I found an article called From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools by Gloria Ladson-Billings. The article discusses the achievement gap between black students and white students as reflected in test scores. She suggests that we need to take historical, economical, sociopolitical, and moral factors into consideration when analyzing why there is such a large achievement gap. The gap has been around for a very long time. From a historical perspective, blacks weren't allowed an education during the slave period. When education was finally offered to black students, it was defined by the government as a separate but equal education. However, most people would agree that it wasn't actually equal education. From an economic standpoint, the funding of schools with mostly white children is much different than that of a school filled with mostly black children. Sociopolitical debt reflects the way colored communities are being/have been excluded from things like voting. Moral debt is the most difficult to describe, but it relates to the idea of knowing what is right and doing what is right. We recognize that we have moral debt to people like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr.
Based on what I know about urban education, I find Ladson-Billings article to be quite accurate when describing the reasons behind the achievement gap. I believe that it is important to take these things into consideration when attempting to close the achievement gap, because it is not something that is going to close quickly. We have done years and years of damage. It will take time for all of those things to heal. It is also important to recognize what decisions were made in history that could help or hurt the recovery.
Citations:
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. "From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in US schools." Educational researcher 35.7 (2006): 3-12.
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