How can we close the achievement gap?

How Can We Close the Achievement Gap?
Students affected by the troubling achievement gap that often lead to long term gaps that include dropout rates, college completion, and the kind of jobs students secure as adult. However, we have to know what’s an achievement gap and why is decreasing the gap so important? The achievement gap in education refers to the observed, persistent disparity of education measured between the performances of group of students. (Achievement Gap1). Some researchers have discovered some serious factors that may cause the achievement gap, such as unqualified teaching, unequal school funds, and monopolized education system. Moreover, “The Failure of American School”, Joel Klein explores some effective solutions to narrow the gap which is by refusing the government monopolized education system and creating a competitive system. The achievement gap have widened over many years because of the less attention from government, schools and families. Therefore, we need to reform the system of fairness and equality. Even though providing more evaluations to all teachers seems like a comprehensive solution, some education researchers believe that firing unqualified teachers and relying on an incentive system can bring quick and efficient results to students and schools. IN "restoring Our school", by Darling-Hammond, the author claims that removing the unqualified teacher cannot improve teaching or student outcomes and this is solve only part of the whole problem. Teachers should be encouraged to attend more training program that can help them effectively educate students in different ways, rather than just replacing them. Nevertheless, keeping them and more trainings are a long-term solutions that won't yield effective results immediately or may fail to attain completion. Joel Klein has a different idea in mind; he suggests firing a teacher for non-performance is virtually work. In "The Failure of American Schools", Klein argues that a lot of teachers perform as substitute teachers who have less work, but get full-time salaries pay. We have to punish those ineffective teachers with termination. The punishment can admonish other teachers to be active. In addition, we should reward excellent teachers by creating a merit system. There is evidence to show that "significant numbers of teachers apply to teach in its traditional public schools where negotiated a merit-based compensation system"(33). It can encourage teachers to improve their teaching methods and attract highly qualified teachers to apply and stay in their positions. Moreover, creating positive competition among teachers can sustain growing self-improvement. As a result, students can receive the better result in a short time and quickly shrink the achievement gap. Bad teachers seem to become a serious factor in the achievement gap. We can decrease the gap by providing all teachers with more rigorous training which could produce a good result in the long run, but getting rid of bad teachers and offering reward system that can also increase the average quality of teacher and help the students succeed without investing too much time. Children from affluent families succeed in education more than low-income students, so we should expand school's availability to all people. According to Tavernise, "Affluent children spend 1,300 more hours than low-income children before age 6 in places other than their homes, their day care centers, or schools"(16). By the time they start school, high-income children have spent more hours in literacy activities and more experiences in their life. Their parents can invest more time and money in their children and school, and they usually have a higher education allowing them to help with their children homework and give various educational suggestions rather than less educated parents. On the other hand, the low-income or less educated are increasingly strapped for time and resources, especially single parents. These factors may indirectly effect the educational completion and development of the children. Therefore, expending educational access to all people can narrowed the achievement gap. Darling-Hammond states that " Other nations have been transforming their school systems to meet the new demands of today's world. They are expanding educational access to more and more of their people."(11). If we want to meet the demand of education, we should build a system that assure every students access to schools, an inquiry curriculum, strong teaching and advance technology. However, the society seems to be spending less money on poor children and schools than the rich. This strategy make the poor children or higher poverty areas to received low qualified education. Darling-Hammond believes that egalitarian access to school and create system that routinely guarantee all the elements of educational investment to all children. Therefore, every students can complete their education with plentiful instructional technology, well trained teachers and well stocked equipments. To sum up, the imbalance between rich and poor children in educational development has grown over many decades, in order to close their gap expanding the educational access to every students is indispensable. If the education system transits to competitive marketplace, the families who has least power may receive less negative effects from monopolistic public education system. The government run monopoly in public education system which impact most students from poor communities. Klein writes that "Whether a school does well or poorly, it will get the students it needs to stay in business, because most kids have no other choice"(23). The poverty families do not have other choice to access the schools. They usually get one choice is their neighborhood school. On the other hand, the kids from rich family may apply the private schools or move to another neighborhoods in order to apply a better school. Therefore, transiting the government from monopoly to competitive marketplace is necessary. In lower grades, opening more charter schools in the communities can make sure every students at least have one alternative schools instead of the neighborhood one. Klein claims that "But this kind of push-back is actually a good sign: it means that the monopolists are beginning to feel the effects of competition"(24). More competition should be created between the schools. For example, at the middle- and high-school levels, a community-based choice system or citywide choice system can create competition between schools and cities, because they have to recruit in order to attract more students to apply the schools. In short, government should start introduce more competition in the education public system. Due to the inequality of funds, school are not only making it more difficult to provide quality teaching, but also putting children in danger. According to Darling-Hammond, in Luther Burbank School, students only can take textbook copies without guidance or reference to home for any subject homework, because they only have enough books for in-class use. As a result, students have a hard time finishing their homework, which impacts on the class progress and higher quality teaching. Moreover, at Luther Burbank, because of the budgetary reasons, the school's infrastructures are weak and the classroom environment is poor. For example, the school library is nearly open, the gym is falling apart and the classroom infested with vermin and roaches. It's hard for students to stay focus on study in a extreme environment, as well as the teachers. Nevertheless, spending more investment in technology and infrastructure in poverty areas can change the situation of achievement gap. In conclusion, the education gap refers among a group of students' performance, school, teacher and government. The achievement gap has increased in many years, because the government and community pay less attention on the system. In order to shrink the education gap, we need to refuse the government monopolized education system, create a award system for the teachers. It's important to decrease the gap because the school doesn't equip the kids to become a adult.

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