Causes Of The Achievement Gap In Education

An ongoing crisis continues to stricken the education community. Its existence sparks ongoing debates regarding how to remedy the problem. Moreover, educators, politicians parents and concerned others, all weigh in, attempting to propose the best course of action, unfortunately to our dismay the problem still exists. At its best, education is to be a means of providing quality education to all students- yet there are persistent disparities in the educational outcomes of different groups of students especially those groups defined by socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity. Explanations for the achievement gap vary widely and are the source of much controversy. Theories on the causes of the gap mainly include economic, cultural …show more content…
That is to say, integration is a critical factor in narrowing the achievement gap and that concentrated poverty in school districts has negative effects on academic performance thus widening the education gap. BF Skinner’s theory of behaviorism, argues that human behaviors are produced by responses to certain stimuli in the environment, or are a consequence of that person’s history. This says indirectly that students from lower economic backgrounds potentially would benefit significantly by changing their learning environment, which is accomplished by diversifying schools. Comparatively speaking, Gardner and Skinner theories embody some ideas that still remain relevant today. Certainly Gardner’s brain strategy of adequately accommodating distinct intelligences would undoubtedly aid in closing the education gap as this theory successfully argues that adopting a broader range of methods is important given that all intelligences are equally important. Therefore, an overhaul is necessary to streamline curriculum, which regrettably is only possible through additional …show more content…
In essence, both sides present valid arguments, however the most compelling argument in relation to the articles is that of Howard Gardner. The multiple intelligence theory implies that educators should recognize and teach to a broader range of talents and skills by meeting the needs of distinct intelligences therefore school finance reforms must address the need for additional monies as these funds will support equally engaging most or all intelligences Unfortunately inequalities in school funding make sit nearly impossible for certain school districts to adopt such an intricate way of learning, forcing them to solely recognize two intelligences, linguistic and mathematical as these intelligences are easier to assess but are not able to gauge the learning of students of different intelligences resulting in assumed low performance in students whose districts do not have the ability to assess students through various