Investing in Economic and Social Equity

The achievement gap seems to be one of the most widely thrown-around buzzwords in the world of education. Its use as a talking point in the political arena and education rhetoric demonstrates the important contextual void that usually exists in its use. There is an achievement gap, yes — but the causes and impacts of that gap are left out of much discussion. An Ed Policy class I once took used the term “education deficit” instead of “achievement gap”, a change that gave a reason for the gap. Often in political rhetoric, the achievement gap is portrayed as mysteriously impacting certain demographics without any thought as to why. This week’s readings seek to point to reasons for those demographic gaps when it comes to education and dissect proposals for closing the gap and solving the problem (these two are not necessarily one in the same).

There is no doubt, as mentioned in the White House assessment on the War on Poverty, that statistically, children from low-income families are still far less likely to succeed academically in early years and go on to higher education. The class divide in educational success is nearly twice as wide as the black-white gap. (Reardon) The Reardon and Newman pieces were particularly interesting in their discussion of the very young and how their cognitive development differs based on socioeconomic status. The reaches of socioeconomic status in terms of learning opportunity outside the classroom and involvement of parents in raising a child brings to light an aspect of class that is usually missed in policy. Yes, lower income directly ties to it being more difficult to pay to educate a child. However, there are further implications of this that can lead to children developing attitudes and habits in their educational process that also contribute to lower grades and lower graduation rates.

It also seems to me that these philosophical discussions on child-rearing and environment place blame on these environments for a child’s cognitive abilities. I think this allows policymakers to shift the burden of addressing these problems onto the families of low income children. It allows for excuses and blanket policies that don’t actually get income into the home and leaves low income families, and even more so families of color within that, on their own. There exists a disconnect between economic and social inequity.

Talking about income inequality cannot happen without incorporating social inequalities as well, reconciling privilege, and how that should and does translate into educational spheres. I hope to continue conversations in this vein — how can we reconcile privilege in educational spaces while not invalidating different learning styles and experiences? How can policymakers keep these subtle but important differences in mind when trying to create education equity? And, why does the disconnect between social and economic justice?