Achievement Gap Victim

Minorities Fall Victim to Achievement Gap The achievement gap continues to be up for major discussion in America’s schools. Researchers, reformers, and educators alike are baffled by the achievement gap, for they have no concrete idea why it occurs or any stable solution to solve this growing problem. The achievement gap can be seen through-out grades, test scores, drop-out rates, and graduation rates. To show the extend of the achievement gap, Harold Berlak, a Senior Research Fellow at the Applied Research Center in Oakland, California, explains a study by Professor Samuel Meyers Jr. to see if poverty played a role in students achievement. Meyers prepared a test that would become a prerequisite for graduating high school. In a test run the
As explained by Evans, “Acting White” is when an African-American student “stand[s] apart from the crowd” (11). “Acting White” by Roland G. Fryer, an assistant professor of economics, explains that acting white can be characterized by the “academically inclined, but allegedly snobbish, minority students who were shunned by their peers” (53). What Fryer means that they are the minority students who excel in school—often the richer—and are separated from their peers because of all the pressure they receive for acting white. To be precise, Fryer explains that for this essay, acting white refers to “a set of social interactions in which minority adolescents who get good grades in school enjoy less social popularity than white students who do well academically” (53). Further, acting white “is most prevalent in racially integrated public schools,” where there is a greater ratio of white to black (54). Fryer explains that there are many variations to the definition of what acting white is, but all show a similar “reference to situations where some minority adolescents ridicule their minority peers for engaging in behaviors perceived to be characteristics of whites” (54). Fryer also says that since “reading a book or getting good grades might be perceived as acting white that makes the topic a matter of national concern” (54). As black students GPAs increase above a 3.5
“Acting White” is much more than standing out in the crowd; it is about minority students feeling socially obligated to decline sports or academics, so they will not lose the friends they have. When a child is growing up they are learning at a rapid pace and then there moral values are screwed up by material rewards, therefore learning to become dependent on a reward in order to do something; once a student receives a reward for a good grade, they will not have the same feelings toward school as before. Rewards can damage intrinsic values by giving people the perception that they can only complete or do something if they are rewarded for their efforts; further, self-esteem is not something that can be fixed by rewards, due to the fact that is requires much more. Lastly, professional athletes are not role models worth looking up to because they can only twist and tangle students attitudes towards school; they feel they have a better chance of making it in a major league sport than in any academically required profession. Even though, Evans’ idea of giving rewards to minority students’ is a plausible solution that could fix America’s achievement gap problem, it fails to be anything more than just an