Abstract
America is in debt. That isn’t news. However, this is a totally different kind of debt than might be expected. This is an education debt minorities are living with, and have been living with for over a century. This debt must be addressed and “fixed” before attempting to close the racial achievement gap in the United States. In order to do this though, we must stop the debt from continuing to grow. Educators, policy makers, society must take strides to ensure that we are not doing further damage through our treatment of minority students. The way educators discipline students, the way our schools are funded, the resources and support schools are given; these are the elephants in the room that must be given attention in order to truly make a dent in the debt.
When first reading about the term “education debt” in Gloria Ladson-Billings article “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools” (2006), it was like a lightbulb turned on in my brain. Of course! Of course minorities have an education debt. Of course we cannot close the achievement gap unless we address the education debt. Of course we cannot close the achievement gap if we do not address the historical debt or gap that minorities in America have endured for the past 200 years. It seems, the only way we as educators can begin to close the achievement gap is by first, and foremost, acknowledge the existence of the education debt. And with acknowledgment must come an effort to avoid deepening the education debt further.
According to Professor Emeritus Robert Haveman of the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Economics…the education debt is the foregone schooling resources that we could have (should have) been investing in (primarily) low-income kids, which deficit leads to a variety of social problems that require on-going public investment. (Ladson-Billings, 2006, pg. 5)
Another aspect of the education debt is the idea that minority students, or really the minority population are starting off in debt due to the institutional racism that they have faced historically and still face today. How can we help kids to achieve higher when they are already starting out lower than the rest? This is a good summary of Ladson-Billings thoughts.
There is an activity that can be done to demonstrate the “privilege” experienced by certain races and genders in the United States. You set a wastebasket in the middle of the floor. You line up a row of desks and ask the Caucasian males to sit in that row, behind them in a row, Caucasian females, then African American females and finally a row of African American males. They are all asked to shoot balls of paper into the wastebasket. Each student has the same goal, however for some it will be much easier than it will be for others. A similar analogy, experienced at an Institute for Healing Racism that involved setting up a certain number of cones for each race and gender and asking them to jump as far as they could. Yet another analogy is using a race track but the Caucasian male starts out further than everyone else, with the African American male the furthest behind.
These analogies help explain what is meant by “education debt”. Minority students are starting out further behind than non-minority students. But, why? Why are minority students starting out further behind than non-minority students? Part of the answer comes in my wheelhouse, history. Ladson-Billings (2006) argues that “the historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral decisions and policies that characterize our society have created an education debt” (pg. 5). The beginning of African American life in the United States of America began with a lack of education, purposely so (Ladson-Billings, 2006, pg 5).
Once African Americans finally gained their freedom, they certainly weren’t welcomed into schools with open arms. Racism and Jim Crow laws continued to keep them at the lowest possible status as well as without adequate resources to succeed. In the South, African Americans “did not experience universal schooling until 1968” and many could argue the education they were then receiving was still not equitable to the education of all Caucasians. Similar stories can be told for the American Indian and Latina/o student (Ladson-Billings, 2006, pg. 5).
The factors leading to the education debt go so much further than just this simple, and quite obvious, example. Ladson-Billings includes a history of public school, the inequitable funding, as well as the lack of representation politically. All of these things have landed the minority population in an educational debt. Arguably, we must recognize that this debt exists and pour resources into this debt before we can begin to close the gap. Of course, that does not come easy, the amount of money that would take is unimaginable. So rather than focus on that, let’s focus on how are we, today, in 2015 making the education debt deeper than it already is? What is happening in the United States education system that is continuing to not just fail to close the gap, but add hurdles for minorities to jump over in order to achieve the same goals as the non-minorities.
People who believe that racism no longer exists today are blind, sheltered or completely unaware of what is happening around them. I’d like to use another great activity I was a part of at the Institute for Healing Racism. All twenty of us were asked to line up, in no particular order and hold hands. We all started from the same line in the patterned carpet and were given simple instructions. When given a question, if we could answer “Yes”, then we stepped forward, if we could answer “No”, then we stay put. All questions had to be answered based on our race. Questions were posed such as “Can you walk into a convenient store without being followed”; “Can you buy band aids to match the tone of your skin?”; “Can you buy blemish cream to match the tone of your skin?”, etc. In total, there were 20 or so questions. At the end, every single Caucasian person in the room was on the complete opposite side of the room from where we started. The African American males hadn’t moved. One African American female hadn’t moved. The biracial women in the room had only moved two or three steps.
What this activity demonstrated was the institutional and overt racism that minorities face on a daily basis. It can be assumed some of that overt racism is experienced in schools, and even institutional racism, whether intentional or unintentional. So how can we expect our minority students to perform the same when they are most likely encountering these things that hold them back on a daily basis? The fact that institutional and overt racism still exists today, is deepening the education debt further.
