The Reason Of A Gap In School Achievement Between Ethnic Groups

Test scores continuously show a gap in school readiness and scholastic achievement between ethnic groups, specifically between Caucasians and African Americans. According to Clark McKown, “The Black–White achievement gap is a highly consequential social problem”. McKown even argues that the academic achievement gap that starts with a child’s first day of school can continue to follow them into adulthood, affecting multiple aspects of their life, including for example, their socioeconomic status (2012).

There are several theories broad and narrow that attempt to example why there is such a significant gap in achievement. One specific theory is Social Equity Theory (SET). “SET adopts an ecological perspective to formulate what social processes in what contexts create and maintain racial-ethnic achievement gaps”. In Clark McKeown’s research, he identifies that is the “social processes” that perpetuates and continues to feed the achievement gap in our society amongst different ethnic and racial groups (2012). McKown suggests two influences within the achievement gap; direct and signal influences. Direct influences are social processes that support achievement. Direct influences contribute to the racial-ethnic achievement gap when they are distributed differently to people from different racial-ethnic groups. Signal influences are cues that communicate negative expectations about a child’s racial-ethnic group. When children from negatively stereotyped groups detect such cues, this can erode achievement.

Clark McKown then introduces examples of these processes as evidence that aid in academic achievement. Some examples include positive parent-child relationships and parenting styles, though these vary among racial and ethnic groups. His research suggests Black homes, “engage in less frequent conversation and having fewer books and other media available, ” and what’s found to be supportive in achievement is more commonly “available” in White homes. Another example Clark McKown uses includes the influence of the child’s school, specifically “quality of instruction, ” where “compared to White students, Black students attend schools in which instructional quality and teacher skill are, on average, lower”. McKown also goes into the influence neighbors and peers play in the Social Equity processes contributing to the achievement gap among racial and ethnic groups. He states SET is a framework, which entails there is much more that goes into this social problem than the two examples I gave, but takes a socioeconomic stance and attempts to make it more definitive in explaining the achievement gap.

My opinion as to why the achievement gap exists looks at, for example, why White homes generally have the resources and parental availability to aid in scholastic achievement compared to Black homes. I believe this is due to socioeconomic factors, specifically rooted in systematic racism. Systematic Racism can address McKown’s argument about schools, explaining “why” the school’s Black students are more likely to attend have less skilled teachers and lower quality instruction and curriculum. If we first look a parental availability, a Black household is more likely to have a single parent than a White household, and when there are two parents, it is more common that one or both parents work more than one full time job. I find it interesting that racism comes full circle in this scenario as the reason one or both of the Black parents have low income jobs probably has to do with the achievement gap in their generation.

Secondly, affordable housing has been “segregated” into mostly minority communities. When communities and schools go “down-hill”, families who have the resources to move; do. In this scenario, the availability of resources to make that move are statistically high among White families. Because of factors associated with the achievement gap when the signal Black mother was in school, her grades weren’t fantastic in school, she did not have enough money to go to college, so she works two full-time jobs being paid minimum wage. She only makes enough to meet basic needs and utilizes low income or Section VII housing, where these housing locations are in failing neighborhoods, and ultimately have failing schools due to the lack of teachers available and the financial resources to give the school. The mother has no other choice but to send her children to the neighborhood school because she doesn’t have her own form of transportation to drive them to a school outside the district. Between her two jobs and the long public transportation rides, she doesn’t have as much time as she would like to come home and work on homework with her children, talk to them about their day, and bond with them. In this scenario, the children would be lacking parental availability and low quality instruction at their schools. These don’t exist because their mother doesn’t “care” about their education and doesn’t want to spend more time with them; it’s because in order to stay afloat she must have to make sacrifices.

One thing I did appreciate from Clark McKown’s research regarding “Single Influences” when it comes to the expectations, or “self-fulfilling prophecies” teachers create for their students, especially for students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. For example, “teachers may provide higher quality instruction to students from whom they expect more” and these students catch on to these cues, both positively and negatively, depending on how much is portrayed to be expected of them. One explanation for why this happens, circles back to my argument of systematic racism, “individuals may hold implicit stereotypes and prejudices that are largely out of their control even in the face of overtly egalitarian racial attitudes”. This explanation provides the evidence that racism still exists and if it exists in a school, it can exist in all sociological areas. There was even discussion in class regarding the fear of “acting white” and “knowing the answer” and “getting good grades” being highly attributed to White students. The achievement gap is not something I feel like I have the answer to, and it doesn’t seem like our policy makers do either. I believe, just like a lot of the answers to social problems discussed in class, I think we can start with funding.

We often discuss in class how “unconstitutional” the allocation of money to Ohio’s social districts is. If a school had more money, especially a school like the one I used in my example, they could fix structure/physical issues, obtain new books, pay for skilled teachers and the training they would need to work with minority children, and utilize monies for after school program programs the not only providing much needed child care, but academic and homework support for children who might otherwise not receive it at home. These afterschool programs can allow children to ask for help with their work, they can utilize technology they need for their work that they might not have access to at their home, and they can feel good about their work. A lot of these children have so much to worry about when they arrive home from school, and to some extent, I believe homework or access to a computer is the last thing some of these kids need to be worrying about, especially children who are taking on the parenting roles of feeding siblings and ensuring their siblings complete their work. But again, I feel these issues can be best explained by the effects of racism; institutional and implicit.