Affirmative Actions is a controversial and complex issues. If often gets obfuscated by partisan politics and race baiting, but at its core, it acts as an equalizing force. Affirmative action, in the academic context, can best be defined as favoring a person of a specific race or ethnicity to compensate for past racial prejudice. Continue reading
Author: Henry Tashman
When you are hungry, nothing else seems to matter. It is our most basic instinct to eat, and young children cannot be expected to focus or function at a high level without proper nutrition. Low vitamin and nutrient intake has been linked to low performance in school settings. Children who skip breakfast have decreased cognitive performance in alertness, attention, processing complex visual and auditory messages. These children are often from low income homes. Food insecurity for young children is a real problem in schools and when it comes to academics, these students suffer disproportionately in the classroom. The problem lies in both the family life and the school. The school must promote healthy eating habits, that are reinforced and acted upon at home. The problem is not simply establishing healthy habits and education surrounding food. There is clear causal relation between children’s health and socio-economic standing. That being said, socio-economic status is not the only indicator of health for school children. Poor nutritional education from the parents also factors into the equation. Missing meals is bad, but eating unhealthy food is also an indicator for poorer academic performance.
Childhood obesity and food insecurity are also both salient factors when it comes to childhood achievement. One study found food insecure students to be more likely to have low cognitive and social-emotional skills in pre-k and kindergarten. Obese students, were linked to similar trends especially linked to low curiosity, effort, and cognitive skills.
One source talks about the reciprocal relationship between heath, education, and poverty. These three factors are causally linked and interconnect, influencing each-other’s outcome and creating a composite formula that can predict trends for educational achievement. Health, which is taken for granted by the wealthy, and not always available for the poor, seems to be a major indication of achievement through all levels of education. Even prenatal health of the parent is linked to the achievement of children. A study looking at parent obesity and health risks during pregnancy found unhealthier parents to produce lower achieving children. This study found that unhealthy parents had children who exhibited similar symptoms, minor and major birth defects, and deficits in academic skills.
While early intervention education is helpful, and incredibly important in the achievement of students, health is a variable which is oftentimes unaccounted for. The familial health fo both mother and child is the first concern and unfortunately, the least amendable. Pushing for initiatives that incentivize good health for parents, and making healthcare available for pregnant women can control much of the failures in academic achievement we see across the nation.
While racial achievement gaps are in decline, income-based gaps remain the same or widen. Over the past fifteen years national studies show that hispanic-white, and black-white achievements have been in steady decline since 2003. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), recorded drops between 13-25% measuring fourth and eight graders over the last 15 years. While the decrease in racial disparities are encouraging, these studies also reveal troubling information about the importance of income as it pertains to achievement.
It is no mystery that achievement gaps exist in New York City public school, as they do across the nation. However, New York faces a unique challenge with students who are both low-income and students of color. Compared to their white and asian peers, poor black and hispanic students face a significant challenge in their particularly isolated schools. Due to the prevalence of specialized public high schools in NYC, (many of which are comparable to the top prep-schools in the nation) poor districts of homogenous demographics of black and latino students underperform at an even more significant rate.
While the cleavages widen on isolated schools, another problem arises when a mixed demographic learns under one roof. Even when attending “high achieving schools” with a significant wealthy and white population, poor students of color still underachieve. This issues highlights the difference between integration and diversity. While these schools seem to be diverse on face value, the lack of integration of poor students of color into the high achieving programs is apparent. This disparity gives credence to the importance of non-academic variables that factor into achievement gaps across demographics. Studies like these isolate the variables that are often obfuscated with a simple testing of achievement across schools with varying demographics.
Racial and Economic Disparity in Achievement (NYC)
The shrinking of the achievement gap in Success Academy Cobble Hill and other gifted and talented schools in NYC are a good indication of how to address the problem in public schools. These schools are committed to testing all students into their accelerated programs with an emphasis on integration in the classroom. They are dedicated to reflecting their school demographics in their high achieving classes. Compared to the rest of NYC, these schools that emphasize integration have an average 3.9 score for students of color compared to the 2.7 across the rest of NYC. The students of color at these unique schools score higher than most white and asian students across the board.
While the achievement gap widens as time passes, integrating accelerated classes early in education allows black and hispanic students to rise to their potential rather than fall behind in high school. However, the engagement of the teachers and local community cannot be understated in this analysis. To qualify the success of the outliers, we must first understand the systemic underpinnings to these statistics. The Coleman Report first began to understand the importance of integrated schools and these schools that succeed in shrinking the achievement gap follow that same logic from 1966.