Capitalism, African-American And Hispanic Communities

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Reading Response
The world is getting more complex by the day and as people are adapting, some seem to take too long to adapt. Everyone is trying to outdo the other and to emerge the winner. Capitalism has been slowly ingrained and inculcated into the minds of people and children from as low as 3 years. However, as this is happening, the US is involved in one of the most evil and retrogressive plans in the world. The country is currently politicizing everything and often, politics seems to take center stage at the expense of things and issues that matter. Currently, every politician is denying the divisive state the country is in or the ripple effects of the same. However, a look at the state of schools in the country shows that more needs to be done or else the country risks falling into a cycle that will guarantee a certain proportion of the population remains poor. The achievement gap keeps soaring a fact that is so rightly confirmed by Diane Ravitch and Jonathan Kozol. Equality is slowly becoming an afterthought and there is a significant portion of the population that is always left out. While some people like the politicians try to validate the state of the country and ignore how the country’s values and statutes have been rapidly desegregating, others like Ravitch and Kozol seem to offer a deeper understanding of the same. In his article, Kozol seems to indicate that the issue of inequality is grounded deep within the state of education in the country. He provides details of how disparity in the provision of education as well as resources to spearhead the same could be subjecting a portion of the population to an uncertain future and one marred with poverty. In essence, Kozol seems to believe that the achievement gap is fabricated and that a section of the population is doomed regardless. Ravitch, on the other hand, believes that the achievement gap is an issue that goes deeper than simply the state of education in the country. He provides details of how the state of education and performance in the country has improved over the years for all the races. Both writers seem to be driving towards the same point but there are some notable differences in the papers. While seeking to analyze the main arguments presented by both writers as well as their congruence as well as dissimilarity, this article seeks to showcase the relation between achievement gap and the education system.
Children from the African-American and Hispanic communities writes Jonathan Kozol, will eventually find themselves revolving or in the same mess their parents are in if things do not change. Racial segregation, inequality in the country, and the deepening re-segregation of schools is slowly having major effects on children from the minority communities especially the Hispanics and African American. However, as Kozol reports, everyone is trying to hide or ignore this obvious fact. One of the perpetrators is the media which always seems to tell a story different from the way it should be. Kozol reports that, “There is, indeed, a seemingly agreed-upon convention in much of the media today not even to use an accurate descriptor like "racial segregation" in a narrative description of a segregated school. Linguistic sweeteners, semantic somersaults, and surrogate vocabularies are repeatedly employed.”The media with its outreach has helped to further the notion that maintaining status quo is fine which obviously is not. As Kozol reports, children from as young as three years, seem to notice the disparity and this is disheartening to say the least. But the question is, is it all racially motivated or is Kozol reading too much into the statistics or is he ignoring a significant portion of the facts? According to Ravitch, while there could be some disparities between the schools all racial groups attend, each has shown tremendous improvement over the past two decades. Ravitch seems to subtly disagree with Kozol or his argument that the system is failing a part of the society. Education disparity is not the main reason why the achievement gap exists. According to Ravitch, differences do exist in the provision of resources but with notable improvements in all races, there seems to be systems which have sought to maintain the achievement gap as it was.
According to the article, The Facts about the Achievement Gap, by Diane Ravitch, she claims that the achievement gaps are getting larger and this is regardless of the progress made in reducing them. The corporate reform movement claims that the discrepancy increases due to the poor perfo...