Racial Gap in City Schools Article Review

Possible Explanations in Structural Issues within the Educational Experience

The similarity in aptitude early on and the increasing academic achievement gap between black and white students thereafter would seem to suggest that the causes are most likely to be social and institutional. Among the possible factors, black children are less likely to have the benefit of a two-parent home; they are more likely to live in poorer communities with lower quality educational institutions; and they are 30% less likely to change school by their parents' choice. Unfortunately, the types of educational initiatives designed to reduce the education gap have not proven successful and to the extent their data suggest otherwise, it may be by virtue of over-reliance on the issue of "passing" instead of high achievement.

For example, the NCLB approach emphasized reducing the educational achievement gap among races by focusing on achieving proficiency in academic skills considered to be the most important, such as reading and arithmetic as measured by standardized test scores in the 4th and 8th grades. According to certain measures, these methodologies did narrow the targeted achievement gap. However, on more thorough analysis, those improvements were revealed to be largely illusory because of their focus on minimum levels of proficiency instead of higher levels of achievement. As a result, they create the illusion of comparable achievement because they equate minimal acceptable proficiency with high-level performance in the way that they are represented in the statistical data.

On the other hand, there is also evidence that the educational achievement gap exists even after normalizing the data for relative income levels. Nevertheless, according to most educational researchers, the most important contributing factors are not believed to be genetic. It is generally believed to more likely that the principal causes relate to the relative quality of teachers and educational institutions and to the persistence of negative stereotypes and teacher expectations that interpret student aptitude differently and that channel black students into less challenging educational programs despite the similarity in test scores among black and white students.

Ultimately, both the problem and the eventual solution are likely to be found in larger issues of social factors rather than in inherent differences among black and white students. In that regard, possible solutions may include increased community services for single-parent households, greater flexibility in terms of school choice selection, and increased pay for teachers who…