School Achievement Gap Analysis

There was a study completed by two school districts in Illinois. These districts, Waubonsie and Neuqua, for five years they collected data from their students taking standardized tests. Waubonsie reported that on average around 30% of students from the minorities met or exceeded standards in math and reading. On the other hand, around 75% of Caucasian and Asian students met or exceeded the same standards. Similarly, students at Neuqua followed the same trends. With this study and many others completed around the country it now seems that there is a deep-rooted correlation between ethnic groups, intelligence, and success within school districts.

There are many reasons that could explain why this achievement gap exists within our school systems. However, this achievement gap is mainly due to two main challenges that ethnic students have to go through every day at school and outside of school. One challenge is the fact that members of ethnic groups are treated within the schools much more differently than Caucasian or Asian students. The other is that minorities tend to often also live in greater poverty than Caucasian or Asian students.

As stated before minorities tend to live in less privileged areas and this causes the schools to be less privileged as well. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 24%
If these three things are recognized a step will be taken in the right direction to fix this epidemic called the achievement gap: (1) Students belonging to ethnic groups already are set back due to predisposition beliefs that do not necessarily apply to them; (2) there are schools out there that are not up to par and; (3) the fact that African American and Latino students do not as a whole have less enthusiasm than any other demographic. These are not difficult ideas to change and will tremendously help the future ethnic students