Equal Opportunity Gap Analysis

It is constantly preached that every child has an equal opportunity to learn, but ethnic and minority students are constantly denied equal opportunity. Charisse Cowan Pitre wrote the article, “Improving African American Student Outcomes: Understanding Educational Achievement and Strategies to Close Opportunity Gaps”, where he describes his frustration with the achievement gap that African American, Latino, and Native American’s are facing. African American, Latino, and Native American students are performing significantly lower compared to white and Asian American students who are performing academically higher. “Among all fourth grade students in 2013, only 18% of black students were proficient in reading, while 46% of white students demonstrated proficiently.” (Pitre 2004) So why do opportunity gaps exist? …show more content…
”Nationally unqualified teachers are disproportionally assigned to teach low-income ethnic majority children.”(Pitre 2004) These schools often lack college preparatory programs, and encourages students to engage in vocational courses. Pitre then goes on to say poverty can’t be blamed for ethnic and minority students performing poorly. There are low-income schools that have outperformed students in more affluent areas. Educators need to get rid of the assumption that low-income students are deficient. He believes the answer to increasing the performance of minority students is by providing meaningful learning experience, academic rigor, cultural connections, and educators providing a profound belief in student’s capabilities. (Pitre