Fatima Faisal
ENGL 21003-F
Professor Matyakubova
21st March 2018
Final Argumentative Essay
Promised but Neglected
Abstract
Other nations look
at the United States’ democratic policies to bring equity and freedom for their
citizens. However, America has continually failed to give minority students,
specifically colored, equal education even though the Fourteenth Amendment or
the Equal Protection Clause gives them those right. This essay examines the
extent to which African-American students attend high-poverty schools with lack
of resources, have less qualified teachers and underperform in subjects than
white students. There is a vast discrepancy in government responsiveness to the
needs of minority groups with stark contrast to the majority group. Although
perfect educational equality might be an unrealistic goal, representational
biases of this important call into question of whether or not every citizen is
equal as stated in the Declaration of Independence.
Key Words: Poverty, equal education opportunities, minority students, lack of
resources, unqualified teachers, and student rights
Promised but Neglected
On Wednesday, March
14th, 2018 every American citizen woke up to the news of yet another protest,
nationwide; this time on stricter gun laws following the Florida’s Majority
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. It has become common for news media to
bombard citizens with headlines that depict how another person’s constitutional
right, a right “relating to an established set of principles governing a state”
is deprived, whether it be for religion or basic right like freedom or
education (“Constitutional Right”). Even if to other nations, the United States
of America is known as the land of the free, the one that promises to ensure
that immigrants receive what they came for, is not what they get. The reality
is, it has failed in cases like properly educating everyone equally. In fact, the
country’s education system discriminates mainly against minority as this
student body lacks resources, skilled teachers, and quality curriculum.
Education in the
U.S. is provided by public, private and home schools; usually run by state
governments. As the nation that sets its overall educational standards based on
factors, like standardized tests, board of regents, or college entrance exams,
race should not be considered to determine if a certain group gets more than
the other group. The right to equal opportunity, considerably “all men are
created equal” is stated in the Declaration of Independence, a “document that declared the US to
be independent of the British Crown, signed by the Congressional
representatives of thirteen states” (“Declaration of Independence”). Although
education may not be a fundamental right under the constitution, the Fourteenth
Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause states that once a public-school
system is created, no child residing in that state is denied “equal access to
schooling” (Costly). Even though the clause is created to help every student
get knowledge, some of the ways minorities were treated in history and how they
are dealt with in present, clearly show that American ideologies have not
progressed. Reasonably, one reason being that because of poverty.
 |
| Figure 1: Courtesy of The National Equity |
Poverty could
strike anyone, however African-American students are more subjected to being
poor and face career challenges in the later years. Access to high-quality
public education remains a dilemma for these people and they are also likely to
attend high-poverty public schools. According to the Center for American
Progress, majority of the black students go to schools where about 75 percent
of students receive free or reduced lunch. On the other hand, only 7.6 percent
of white students attend institutions where the same 75 percent of colored
students are eligible (“Center for American Progress”). The difference between
the two races in poverty is huge showing the economic and racial isolation. If
educational right was equally referenced to all, then why do majority black
students qualify as poor and attend schools surrounded by other low-income
students? The immense discrepancy proves that minorities are impoverished from
their rights similarly to the iconic Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of
Education in 1954 where Oliver Brown’s daughter was denied entrance to Topeka’s
all-white elementary schools (“Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas”).
Today not giving admission to blacks in a white school is rare, but the analogy
of lack of resources for the group is the same. The levels of schools’ poverty
for all students is not equal, as shown in Figure 1. The National Equity Atlas’ research indicates that in 2014 42.62
percent of students of color were in high-poverty schools while only 7.64
percent white students were. The increasing numbers matter because American
neighborhoods are highly segregated by race and income and high-poverty schools
like those in Dallas, are not given “inadequate funding, leading to a growing
population of young people of color who are under-prepared to succeed in the
workforce” (National Equity Atlas). The difference is huge and there is nothing
done about the situation. If schools do not have money, attracting teachers
becomes difficult, as Ronald Ferguson, the Faculty
Director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University explains in a
documentary. One factor affects the other, in this case, poverty for colored
students means being taught by teachers who are also poor, therefore nor
prepared.
Minority schools
have less qualified teachers in terms of levels of education, certification,
and training in the fields they teach. Teachers in integrated schools were less
knowledgeable about the subject that they taught, as a research conducted by
Ferguson and Duke economist Helen Ladd showed. The economists analyzed that
more of the difference between the high - and low-scoring districts was
explained by teacher qualifications and class sizes than by poverty, race, and
parent education (Brookings). Those teachers coming from broken families, do
not have enough skills to be teaching in a sensitive environment where giving
attention to every single student is essential because students need good role
models. If they don’t get what they need in school or at home, they search for
it on the streets, in friends or harmful groups like gangs. Humans are in
constant need of picking up habits, thoughts, ideas from other people. Whatever
they see, they adapt. In particular, teachers need to possess a passion for the
subjects they teach, and inspire to play with ideas, to think deeply about the
subject matter, take on more challenging work, and push students to pursue
careers. If they have problems of their own, how will they be able to make
students feel good about school and learning? On the other hand, predominantly
white schools do have teachers who have formal preparation training, are
caring, fair and respectful and dedicate extra time to instructional
preparation. Again, the vast change in the education prove that the system is
unjust in providing the same resources to all. When students have unskilled
teachers, they’re also behind academically.
 |
| Figure 2: Courtesy of Diversity US |
Black students lag
significantly behind white students in their educational performance. As shown
in the graph, in Delaware the difference in average percentage in the scores
between blacks and whites in 2013, was 25.4%. When children are assigned to
ineffective teachers for years, they perform lower on achievement tests-which
was the case for a Tennessee school where fifty percent of students at an
elementary school scored less than those that were with highly effective
teachers (Brookings). If America’s principles were truly based on “equality,”
then such scenarios would not exist. Perhaps, these differences in qualified
teachers for race show that the country has not moved further since the Civil
Rights Movement because either way blacks still go through similar problems.
