Analysis Of Bruce Bradbury's Too Many Children Left Behind

It is quite obvious that the quality of an American education has fallen. As of 2014, American students were ranked barely above average in the world on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA exam, and have been jumped by several countries in the past decade with far fewer economic resources. (Resmovits, 2014) The major educational issues within the United States have been scrutinized by academic scholars such as Jonathon Kozol, John Hattie and the authors of Too Many Children Left Behind, who collectively agree that the current educational system is defunct and in need of serious change. The coming educational reforms in the country must be expansive and all encompassing, which could take some time; but one very attainable …show more content…
The authors claim that the United States has the highest achievement gaps between high and low socioeconomic students in the world, and say that the majority of the gap is created during the years leading up to kindergarten. (Bradbury, p.111) The United States has a gap of 1 standard deviation in language, reading and math skills at age five between the highest and lowest socioeconomic students, the highest of any other comparable country. (Bradbury, p. 71) This gap is by far the largest in the world, and largely a product of the inability of the low socioeconomic class to afford this care as long as it’s not universal. The gap of the percentage of children who attend preschool is substantial. Approximately 80% of high socioeconomic children attended preschool, while only approximately 60% of low socioeconomic students attended pre kindergarten programs. (Bradbury, p. 84) These numbers show a noteworthy level of inequality that cannot persist if we are to join the educational heavyweights across the globe. The authors conclude their discussion of preschools by saying that any equalizing properties that preschool has in the United States remains highly skewed due to the vast differences in socioeconomic status. They go on to say that gaps between the socioeconomic groups would be even larger if not for some public programs such as Head Start that offer preschool programs to those in the lowest socioeconomic status; but even those programs only satisfy some of the lowest while ignoring other children in the upper-lower and middle class that are still unable to send their children to preschool. (Bradbury, p. 86) Programs such as Head Start are a step in the right direction for expanding preschool programs to the entire country, but it does not cover everyone. If we are going to put a substantial dent in the education gap and take a step towards the