Education Achievement Gap

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(1)(a) Racial disparities in early childhood education

A review by Farkas (2003) points to racial disparities in which low-income children including African American, Latino, and American Indians have a disadvantage when compared to White middle class children. The data suggests that between-group differences in cognitive and behavioral developments during pre-school years as one reason for the differences. For instance, the skills and behaviors students need to begin the learning process is greatly differentiated. As Farkas points out, African American, Latino or American Indian children have a markedly lower level of unreadiness when they begin kindergarten or first grade. Evidence of these findings are noted regarding topics such as: (a) language, (b) pre-reading, (c) pre-mathematics, (d) general knowledge, and (e) other school-related behaviors.

In addition, Farkas (2003) suggests that in order for children to learn there are three requirements: (a) an opportunity to learn, (b) student efforts to learn, and (c) skills to perform in the school environment. He asserts that children attend neighborhood schools that are strongly segregated by race and family income (p. 1123). Therefore White and ethnic children are separated and receive separate educations. Thus similar to preschool, the early elementary years that begin in kindergarten and the first grade shows differences in reading fluency. The amount of prior knowledge is stated to be significant to the development of further skills and behavior in later years. Research is presented to show that for all children, differences in elementary schools lead to problem in subsequent school years.

For instance, ...