An additional way we are perpetuating the education debt is through the discipline gap. The conversation around the discipline gap begins with the conversation about HOW students are disciplined. Gregory, Russell, and Noguera (2010) remind us in “The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin” that most discipline results in the removal of a student from the classroom (pg. 59). This might be a short term fix when a student is disruptive or it might be long term fix when a student is suspended. This type of action automatically puts the student behind. Furthermore, Gregory, Russell and Noguera (2010) claim this tactic “contributes tot he well-documented racial gaps in academic achievement" (pg. 59). Every single day thousands of students across America are being removed from their learning environment.
The next part of the conversation comes with WHO is being disciplined. It has been reported that African-American students are more likely to be suspended than White or Asian students, 1 in 5 compared to 1 in 10, respectively (Gregory, Russell and Noguera, 2010, pg. 59). At Berkley High School, many of the students being removed from the classroom are African American (Noguera & Wing, 2006, pg. 122). The students who are being removed from a learning space are going to struggle academically, and in some cases, or many, they are already struggling. This is what causes the discipline gap to be a factor in the education debt, rather than just the achievement gap. If this type of pattern is common at many schools throughout the country, then minority students are starting out behind non-minority students simply based on their race. This is just one more battle our minority students must try to combat. Noguera and Wing (2006) hit the nail right on the head referring to a young man who got into trouble at Berkley High School, “Ray’s status as a low-income, African American male robbed him of the second chances that are routinely available to middle-class white student who make similarly poor choices” (pg. 130).
Additionally, due to the nature of our country, it’s history, it’s politics, “poor students of color are more likely to attend schools with lower quality resources and facilities” (Gregory, Russell and Noguera, 2010, pg. 61). Schools around the country aren’t being given adequate tools to truly help students succeed. When you put a minority student in a school that is under-supported, that students education debt gets deeper. Typically, urban schools have a high percentage of minority students and are underfunded. Strong teachers are a necessity to those schools, but more often than not, those schools experience “higher teacher turnover, and a lower percentage of highly qualified teachers” (Gregory, Russell and Noguera, 2010, pg. 62). Society is essentially telling them, make the same shot the non-minority student is making but make it 20 feet further away than they are.
Educators need to ask themselves “What can I do? How can I make even a small difference? What steps do I take to make up for this education debt that our minority students are basically born with?” Well, expecting educators to “make up” for literally hundreds of years of oppression isn’t reasonable and quite frankly, isn’t fair. What’s been done been’s done. However, awareness of what minority students come to us with could make a difference. Recognition of the fact that they aren’t starting at the same “start line” as the nonminority students are can make a world of difference in a student’s life.
Of course, there are more drastic measures that can be taken. For example, we could throw money at the problem (let me pause while you laugh at this statement). We know this is a likely story, money for schools is getting cut and cut and cut. Soon lawmakers will be expecting our students to be achieving perfect SAT scores with just some old textbooks and some chalk (To be fair, I bet there are some teachers who could achieve this ridiculous task).
But perhaps rather than just giving more money to those schools/students who have an education debt, we focus on equalizing the amount of money given to each district. How ridiculous is it that school districts who tend to have a more affluent community receive more funding than those who do not? While I recognize that this is indeed simplifying the issue this is something that sticks out like a sore thumb. In Ladson-Billing’s article (2006), she writes:
a report entitled The Funding Gap 2005, the Education Trust tells us that in 27 of the 49 states studied, the highest-poverty school districts receive fewer resources than the lowest-poverty districts…even more states shortchange their highest minority districts. In 30 states, high minority districts receive less money for each child than low minority students (pg. 9).
That is deepening the education debt. We must take action to create a more equal fund for our schools.
When it comes to the discipline gap, something that educators can, and must address is the reason behind the discipline. The research done at Berkley High School reminds us that “the most common reason for students to be sent to OCS (On-Campus Suspension) was disruption and defiance….this…category is a broad and subjective one” (Noguera & Wing, 2006, pg. 135). This is something that can really confuse a student. One hour they have a teacher that is relaxed when it comes to tardies within reason while the next gives a tardy for be a second late past the bell. Students are having to keep track of which teacher has which rules and must change accordingly. This is not ideal discipline for any student or school. Finding ways to erase these subjective opinions on minor behaviors would help to alleviate the initial problem of how many students are receiving discipline. Small steps such as this can become investments in ending the education debt.
Another aspect to the reason behind discipline is what Gregory, Russell, and Noguera (2010) refer to as the “cultural mismatch” (pg 64). Students and teachers are being thrown together without understanding each other’s backgrounds and behaviors. Then we expect them to get along with each other without any hiccups, and are surprised when a teacher and a student don’t seem to “get along”. More effort needs to be made on the educators part to learn and understand their student’s background, expectations and behavior. If a student is combative a different approach should be attempted before resorting to removal from the classroom. A teacher at Berkley High School had a positive experience by working hard to “intervene” before an issue led to the on campus suspension (Noguera & Wing, 2006, pg. 137).