Even though, effective teachers in inner cities establish person environment
fit and can concentrate on students more, it is only possible if the teachers
are given the right resources. To be effective means to be able to access the
student’s performance and further help the student with understanding the world
around them, as well teach them valuable communications skills. If the teachers
themselves lack those skills, then who is to blame? Due to unqualified
teachers, teaching in minority schools and larger classroom sizes, students
often are put at greater risk of not learning the right curriculums. More
research by the University of California, Berkeley professor Marcia Linn
described in a report entitled "A Splintered Vision: An Investigation of
U.S. Science and Mathematics Education," that teachers “respond by
attempting to teach a topic a week which may be reflected in the lower scores
of U.S. students on standardized math and science tests (Brookings). If an
unqualified or a teacher with less knowledge is teaching a topic that he or she
is not confident about, the process will take longer than a week-jeopardizing
students’ education once more. Putting their education in jeopardy and not
giving them access to what they need, not
only harms them but also harms the economy in a significant way, as shown in
Figure 2. Unemployment rates were declining for most of the races and ethnicity
(Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians), but the rate
 |
| Figure 3: Courtesy of Bureau of Labor |
Minority students also
underscore in school when the right resources are not provided to them. Critics
might argue that there is a constant effort to merge the gap between the
educational opportunities differences between minorities and whites. As the
National Assessment of Educational Progress explains, where the “gap in
minority and white students’ test scores narrowed substantially between 1970
and 1990 and the scores of African-American students climbed 54 percent between
1976 and 1994.” This may be the case but the reality is that this for wealthy
or hard-working African-Americans, those who have money and do not attend
high-poverty schools.
Success comes with
hard-work and Republicans think that blacks are “less motivated and less
intelligent than whites.. as result they have worse jobs, and income..”
(Harriot). For years this has
been the mindset of racists but despite that, colored people are breaking the
barriers and working their way across to get the best. In 2014, Kwasi Enin, a
colored student from New York was accepted to all eight Ivy leagues with the
help of great teacher, mentors, friends and resources (Steffen and Sanchez). Furthermore, in an experiment that randomly assigned seventh
grade “at-risk “students to remedial, average, and honors mathematics classes
performed better when they were given the opportunity to take honors classes in
a pre-algebra curriculum. If students are given the right tools and the correct
platform, nothing is impossible, but sadly it is not the case for minorities,
because America still has an unjust educational system. There is not a general education
crisis in the country; the crisis is for black, Latino, and some Asian and poor
white kids. The children are not provided with, in W.E.B. Du Bois' words,
"a fair start which will equip them with such an array of facts and such
an attitude toward truth that they can have a real chance to judge what the
world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be” (Campbell).
However, no matter how progressive the country gets, the dilemma of racism will
remain in the educational system.
Many people, mainly
politicians, believe that America has shifted from the ideologies such as
equality that did not make America for what it stands. However, unequal
opportunities for minorities like blacks, especially pertaining to the
education, having no access to proper resources, clearly depict that, that is
not the truth. How many times do the citizens of this country, or any other,
need to see another minority be targeted for how they look or where they came
from? If today, it is the colored or Latinos that are snatched of their dreams,
tomorrow it could be another race, community or a group, just the way it was the
Native Americans, then the Japanese, and then blacks. Society can be harsh; it
does not take long to pick out the next targets, and once chosen, the same
process begins again until people repeatedly chant on the streets. It won’t be
long before another minority is picked on, and this country be viewed as just a
country, and not the one ruled by the
people, for the people.
Works Cited
Campbell, Duane. "Racial and Economic
Inequities Harm Public Education." Education,
edited
by Mary E. Williams, Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Accessed 15 Mar. 2018. Originally Published as “Racism
and the Crisis of Urban Education,” Democratic Left, vol. 30, Winter 2002, pp.
6-14.
Costly, Andrew. “Constitutional Rights Foundation
Bill of Rights in Action.” BRIA 7 4 c.
Education and the 14th Amendment - Constitutional Rights
Foundation, Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Accessed 15 Mar. 2018.
Davis, Elizabeth Skye. “Racial Disparities
in Delaware’s Public Schools Require Attention and
Action.” Diversity
US, 4 May 2014
“Unemployment Rate Nears Prerecession Level by End of 2015: Monthly Labor Review.” U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics,
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1 Apr. 2016
“African American Students Deserve a High-Quality Education.” Center for American Progress,
Posted Feb. 28. 2017. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.
“Education Gap: The Root of
Inequality.” Harvard University. Online Video,
YouTube,
“Constitutional Right.” English Oxford Dictionary, 2018,
Accessed. 21 Mar. 2018.
"Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas." Brown Et Al. V. Board Of Education Of
Topeka
Et Al (August 2017): 1. Academic Search Complete,
EBSCOhost (accessed
March
21, 2018).
“School
Poverty: United States.” National Equity
Atlas. 2016. Accessed. 21 Mar. 2018.
“School
Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap.” NCES: National Center for
Education
Statistics. NAEP: National Assessment of
Educational Progress.24 Sep. 2015. Web. 21 Mar. 2018.
Harriot, Michael.
“According to Republicans, Black People Are Stupid and Lazy.” The Root. 3r
Apr. 2017. Web.
Accessed. 21 Mar. 2018.
Comments
Post a Comment