Expect No Progress, Receive No Progress: Student’s Achievement Reflects Expectations

By: Megan Knotts

There is a clear, growing achievement gap across the board between students who come from a higher-income family vs. a lower-income family. The poorer students are not born less intelligent than the richer students, so what is causing this large gap between the two? When criticism for schools in lower income areas is brought to the table, there are always millions of excuses. People blame the lack of funds, asking “How can you expect them to do more when they are given so much less?” Others will argue that until the communities, families, or poverty itself changes, schools are powerless and cannot be expected to help children.

            When looking at the decreased success rate of schools in lower-income communities, most adults and outsiders quickly blame the children, the families, and the poverty they suffer with. However, when staff members from Education Trust, an organization that “promotes high academic achievement for students of all levels” (Education trust), talk with the students from these lower-income areas, the answers are much different. The children mention under-prepared teachers, counselors who continually underestimate them, principals dismissing many student’s concerns, and a curriculum and expectations that are so low-level they are completely bored (Haycock). This is the cause of the achievement gap in our schools. When a child is expected to do so little and is given assignments and tests based on those low expectations, it is only inevitable that it eventually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These children are treated like they will never succeed or be anything special, so they fall into the path and take on the “role” assumed to them. When nothing is expected of them and they are not challenged, what are the supposed to do?

As Goyocochea, a doctoral student from Claremont Graduate University simply puts it, “we need to believe in our districts, our schools, our teachers – and our children. We must give them the challenge, the tools, and the support they all need for the success they deserve.” Students from low-income areas can get a good education, but steps must be taken to ensure this. Kati Haycock, the director of The Education Trust, breaks it into four “lessons”: 1. Standards are key 2. All students must have a challenging curriculum 3. Students (especially those from low-income areas) need extra help 4. Quality teachers matter a lot. These four areas are typically lacking in poverty-stricken schools and thus the children suffer and receive a sub-par education (as compared to higher-income area schools). To change the effect of a poor education for children from low-income areas, we need to change the cause and look at these four specific areas to make improvements. No child deserves a lesser education just because of their family’s income level.

Works Cited

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<http://www.edtrust.org/dc/about>.

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