The Achievement Gap

Educational Disparities in Young People of Color

By: Evan Halloway, Bianca Palala, Mikaela Pitcan

What is the
Achievement Gap?
Disparity in academic performance
between African-American and
Hispanic students and their nonHispanic white peers.

In 2000, among persons 25 years of age and older, 13% of Whites, 51% of
Hispanics, and 24% of African Americans lacked a high school diploma. For the
same age and time frame, 30% of Whites, 8.9% of Hispanics, and 15.5% of
African Americans held a bachelors degree or more (Murdock, 2006). According
to the Institute of Education Science in 2010 the percentage of adults age 25 to 34
with a bachelors degree or higher was 37% for Whites, 13% for Hispanics, and
19% for African Americans (as cited in Powell & Scott, 2013)

Were all American citizens born with the

same constitutional rights. If everyone has the
same opportunity, why is there disparity?

Activity

What are systemic factors that might impact

the academic achievement of students of
color?

Socioeconomics
Students in poverty and those who are members of racial minority groups are
overwhelmingly concentrated in the lowest-achieving schools (Editorial
Projects in Education Research Center, 2011).
Poor and minority students tend to have less access to the most effective,
experienced teachers (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011).
68 percent of upper-income 8th graders in the US have math teachers deemed
to be of high-quality, while only 53 percent of low-income students have math
teachers deemed to be of high quality.

Discipline in Schools
Discipline in schools disproportionately impacts African American students,
particularly African American girls (George, 2015)
o In the context of school discipline, race and gender stereotypes
particularly function to criminalize African American youth and to
reinforce cultural beliefs about perceived inherent behavioral
deficiencies and African American cultural norms in need of social
correction. (George, 2015)
o In this environment, implicit and explicit biases are able to manifest
themselves and thrive unabaited with little oversight or intervention
from the courts or the federal government (George, 2015)

What impacts students of color at an

individual level?

Stereotype Threat
Being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about
ones group (Steele & Aronson, 1995).
How might stereotype threat occur in school settings and how might stereotype
affect the achievement of students of color?

Stereotype Threat in Action

Steele and Aronson (1995) found that Black Stanford college students performed
worse than White students on a test of verbal intellectual ability when they were
asked to provide their race. In contrast, in the group where participants were not
asked to provide their race, there was no difference between White and Black
participants on the test of verbal ability.
Stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity (Schmader & Johns, 2003).

What value do you believe Black and Latino

communities place upon education?
How do you think Black and Latino
communities define success?

Stereotype Falsities
o

Asian, Black, and Latino youth all report much higher aspirations than
would be expected given their SES (Kao & Tienda, 1998).
However, poor children and ethnic minorities are disproportionately
placed in low-ability groups early in their educational careers and in
non-college-bound groupings in middle and high school (Kao &
Thompson, 2003).

Stereotype Falsities
Placement in academic tracks and courses is due to decisions by educators
perceptions about race and class differences in academic motivations and
abilities (Orfield & Eaton, 1996).
Schools in predominantly wealthy and White neighborhoods offer two to
three times the number of honors and AP classes (Kao & Thompson, 2003).
Most high school seniors plan to go to college right after high school (77% of
Whites, 75% of Blacks and Latinos, 83% of Asians, and 66% of Native
Americans). Thus, Blacks and Latinos have similar intentions to attend
college

How Do We Intervene?
Multicultural Competency Training
Cultural Connections
Encourage Students
Advocate for Students
Mentorship