Minneapolis, MN...For years, we have invariably used the term “achievement gap” to describe educational disparities between white and black youths in Minnesota. It occurs to me that this term fails to accurately articulate the truth of why children of color are falling through the cracks within our public education system. For one, the term “achievement gap” is deficit-based language that implies that blame for children’s failure to “achieve” falls upon their own shoulders and is a result of their unwillingness or lack of motivation to work hard in school. (It is the Horatio Alger “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” myth in disguise.) However, for many children who struggle in school, external circumstances like chronic poverty and marginalization often hinder them from obtaining equal opportunities to achieve success.
For example, a child who has attended school in a wealthy suburban area typically receives advantages to which a poor child would not ordinarily be privy. The child in the wealthier community will likely gain access to more highly qualified teachers, newer textbooks, access to the latest technology, smaller class sizes, privately-financed extra-curriculars and inside knowledge of the unwritten customs and rules of mainstream society.
Meanwhile, a poor child of color is forced to contend with less qualified teachers, used or even no textbooks, lower teacher expectations, over-crowded classrooms, and a lack of racial diversity and cultural competence amongst teachers. Further, the recent report entitled: “Double Jeopardy: How Third- Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation2″ (Annie E. Casey Foundation) establishes that “children whose families live in poverty often lack resources for decent housing, food, clothing, and books, and they often do not have access to high quality child care and early education… .”
Rather than labeling the cumulative effects of these conditions as an “achievement gap,” I prefer the analysis provided by Carter G. Woodson, who wrote a book describing these issues in 1933, aptly called, The Mis-Education of the Negro3. Thus, I see the educational disparities as the result of “mis-education” or an “opportunity gap” experienced by poor children of color. In order to tackle these issues effectively, we have to provide equal access to educational opportunities, teachers qualified to teach poor children of color and language that accurately identifies the issues. In essence, the “achievement gap” rhetoric is a misnomer that sets us back, rather than pushes us forward in creating equal opportunities to succeed for all children.
References
1. ^Nekima Levy-Pounds (learnmoremnblog.typepad.com)
2. ^Double Jeopardy: How Third- Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation (www.fcd-us.org)
3. ^The Mis-Education of the Negro (en.wikipedia.org)
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