Jose Luis Ayala Iniguez

Susie Huerta

Engl 1S

December 14, 2017

Empowerment

The public education system are not providing enough nor equal amount of power to each

individual student in order to achieve success in their future. To feel empowered is to feel the

power to be able to do something and to feel strong and confident with yourself in doing so. This

is not something the educational system is providing its students, especially those in the minority

group. The Public education disempowers students due to their obsession with standardization,

causing an achievement gap and low expectations among minority students. Public schools need

to focus on ethnic studies which will in return cause dissent and reform, empowering students in

the educational system.

Standardization has become the central purpose of public education and its crippling our

students critical thinking and writing. Throughout many students K-12 experience they have

been flooded with many standardized test. Standardized test that are theoretically meant to

improve our student reading, writing and mathematics performance.These test were created after

reports of high percentage of students being illiterate in1983. 1 This cause the president of United

States to pass the act No Child Left Behind in which schools would be forced to evaluate every

student performance in reading, writing and math every year. Educational historial and policy

analysis Diane Ravitch, goes more into depth about this problem against standardization in her

article The Essentials of a Good Education. Ravitch describes how adults should look past the

standardized testing and evaluating students intelligence. She also argues how testing shouldn’t

1E,
Person. “Pearson .” Pearson, Jan. 2003,
images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/tmrs_rg/HistoryofNCLB.pdf?WT.mc_id=TMRS_Histo
ry_of_the_No_Child_Left_Behind.
 Ayala Iniguez 2

measure a student's potential but to help them improve, as well as teachers.(Ravitch 112) These

standardized tests only condition students into thinking reading and math are the only important

subjects in schools. Students then automatically eliminate the importance of any other classes

that are not math or reading, which are actually classes that help expand their thinking and

perspectives on the world. These two subject don't provide the students with enough knowledge

or power in order to become unique and functional citizens of tomorrow. Standardized testing

are making our students narrow minded, preventing them from being unique individuals. These

standardized test are not only hurting students critical thinking but also hurting students of the

minority groups. These students are often face with the reality and data of how they are

diagnostically proven to perform low in schools, due to these tests. This results in schools and

teachers to have low expectations for these students.

Public schools have low expectations for students, especially those of the minority group

which result in these students to performing poorly in school. Students of the minority group

have always struggled in education throughout history. This history has contributed to the

perceptions of schools towards students of the minority group. Anyon a social activist and

professor of educational policy explains in her article From Social Class and The Hidden

Curriculum of Work about how schools are broken into specific schools that focus on specific

jobs for their students depending on their academic status. Anyon breaks down public schools

into three different group, the working class schools, middle class schools, and the executive or

elite schools. Each schools offer a different curriculum, each students are placed specifically in

each schools depending on your parents occupation and amount of income. (138 & 139) All

these schools offer specific curriculum to their students in order for them to follow the career

path that the schools want them to. These working class schools have low expectations for their
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students and is why they don't offer them a full and equal curriculum which the elite schools

provide. These low expectation affect students mentality towards schools. students start to

perceive themselves as not good enough compared to the students of the elite schools. All this

forces students to not feel motivated in assignments or to participate in class, damaging their

academic performance. It's a vicious cycle that is only disempowering students in schools. These

low expectations among minority students causes them to perform poorly in school which will

only increase to achievement gap between privilege students and minority students.

There is a large and persistent achievement gap between students caused by schools not

understanding the distinctive learning process of every student. In public schools there are data

in which it shows a large difference in educational performance between white students and

student of the minority group. This achievement gap is only getting bigger and Amanda

Williams, A high school teacher with a PH. D in clinical psychology talks about this topic in her

article A Call for Change: narrowing the Achievement Gap between White and Minority

Students. William states that the achievement gap between white students and students in the

minority group is only growing and will persist with the “No Child Left Behind Act” and other

legislative acts. These legislative acts are suppose to be helping our students perform better in

school and have better accomodation. In the contrary, these acts are not taking into consideration

the ubiquity of each student.(William 65) This causes only a amount of students to perform well

in schools while other sfail. This creates an achievement gap and disparity between students,

especially between privileged students and minority students. This results students to not be able

to realize their potential and succeed in schools and future jobs. All this goes down as data which

is shown to students of the minority group, being told that they are “at risk” in school. This data

doesn't motivate our students to do better in school, it only disempowers them. Making them feel
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like school doesn't have any significance, resulting them to drop out. Students need to be

introduce to a wider curriculum in school in order for them to feel empowered in school.

By preventing students to learn about multicultural backgrounds it develops students to

become narrow minded in society. Ethnic studies provide the opportunity to learn about other

ethnicities, cultures and experiences. Julie Depenbrock, a reporter of Capital News writes about

the importance of ethnic studies in her article Federal Judge Finds Racism Behind Arizona Law

Banning Ethnic Studies. “Teachers of ethnic studies argue that these courses give students a

pathway to break the cycles of poverty, violence, and incarceration that so many communities of

color face.” (Depenbrock 3) By providing students with the knowledge of other ethnicities and

their hardships it will, in return expand their perspectives in and outside of school. This will help

students break the disparities between privilege and minority students, helping every student to

succeed in school. Ethnic studies will not only help students broaden their perspectives in society

but also empower minority students to break those “cycles”, which Depenbrock explains in her

article. Empowering them to perform better in schools and to succeed in achieving their goals,

breaking the cycles for younger generations, hopefully creating cultural shift.

A culture shift needs to happen in education in order for every student to have equal

education. Schools beliefs and behaviors towards teaching material in school needs to change.

As said by Williams, “A culture shift needs to occur in education right now, schools have

operated on the assumption that they need to teach to test.” (William 69) Schools are not

accommodating their teaching to student. Every student is different, with equal amount of

potential but the obsession with “teach to test” teaching method. This is hurting those students

that are incapable to perform well on test, due to many factors that are not because they’re not

intelligent enough. Schools needs to change their behaviors and teaching methods towards
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individual students in order for them to feel empowered by the school, resulting in them to

perform well in schools and test. Schools need to risk the federal money from testing and focus

on how to provide an education that will help every uniques student achieve success in and

outside of school.

Public schools are not empowering students in the US today. This is an issue because it

affects how this individuals contribute and operate in a democratic society. All the standardized

testing and low expectations for minority students in results in them not succeeding in jobs in

the future. Keeping the minority group stuck in the working class jobs. We need to reform

schools and have a cultural shift in order for those students to feel empowered in school and in

their future careers.

Work Cited
1E,
Person. “Pearson .” Pearson, Jan. 2003,
images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/tmrs_rg/HistoryofNCLB.pdf?WT.mc_id=TMRS_Histo
ry_of_the_No_Child_Left_Behind.

Colombo, Gary, et al. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing.
Bedford/St. Martins, Macmillan Learning, 2016.

Williams, Amanda. “A Call for Change: Narrowing the Achievement Gap between White and Minority
Students.” Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, Routledge.
 Ayala Iniguez 6

Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel:
800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web Site: Http://Www.tandf.co.uk/Journals, 30 Nov. 2010,
eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ913725.

Depenbrock, Julie. “Federal Judge Finds Racism Behind Arizona Law Banning Ethnic Studies.”
NPR, NPR, 22 Aug. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/08/22/545402866/federal-judge-finds-
racism-behind-arizona-law-banning-ethnic-studies.