A national report released yesterday shows that the achievement gap between white and minority student academic performance in America persists, despite gains in many states. That minority students (generally low-income, inner city kids) are not receiving the instruction they need and are falling further behind their white peers is one of the most troubling outcomes of our public education system. These are the kids that need a quality education the most, so they can break that generational cycle of poverty.
Locally, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic, however. In Colorado, for example, “black students have gained ground on their white peers on eighth-grade math tests over the past two decades.” Colorado joins Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas as the only states where black student scores grew faster than white students.
But the gap is still wide and vexing to educational experts, and entire generations of minority children are being swallowed up by this achievement gap.
The Denver Post’s rationalizing for this gap is beyond troubling:
Research has shown that education problems begin even before school for minorities and children of poverty. Factors include low birth weight and poor nutrition.
Minority children and those raised in poor households are exposed to more television, don’t read as much, aren’t talked to as much, and have less involvement with parents and adults — all correlations to poor educational performance later in life.
The students ACE serves are 100% low-income and mainly minority inner-city kids, exposed to the same struggles and temptations of poverty, nutrition, gangs, drugs and television. Many were failing in their assigned public school, fast becoming another statistic. But once they enter private school - mostly small, neighborhood schools that are able to give them the attention they need - academic performance improves, parental satisfaction increases, and kids begin to thrive.
It’s the instruction they receive at school that makes the difference, not their birth weight. We need to continue to hold our educational establishment’s feet to the fire, without making excuses.
