William Anderson
#80258260
Dougherty
Racing for Equality
The United States of America is a country that places remarkable emphasis on its surface
appearance of equality for everyone regardless of race, creed, gender, age, or religion. Minority
education has improved dramatically in the last 70 years, but with cheers that America has
evened out the racial gap, there are those critics who complain that educational progress has
drastically slowed since the 1970s, and that a gap still exists in performance by race. Prior to the
1940s most minority Americans lacked access to equal public education and multiple landmark
court cases were necessary to remove barriers which separated children based on their ethnicities
(Brown v. Board of Education, Mendez et al. v. Westminster). Today, attempts to achieve
educational equality are mainly driven through acts of Congress. In 2001, Congress enacted the
"No Child Left Behind Act", which included provisions specifically designed to combat the
growing racial gap in American education by creating "common standards for all" and
earmarking funds for the education of "traditionally underserved students" (NCLBA). However,
critics and supporters debate its success in creating statistically significant advances amongst
minority students who have been disadvantaged in American education throughout history.
One of the symptoms of schools targeted under the terms of the law were schools which,
due to their histories of violent crimes, were posing a threat to the educational process of their
students. It proposed to take on this problem by “allow[ing] students who attend a persistently
dangerous school…. to transfer to a safe school (Executive Summary).” However, during a 2012
Diane Sawyer visit to Strawberry Mansion High School in Pennsylvania, eleven years after the
passing of the No Child Left Behind Act, she found that serious violence was a credible threat
every day on campus. Furthermore, students stated that the fear of violence directly impacted
their ability to attend school every day (Nightline). In conjunction with the presentation, Stephen
Gorard references his tested hypothesis that segregated schools tend to nurture worse classroom
abuses such as bullying and fighting (Gorard 183). Furthermore, in Lance Lochner’s dissertation
on the impacts of a wholesome education, he analyzes crime statistics and determines that
“increasing high school graduation rates by one percentage point in 1990 would have resulted in
nearly 100,000 fewer crimes in the US,” a statistic that would drastically reduce prison
populations and assist America’s ever-growing criminal racial gap (Lochner), in turn increasing
the communal support minority children could receive at home.
Given the tested hypothesis that Gorard presents to his audience, it would seem likely
that there would be some attempt to further integrate schools and even out racial attendance of
schools, however this has not necessarily been the case under the No Child Left Behind Act.
According to a release on the website for Seattle’s public school district, a school which
contained 50 percent Caucasian students and 50 percent Asian students would be considered
racially balanced while a school containing 30 percent Asian, 25 percent African American, 25
percent Hispanic, and 20 percent Caucasian students would not be racially balanced. Under this
very system of distributing students, only four percent of African American students and three
percent of Hispanic students served by the district were enrolled in programs for the
“academically high gifted” while 71 percent of Caucasian students were enrolled in such
programs (Dyson 74). This 67 percent gap in perceived potential for achievement between races
draws into question the law’s claim to have narrowed the race gap in academic achievement, as
the Department of Education claimed in 2006 (No Child Left Behind Act is Working). Dyson
presents the idea in his piece that the federal government is acting in an irrational manner to
attempt to close the race gap and instead supports a system reminiscent of forced busing in the
1950s; bringing students from privileged and underprivileged areas together to quickly level the
quality of education. He cites that this method was used through the 1980s, and that minorities
were making triumphant gains until the 1990s when this practice abruptly stopped with the
passage of the Improving America Schools Act of 1994, which gave school districts more
jurisdiction over the allocation of money and how students were allocated to schools (Dyson
171-199).
Jaekyung Lee writes that the Act set an almost unrealistic goal that by 2014 states would
have managed to achieve one-hundred percent proficiency in math and science amongst their
students, and compiled data on students across the country. He found that if the gains America
has made since the implementation of the law extended over an additional decade schools would
not meet even half of their 2014 goal in reading, and less than two-thirds of their goal in
mathematics. Furthermore, he found that the government, under the No Child Left Behind Act,
was cutting off funding to schools that desperately needed it, and that the Department of
Education was overzealously cutting off funding to schools that served poor urban communities
primarily consisting of African-American and Hispanic students (UCLA 2).
