First, After I saw the movie I really wanted an update on the boys... click here.
Quick Thought: I first say the film Boys of Baraka in Ghana. Hands down, this is one of my favorite documentaries out there. It's absolutely amazing. Watching these boys grow from their tough backgrounds to succeeding in Africa was inspiring. I loved it. It was heart wrenching when the schools funding got caught and the boys had to return home. They so badly wanted to succeed and do well. Baraka proved that these boys can be successful given the proper resources and environment. The one part I thought was sad about the movie (despite the fact the went back home) was they had to go all the way over to Africa to realize their potential and truly believe they were successful, unique, important, valued individuals.
There's a problem with the US Education system.
The article Closing the Gap focused on a school where the median house income was about $70,000. The article addressed the fact that there's a gap between the White and Black students i.e. a white student's average grade is a B, and a black student's average grade is a C" This article was interesting on the grounds that it brought up the problems faced by African American kids in good schools i.e. the problem of acting white, lack of knowing about resources, but I don't think it really delved into the achievement gap plaguing the United States.
For starters, what is the achievement gap?
Achievement Gap: the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout rates, and college-enrollment and -completion rates.
How is this caused? I would argue it is caused from the lack of funding to distressed communities for the school districts. Lack of funding means lack of resources, good teachers, programs, facilities, etc. These results from lack of funding lead to high drop out rates, low test scores, failing grades, etc.
When this occurs, a school can be labeled as failing, and then be shut down. This is not okay, and something must be done asap. People argue that the problem is the kids, but I would COMPLETELY disagree with that statement. The problem isn't the kids or their parents, the problem is the US education system. This is a failing system, children are failing through the cracks every day because they don't have access to a good education. the sad thing is that many of these kids and parents dream of having access to a better education; however, this is not always within their means.
A good example of this are the school lotteries. Basically what a school lottery is, is a chance for students to go to a charter school in their area. the charter school often excel beyond a child's regular school. These schools are free, and the kids come out very successful. There's a catch though. In order to get into these charter schools, kids have to enter their names into a lottery. Hundreds of kids enter these lotteries, and only a few get there names called to be in the charter school. the problem is that the charter schools are at max capacity. This means hundreds of families are being rejected, and their children will continue to be subjected to shitty educations.
Two documentaries cover this topic (they're on netflix btx)
1. The Lottery
2. Waiting on Superman
It's evident that these kids are dying to succeed and do well, the system is just holding them back. The question is, how do we make sure everyone has access to a good education? I wish I could answer that question, but I can't. There is always going to be some sort of barrier in the way keeping these kids from excelling in life.
On the bright side, attention has been given to the problems in the education system. Programs like City Year and Teach for America aim to solve this problem, but these organizations can only do so much.
Next year, I will be working as a City Year Corps Member in San Antonio. It is my hope that this will give me a good start in learning the inner workings of the education system and lead me on the path to fighting for the right of every child to have access to a good education.
City Year.
For starters, what is the achievement gap?
Achievement Gap: the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout rates, and college-enrollment and -completion rates.
How is this caused? I would argue it is caused from the lack of funding to distressed communities for the school districts. Lack of funding means lack of resources, good teachers, programs, facilities, etc. These results from lack of funding lead to high drop out rates, low test scores, failing grades, etc.
When this occurs, a school can be labeled as failing, and then be shut down. This is not okay, and something must be done asap. People argue that the problem is the kids, but I would COMPLETELY disagree with that statement. The problem isn't the kids or their parents, the problem is the US education system. This is a failing system, children are failing through the cracks every day because they don't have access to a good education. the sad thing is that many of these kids and parents dream of having access to a better education; however, this is not always within their means.
A good example of this are the school lotteries. Basically what a school lottery is, is a chance for students to go to a charter school in their area. the charter school often excel beyond a child's regular school. These schools are free, and the kids come out very successful. There's a catch though. In order to get into these charter schools, kids have to enter their names into a lottery. Hundreds of kids enter these lotteries, and only a few get there names called to be in the charter school. the problem is that the charter schools are at max capacity. This means hundreds of families are being rejected, and their children will continue to be subjected to shitty educations.
Two documentaries cover this topic (they're on netflix btx)
1. The Lottery
2. Waiting on Superman
It's evident that these kids are dying to succeed and do well, the system is just holding them back. The question is, how do we make sure everyone has access to a good education? I wish I could answer that question, but I can't. There is always going to be some sort of barrier in the way keeping these kids from excelling in life.
On the bright side, attention has been given to the problems in the education system. Programs like City Year and Teach for America aim to solve this problem, but these organizations can only do so much.
Next year, I will be working as a City Year Corps Member in San Antonio. It is my hope that this will give me a good start in learning the inner workings of the education system and lead me on the path to fighting for the right of every child to have access to a good education.
City Year.
Questions:
1. What do you think are the contributing factors to the achievement gap?
2. What can we as a country do to close this gap?
These are awesome videos, thanks for sharing. I'm also going to look into the City Year program you mentioned. I am being indecisive and can't figure out which path I want to take after undergrad. Much of the time, I want to go to law school and do something in discrimination/civil rights law but also, I think about doing something like Teach for America and working with kids after the program. I don't know! There's so many things happening in our education system, and it's so unfair that kids have to suffer because of rich policy makers who don't have their best interests at heart (for the most part).
ReplyDeleteI agree that is was so inspiring to see the boys succeed in Africa after coming from such a tough neighborhood. I thought it was super sad that they cut the program. All I could think after I found that out, was could they not do it in an American city. Why did they have to do it in Africa? All the program needed were volunteers to teach the boys and willing boys to learn. I feel the program did not try hard enough to find another option, because if they did they would have found one. Both videos are very eye opening. The school lottery one was sad to watch because of how many students got rejected just based on luck.
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