Education Equality Project

I read an article called Achievement Gap "Shocking" from Teacher Magazine it was published June 11, 2008. It is about the forming of a group which meaning is to shake up things in the public education system, particular in poorer Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. It is being started up by the top administrators from Washington D.C. and New York City schools systems along with Al Sharpton. There main goal is to raise overall achievement of Black and Hispanic students to the level of there
counterpart White students.

“Nationally, 55 percent of black males graduate high school on time, compared to about 78 percent for whites, according to recent data released by Education Week with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”

Though they have nice goals and are after the right things they have not yet described how they plan on doing so or even say where they would like to start. However, I feel just to say something about this topic and to have it be brought to the national media level is a good thing even though there is no real plan set forth to achieve these things they are talking about.

“The group has yet to advocate any specific policies it wants to see enacted, but in general its leading members said they want to see greater accountability from teachers, more incentives to reward success, and greater parental responsibility for educating children.”

The below quote brings to mind something that we talked about in class the other day how the better funded schools districts are better off than the poorer ones. It made me think of the Abbott school districts that we have in New Jersey. I was wondering if there are any other plans out there to help the less wealthy school districts in other states. This may be something that the group should look at first.

“Rhee noted that in her city, children who go to public schools in an affluent neighborhood get a "wildly different" education than students in the same school system who live in a poorer neighborhood.”

All quotes are from the following article located at link below. Please read on if interested. http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2008/06/11/08achievementgap_ap.h19.html