Achievement Gap

"The Achievement Gap"

The goal of public schools in the US is to give American citizens a chance at an equal education. However somewhere over time this system has failed to provide all children with this said education. More specifically it has failed at giving African American children an adequate education. When looking at mandatory state test scores of African Americans they are significantly lower than those of white Americans. The achievement gap in education between whites and blacks is a big problem the American education system has and needs to solve. In this essay I will discuss why there is an achievement gap in education between white and black students and what teachers can do to help close this gap.

In order to see why there is an achievement gap it is necessary to look at the education that many minorities are provided with. There is a big difference between the education that is taking place between the suburbs and the inner city. Inner city public schools are mostly filled with minority students. The suburban public schools though they do have minority students the majority of the students are white. In inner city schools the students are not always provided with the materials they need to assist in learning. There are not enough teachers. The school systems lack the government funding needed to provide the children with things that those students who attend schools in the suburbs are always provided with. A good example of this would be books.

When looking at the education that many African Americans are provided with in the inner city it is not hard to see why there is an achievement gap. However, in suburbia the majority of students are provided with a decent education. In most cases they have more than enough materials to assist in learning and yet there is still a large achievement gap between African American and white students.