The Achievement Gap in America’s Education System

Structural racism is something that Americans need to acknowledge and demolish. While there are some plans in place, like affirmative action, there seems to be little class mobility for black individuals with a low socioeconomic status. There are many avenues to blame that have contributed to structural, societal racism and lack of class mobility for low socioeconomic black Americans. I will discuss how America’s ugly history has set up an achievement gap between black students and white students’ performance, why this issue persists and some possible ideas for a solution.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige asks an important question in his work titled The Black-White Achievement Gap: Why Closing It Is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time. He asks, “What are the long-term economic, social, and racial consequences for African Americans in the event of a continued— and possibly growing— achievement gap between African American students and their white peers?” (Paige XIX). Paige wonders if the current, static crisis in America’s educational system is “prolonging the racial stigma of African American intellectual inferiority?” (Paige XIX). This problem in America’s education system is nothing new.

In the preface to The Philadelphia Negro, a social study written by W.E.B. Dubois, Dubois challenges white people to “work to try and include the blacks, to reach out to them, train them, give them a leg up so they could recover from the experience of slavery,” (The Philadelphia Negro XXV). Dubois had written this statement in 1903 in an essay titled “The Talented Tenth” (The Philadelphia Negro XXV). From the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the abolition of slavery to the Reconstruction in 1877, black Americans have been perpetually oppressed by elitist white Europeans that are too selfish and captivated by capitalism to care about the ways in which they exploit other people. Even after the abolition of slavery, white people still found ways around the law which would allow them to maintain having slave-like labor. White people began the practice of share cropping which was a practice much like slavery; these oppressed people would cultivate gardens and give a portion of the crop back to the oppressor who was generally a white farmer. Black people were never able to escape the system; they barely made just enough to scrape by daily.

Although present day American society has toned down direct racial prejudice, yet pockets of unrelenting hatred can still be found, black Americans are still not being treated equally to white Americans. In 1897 Dubois wrote about the Black experience in America and his inner self in another essay titled “Of Our Spiritual Strivings.” He writes, “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife— this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self [double consciousness] into a better and truer self,” (Of the Dawn of Freedom 4). Even though this was written 32 years after the abolition of slavery it seems as though American society had yet to shake the mental and structural prejudices that discriminated against black Americans. Unfortunately this phenomenon can still be found today, it is just done in a more convoluted manner.

The elitist white oppressors of history, and today, seem to be unable to focus on the problems of inequalities that they impose on others. The sociological study The Philadelphia Negro was a good catalyst to shed light on the real inequalities and oppression at hand but a major problem was that the oppressed could not learn of their own condition because they were not the ones that read the study. The white people that initially read The Philadelphia Negro were previously uninformed about how black Americans were living because their lavish lifestyles were drastically different than the lifestyles of victims of oppression. “And yet how little we really know of these millions,— of their daily lives and longings, of their homely joys and sorrows, of their real shortcomings and the meaning of their crimes,” Dubois writes of his sociological studies of black Americans in the essay “Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece” (Of the Dawn of Freedom 67). It was important for scholars to study environmental and structural factors in history that could lead to a higher rate of crime among black people. Along with economic distress, overcrowded housing, lack of opportunities for education as well as being discriminated by society as a whole there were other factors that contributed to higher rates of crime among black people.

Beginning in the late 1800’s black Americans were able to begin some kind of higher educational process due to programs like those of ex-slaveholder Richard Humphreys who founded an institution that “having for its object the benevolent design of instructing the descendants of the African race in school learning, in the various branches of the mechanic arts and trades, and in agriculture,” (The Philadelphia Negro 87). While it was significant that black Americans were being incorporated into some aspect of the educational system in America, it is important to point out the fact that these practices did not influence authentic racial equality in American society. In fact, it was the beginning of institutionalized racism in education because what seemed to be happening was that white Americans labeled black Americans solely on their skin color and deemed that they could only pursue a certain path in education. Black people simply could not study the same things that white people did. And schools were segregated.

