispanic 102 were male and 103 were female. They concluded that Hispanics scored lower on the overall SAT than the European Americans. Hispanics also appeared to have more test anxiety, they were more likely to avoid unfamiliar situations and generally had parents with a lower income. Authors Sackett and Kuncel (2012) studied the role of socioeconomics on SAT grades and in College admissions decisions, another study proposed by Turcios-Cotta and Milan (2013) examined Racial Differences in the Educational expectancies of adolescents comparing Hispanics with white and African American students. They found that Hispanics were less likely to hold higher education expectancies than African Americans and Whites. The study I propose is an expansion of Hannon (2015) experiment looking at SES, Test anxiety, Performance avoidance goals, and Knowledge of learning, in addition I’d like to add looking at their long term education plans. There will be three ethnicities Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic, 30 individuals for each ethnicity. Each group would be divided in half, one half is of

The Achievement Gap in America has separated and divided America's youth into more or less, two different cultures of socioeconomic placement. The first being the predominantly Caucasian students at American elementary schools, high schools, and colleges that excel greatly in their education. Most of the time earning them middle to upper class jobs in the economy, the aforementioned group contrasts significantly with its opposite culture of American youth. The second culture, the population that is mostly made up of the minority races, takes it's place in the American education system as the population of students who are less interested in getting a decent education and taking

As the graph above displays, students in the United States have made notable gains in academic achievement over the past 45 years. However, the racial achievement gap remains due to not

In many countries, including Mexico and the United Kingdom, socioeconomic disadvantage have a substantial impact on students’ performances. According to the latest international math and science evaluation conducted by the OECD, Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), both countries have had trouble reducing the influence of socioeconomic status on student’s accomplishments in recent years. Socioeconomic disadvantage and heterogeneity presuppose the need for a change; due to the reality that a truly successful educational system does not rely solely on a high academic performance. This change would imply a more equitable and inclusive educational system in both Mexico and the UK.

The achievement gap between minorities and Whites has been enormous for multiple decades in the United States. In the past, discrimination played a huge factor in why minorities had lower educational success.

This week we compare two interesting articles which address the topic of race and ethnicity. The first article, The Politics of Achievement Gaps: U.S. Public Opinion on Race-Based and Wealth-Based Differences in Test Scores (Valant & Newark, 2016) compares three different demographic groups and finds American’s options on achievement gaps in the United States. One set of groups that this study compared were students from poor financial backgrounds to students with wealthy financial backgrounds, it was discovered that most Americans wanted to see changes in these students test scores because most Americans can relate to being from a different economic class compare to relating to a different race. Another set of groups that was compared where black students and white students, the study found that amongst the African Americans surveyed this was the most important gap to close but it was not the most important in the surveys overall. The last sets of groups to be compared were students from Hispanic backgrounds to students of white backgrounds. According to the study, “Respondents said that closing the wealth-based test score gaps is a substantially higher priority than closing the race- or ethnicity-based gaps” (Valant & Newark, 2016, p.335). The second article Pygmalion in the Classroom (Rosenthal, Jacobson, 1968) looked at the effect that telling teachers random children had done well on a test effected the children’s achievement. Roshenthal and Jacobson study was

2016 marked the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the divisive court case that began integration in public schools. However, disparities between white students and ethnic minorities are still widespread in American society and school systems. In fact, as of 2015, race and ethnicity proved more influential than parent education or income in test score differences (Geiser 1). Similarly, while differences in long-term success between white students and minorities can be attributed to a variety of factors, they take root in school. Controlling for test scores eliminates the wage gap between Hispanic and White workers (Fryer 3) and cuts the gap between black and white men from 17.9% to

This paper focuses on the academic disparities between majority and minority students based on educational assessments. African-American and Hispanic students are scoring significantly lower than White and Asian students in mathematics and language arts. The literature explores reasons for minority students’ underperformance based on economic and other disadvantages. In order to close the gap between minority and majority students the factors have contributed to the divide, must be addressed the conditions of schools, teacher preparation, the quality of coursework, teachers’ perceptions of students, and curriculum rigor. Many of these issues affecting African-American and Hispanic students’ performance are external factors over which

In this day and age, the United States, leader of the free world, is not leading. Our economic system is failing. Even worse, our educational system falls short compared to other nations. Consequently, our literacy rate and mathematical abilities are far behind; and even more embarrassing is the fact that education is not doled out equally despite our rather relentless fight against inequality. When academic achievement is examined on the basis of race, class, and gender, widening academic gaps are evident. If this continues, there will be

I decided to write about the influence of race and ethnicity on a person’s educational level. I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic where, within my social group, schooling and education was deemed as an essential part of life. In the United States, however, there exist a greater number of racial and ethnic groups, and it is evident that an achievement gap exists among these groups. Here, Dominicans are marginalized as part of a Hispanic minority group that does not achieve the educational status of other groups, such as Whites or Jewish. I chose to write about the disparity of education within races and seek to answer how race affects a person’s educational level.

That a student’s social class origin impacts on their learning outcomes is self-evident across much of the developed world, with entrenched disparities in academic achievement that are inversely correlated with family income (Snook, 2009:3, Argy, 2007:para 3, Reay, 2006:289, Nash, 2003:179-180).

Education in the United States is important because every student has the right to an education. However, many students are not capable of fulfilling the school standards and meeting the requirements because English is not their first language, which is causing them to work twice as hard compared to students whose first language is English. Schools throughout the United States have been increasing in students that are from different ethnic backgrounds. From all of the ethnic groups in the United States, the Hispanic community is growing the fastest and more Hispanic students are being seen at schools. According to Pereira and Gentry (2013), “the increase in the Hispanic population in U.S. schools is a phenomenon that

The National Assessment for Educational Progress (2015) reported that there is an academic achievement gap between black and white students. The academic achievement gap refers to the statistical difference between the scores of students with different backgrounds such as: race/ethnicity, gender disability and income. The long-term result of the achievement gap is there is a gap in high school and college completion and job placement. Strategies to close the academic achievement gap are still being explored and smaller class sizes could be a solution.