In a Monday conference with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a panel of experts discussed the achievement gap, an issue that has caused a great deal of debate and turmoil in America for decades. According to the New York Times, in the past it has been thought to be racial, but in recent years the debate has turned to the income-based gap. The wide gap between non low-income and high-income students has been virtually stagnant for the past decade. Education Week says the gap has ties to generational poverty and long-term inequity. For the sake of fighting poverty, improving the education of the general public, closing the wealth gap and ending social inequality the achievement gap must be closed.
The panel discussed lengthening the school day and school year because the prime time for juvenile delinquency is immediately after school gets out. However, they noted the danger of bad teachers and bad schools could nullify the effect of this solution. While this may treat the symptoms of the achievement gap, it will not address the underlying issues of poverty and inequity. This may lessen the gap locally, but the problems are much more systemic than the length of the school day.
There should be financial incentives for teachers to work in low-income areas. This will provide competition among the teachers bringing the best teachers to the areas that need them most. Good teachers can go a long way toward bridging the gap.
But the gap does not start at school. Data from Early Education for All show by the time children begin going to kindergarten, the gap has already reached roughly half of what the gap is when the children graduate. Attempts to combat this have ranged from ad campaigns to attempting to universalize preschool in San Francisco, which Minnesota Public Radio says has failed. Getting kids involved with the community from a young age may cause them to be more driven than others. The presence of programs geared toward low-income kids in a community may achieve this very effectively, like the proposed prep school in Madison. Those who are involved tend to succeed.
Programs to combat the achievement gap can be very useful tools. At my high school and in Madison schools, a program called AVID/TOPS focuses on getting low-income and minority students into college. The program has been very successful. If such a program can be successful at helping bridge as late as high school, why can it not be taken to the elementary and junior high levels to make students more successful and driven? Programs in schools that attempt to bridge the gap do marvelous things.
When parents themselves are not successful in school, they often put less value on their children’s education or do not know how to motivate their children. This again puts burden on the school system and the community to provide a will to become educated.
Bridging the gap is not an easy task but is definitely worth undertaking. The achievement gap is both a cause and an effect of generational poverty and economic inequality. Those who do poorly in school tend to do worse financially, and when pockets of poverty develop, this leads to underfunded schools leading to a lack of education that only perpetuates this vicious cycle. In a New York Times op-ed, Paul Krugman recently projected that by 2035 there will be very little social class mobility. This is unacceptable.
We must address the gap, both in the U.S. as a whole and specifically in Madison. If we do not, we will be met with a continuation of the vicious cycle that has created a great deal poverty and crime. I feel this is done with programs aimed at getting young people involved in their community and programs that motivate students to do well in school. Ultimately, we must either bridge the gap, or our society will suffer.
Spencer Lindsay ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in political science.