Another large separation between white people and black people was the static-ness of each culture. White people made assumptions regarding what black people were like. Black people constantly lived in fear of showing themselves and often were forced to live in a way that was a façade. Ironically, one important thing that seems to be leading to the demise of black people’s education in present day United States is “blackness” as depicted by American culture. The business people that set the trends for America need to be aware of the repercussions of selling a stereotype into other’s eyes. This depiction of how black people “should be” can be embraced or rejected by black America but the problem at hand is unawareness of the way in which these oppressed people are being stereotyped and limited by this definition of “blackness” that is manufactured by white business people and is marketed back to them; white dominance has set up a structure of inequality that continues to reinforce racial superiority.

In what ways is “blackness” defined in the media? Black people are depicted as dysfunctional. Once this discourse had been created “it is stronger than actual representation of what an individual says because it does not carry as much weight” as collective societal view does (Mbyaye). This problem is not unique to Americans in general; many Americans do not have the voice to represent themselves— others portray them (Mbyaye). Possibly the most detrimental representation of “blackness” in the media is American hip hop. What white businessmen who create hip hop music and videos are “capitalizing on is leading to the colonization and victimization of an entire culture” (Mbyaye). They are reinforcing age-old stereotypes and prejudices of black people that depict them as violent, ghetto criminals, highly sexual and poorly educated. Black men are also depicted as ultra-masculine and dominating; black women are depicted as passively submissive (Riggs). All of these stereotypes need to be burst and measures need to be taken that allow black Americans to represent themselves in whatever way that they choose, not in the way that greedy white Americans can profit off of.

All of these things have contributed to a concept in which W.E.B. Dubois coins as “double consciousness”. This is a dilemma and paradox that articulates the “ways in which African Americans feel pulled into multiple directions in American society,” (Mbyaye). Many black Americans are conditioned, through interactions with American society, to believe in racial prejudice and, therefore, learn ways in which they suppress themselves in order to become more like white culture.

Renowned author Richard Wright used character Bigger Thomas as a catalyst to write about suppression of the self in the novel Native Son. A problem with getting poignant messages like Wright’s out is the economics of the book trade in America (Riggs). Who reads books? Middle class white people (Riggs). Wright recalls a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. and writes, “He [Martin Luther King Jr.] wants me to keep writing the kinds of books that tell the truth of what he lives, but, and this is the central problem, there are not enough Negroes to buy those books,” (Letters 22). This statement emphasizes the hopeless that many African Americans had because of such a dominant white American presence that was an allusion white people used as a control in order to exploit others. Wright continues, “So I’m left facing a white audience that does not wish to face the general truth of the problem, even if I try to present it for their own good,” (Letters 22). John Edgar Wideman offers a solution in a documentary titled Black Is Black Ain’t by saying that Americans need the “intention and willingness to enter someone’s skin and live there and feel there [to] give up one’s ego” in order to understand the oppressed people within our culture (Riggs).

President Obama is quoted, in 2008 as a senator, in Paige’s book The Black-White Achievement Gap: Why Closing It Is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time as he proposes a solution on how to create a “more perfect union” (Paige 1). Obama states that Americans can help by “teaching them [black children] that while they may face challenges and discriminations in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism, they must always believe that they can write their own destiny,” (Paige 1). Schools cannot continue to be a place that discourages black students from dreaming of succeeding, rather, they should be a place that inspires all students to study and work hard in order to become successful in life. Teachers must teach in a way that allows their classroom to be an authentic representation of a model idealistic society with hopes of students analyzing that environment instead of being absorbed in the messages in the media, culture, his or her family structure and the harsh environment that surrounds areas of people with low socioeconomic status.

This is where the achievement gap in America cannot be ignored any longer. “[It] is not a new challenge. Almost a century has passed since the problem was first identified and quantified by the United States Army when it began to use large-scale mental testing to assess recruits. The results showed that white recruits outscored their black peers by substantial margins,” (Paige 3). What’s more shocking is that “differences in language and math skills appear by the time that children enter kindergarten, and those differences persist into adulthood,” Paige 3). This is present day structural racism. America’s educational system has quite the challenge ahead of it.