In Amy Carlin’s case study of a school in San Diego, she states in her conclusion that
students of minority and low-income backgrounds were frequently tracked under the No Child
Left Behind Act into programs that were mentally unchallenging, but that if random students
were placed into the more
advanced track they would
perform equally after initially
adapting (Carlin 171). Her belief
is that the No Child Left Behind
Act failed certain children who
had potential by not challenging
them to fulfill said potential. She
believes that all children should
be tried in the harder classes and
allowed to fail if they are not up
to the potential rather than segregating
Source: Filips Pagnoli
the smarter students away from the weaker ones. She believes in this way that the smarter
students will elevate the other students to try harder regardless of the outcome. Mehan conducted
an experiment in which handfuls of students from each demographic who did not meet the
minimum requirements for the “Gifted and Talented Education” program to test whether they
succeeded or failed in the classes. While most of the students initially encountered difficulty in
the classes, by the beginning of their second year their grades were on par with their classmates
who had originally been selected for placement into the program. Mehan states in her findings
that “it is not that dumb kids are placed in slow groups or low tracks; it is that kids are made
dumb by being placed into slow groups or low tracks. And as we have seen in this study,
students can be made smart by being placed in challenging courses when they have a system of
social scaffolding supporting them (Mehan 65).” In a press release the College Board, which is
tasked with creating testing for students in Advanced Placement programs, states their promise
that “the College Board is committed to the principle that all students deserve an opportunity to
participate in rigorous and academically challenging courses and programs,” which almost stands
directly in opposition to the concept of GATE proposed under the No Child Left Behind Act and
prior government legislation that forces requirements upon students who wish to participate in
Advanced Placement programs (College Board). After searching for a response from potential
opposition to this assertment, there was very little response defending the system of tracking and
GATE programming from academic experts, especially now with the No Child Left Behind
Act’s considered replacement with the Student Success Act.
While education for minority students has clearly made great strides since the days of
segregated schooling, analysts appear to have reached a consensus that the achievement gap for
minority students has not been closed entirely. The evidence the analysts present would dictate
that closing the gap in education would have larger implications in narrowing the prison
population in America and therefore saving Americans tax dollars, so this debate is clearly
relevant in today’s society. The underlying consensus remains that the No Child Left Behind Act
of 2001 has not met all of its expected goals and will require revision and further planning to
make a larger impact on evening the playing field for education in America.
Works Cited
ABC News. "At Strawberry Mansion High, There's Fear, Hope." ABC News. ABC News
Network, 5 Dec. 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
"College Board." Opportunity for All: Students Deserve an Opportunity to Participate in
Rigorous and Academically Challenging Courses. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Department of Education. "Executive Summary of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."
Executive Summary of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Department of Education, 2002.
Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Department of Education. No Child Left Behind Act Is Working. Department of Education, Dec.
2006. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Dyson, Maurice R., and Daniel B. Weddle. Our Promise: Achieving Educational Equality for
America's Children: Selected Essays and Articles. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic, 2009. Print.
Haidermota, Daniel. “Achievement Gap Measurement”. Web. Chart. 02 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.dailycal.org/assets/uploads/2013/11/GAPS-graphs_online-900x316.jpg>
Lochner, Lance. "The Impacts of Education on Crime, Health and Mortality, and Civic
Participation." Vox. Centre for Economic Policy Research, 17 Oct. 2011. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.voxeu.org/article/wide-ranging-benefitseducation?quicktabs_tabbed_recent_articles_block=1>.
Mehan, H. (1992). Understanding inequality in schools. The contribution of interpretive studies.
Sociology of Education, 65, 1-20.
Pagnoli, Filips. “Statistics on Racism”. Web. Chart.
<http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/race-and-education-levels-statistics.png>
U.S. House. 107th Congress, 1st Session. H.R. 1, The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (italics).
Act. Washington: Government Printing Office, 2002.