The facts are startling. “Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other studies show that while the black-white achievement gap has narrowed in some subject areas since 1970, the average African American student still scores below 75 percent of white students on most standardized tests,” (Paige 3). The reason that this topic is so horribly fascinating to me is because I’ve seen it manifest itself in my classroom in many ways. When I was tutoring at a school within the Akron Public Schools district, I was working with “underachieving” students. These students were the victims of the achievement gap. I went into that context still holding onto the notion that every student was and is capable to meet my challenging academic expectations. And the student that I worked with for an extensive amount of time did. Her white teachers all regarded her with contempt and I challenged her with hopes of her putting the effort in to succeed. The first few meeting sessions she did not like me and did not want to invest in the material. Then I watched her conditioned responses to authority, created by sixteen years of living life in the United States, slip away. She opened up and worked hard. I actually cried over it because I was so moved by her transformation and personal growth. One of the happiest moments in my life was when one of her teachers condescendingly explained to me why I should not get my hopes up regarding her academic performance, he showed me a previous test that she took which was left completely blank, and she received an A on the next test that I helped her prepare for. If teachers do not hold all students accountable to the same standard then I believe them to be racist. I also believe that they should leave the profession before they do any more harm to the future of American society.

This incident has not been my only experience with the matter. At the current school that I am working at within the last few years they redrew the district lines and now include subsidized housing within the district. The students get “bussed in”. I put these words in quotations because most faculty members, unfortunately, use the term in a derogatory way. The staff seems to be fed up with said students because they do not complete assignments and ultimately lower the school’s average performance. They are more than just a statistic, they are people! I struggle with what to do with these students myself. I’ve given several pep talks to students. I’ve offered bonus assignments that would help redeem failing grades that are a result of late or missing assignments. One African American male student even became quite hostile with me and claimed that I was “salty” because I expected him to turn in work, and reminded him his missing assignments. I had to remind him that I’m on his team and that I actually want him to do well. I did not want him to be surprised when grades came back and he was failing miserably. But, unfortunately, I think that these students are used to flying under the radar. Teachers seem to just pass them in order to get them through the system. One African American male student told me he basically could not read the text that we were working on, which was a simplified translation of The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and he is a senior in high school.

I think the issue at hand regarding the achievement gap in America’s educational system is quite complex. While individual teachers could put forth educational measures to show students the hand of oppression on African Americans in history, as well as present day, but this alone cannot counteract all of the other facets that have significant influence on this matter. The representation of African American people in the media must be reformed. The various media outlets should depict African Americans from all walks of life in order to reduce stereotyping. Rap music should be reformed as well. Another possible solution would be for the government to issue special opportunities for urban schools to receive grants. These grants could purchase more innovative technology and new textbooks among other things that will help motivate students and provide them with more opportunity to really learn. The main reason that I believe is a huge factor in the development of adolescents psyche regarding racial oppression and stereotypes is family life.

I’m left wondering how a teacher can counteract society, culture and students’ family life as well. Since single-parent families are the most economically depraved people in the United States, students that come from these homes will be indoctrinated with many false ideas of what their life has to be like. “Despite the complex nature of the problem, [of single-parent families] the weight of existing evidence suggests that the problems of male joblessness could be the single most important factor underlying the rise in unwed mothers among poor black women,” (Wilson 73). This cycle of poverty will perpetually exist unless the American people step in.

The problem of structural racism is nothing new to this country. Many of the present day problems were articulated long ago by W.E.B. Dubois in The Philadelphia Negro. So, with all of these factors at the surface, what can I do as an educator? Can I promise my African American students that they can succeed in America if they work hard? Heck yeah, I will. I don’t care if they get irritated at my academic intensity toward them, I will continue to hold all of my students, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever, to the same standard of education. And I will voice my disgust with others that don’t. The issue of the achievement gap in America’s education system is complex but I believe, however impossibly complex the issue is, that education is the beginning of the solution to the problem.

Works Cited

Dubois, W.E.B. Of the Dawn of Freedom. New York: Penguin Books, 2009. Print.

Dubois, W.E. B. The Philadelphia Negro. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1899. Print.

Mbyaye, Babacar. “Modern African American Literature.” Kent State University. Oscar Richie Hall, Kent, Ohio. 16 October 2011. Lecture.

Paige, Rod and Elaine Witty. The Black-White Achievement Gap: Why Closing It Is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time. New York: AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 2010. Print.

Riggs, Marlon. Director. Black Is Black Ain’t. San Francisco; California Newsreel, 1995. Documentary.

Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. Print.

Wright, Richard. Letters to Joe C. Brown. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Libraries, 1968. Print.