It is these disparities that must be addressed. Someone calculate for the historical, social and economic debt that minority students have started off with. Resources need to be diverted to fill in this hole. Then, and only then, can we begin to adequately close the achievement gap that exists between minority and non-minority students. We are not giving these kids what they need. We are not considering the educational debt they come to school with. We are not investing our resources properly to erase that debt. We are simply standing by and watching as they fall further in debt, in the hole.
Reference List
Gregory, A., Skiba, R., & Noguera, P. (2010). The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Educational Researcher, 39(1), 59-68. Retrieved from http://er.aera.net
Ladson-Billings, Gloria (2006). From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher, 35 (7), 3-12.
Noguera, P. (2006). Unfinished business: Closing the racial achievement gap in our schools (J. Wing, Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.
America is in debt. That isn’t news. However, this is a totally different kind of debt than might be expected. This is an education debt minorities are living with, and have been living with for over a century. This debt must be addressed and “fixed” before attempting to close the racial achievement gap in the United States. In order to do this though, we must stop the debt from continuing to grow. Educators, policy makers, society must take strides to ensure that we are not doing further damage through our treatment of minority students. The way educators discipline students, the way our schools are funded, the resources and support schools are given; these are the elephants in the room that must be given attention in order to truly make a dent in the debt.
When first reading about the term “education debt” in Gloria Ladson-Billings article “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools” (2006), it was like a lightbulb turned on in my brain. Of course! Of course minorities have an education debt. Of course we cannot close the achievement gap unless we address the education debt. Of course we cannot close the achievement gap if we do not address the historical debt or gap that minorities in America have endured for the past 200 years. It seems, the only way we as educators can begin to close the achievement gap is by first, and foremost, acknowledge the existence of the education debt. And with acknowledgment must come an effort to avoid deepening the education debt further.
According to Professor Emeritus Robert Haveman of the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Economics…the education debt is the foregone schooling resources that we could have (should have) been investing in (primarily) low-income kids, which deficit leads to a variety of social problems that require on-going public investment. (Ladson-Billings, 2006, pg. 5)
Another aspect of the education debt is the idea that minority students, or really the minority population are starting off in debt due to the institutional racism that they have faced historically and still face today. How can we help kids to achieve higher when they are already starting out lower than the rest? This is a good summary of Ladson-Billings thoughts.
There is an activity that can be done to demonstrate the “privilege” experienced by certain races and genders in the United States. You set a wastebasket in the middle of the floor. You line up a row of desks and ask the Caucasian males to sit in that row, behind them in a row, Caucasian females, then African American females and finally a row of African American males. They are all asked to shoot balls of paper into the wastebasket. Each student has the same goal, however for some it will be much easier than it will be for others. A similar analogy, experienced at an Institute for Healing Racism that involved setting up a certain number of cones for each race and gender and asking them to jump as far as they could. Yet another analogy is using a race track but the Caucasian male starts out further than everyone else, with the African American male the furthest behind.
These analogies help explain what is meant by “education debt”. Minority students are starting out further behind than non-minority students. But, why? Why are minority students starting out further behind than non-minority students? Part of the answer comes in my wheelhouse, history. Ladson-Billings (2006) argues that “the historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral decisions and policies that characterize our society have created an education debt” (pg. 5). The beginning of African American life in the United States of America began with a lack of education, purposely so (Ladson-Billings, 2006, pg 5).
Once African Americans finally gained their freedom, they certainly weren’t welcomed into schools with open arms. Racism and Jim Crow laws continued to keep them at the lowest possible status as well as without adequate resources to succeed. In the South, African Americans “did not experience universal schooling until 1968” and many could argue the education they were then receiving was still not equitable to the education of all Caucasians. Similar stories can be told for the American Indian and Latina/o student (Ladson-Billings, 2006, pg. 5).
The factors leading to the education debt go so much further than just this simple, and quite obvious, example. Ladson-Billings includes a history of public school, the inequitable funding, as well as the lack of representation politically. All of these things have landed the minority population in an educational debt. Arguably, we must recognize that this debt exists and pour resources into this debt before we can begin to close the gap. Of course, that does not come easy, the amount of money that would take is unimaginable. So rather than focus on that, let’s focus on how are we, today, in 2015 making the education debt deeper than it already is? What is happening in the United States education system that is continuing to not just fail to close the gap, but add hurdles for minorities to jump over in order to achieve the same goals as the non-minorities.
People who believe that racism no longer exists today are blind, sheltered or completely unaware of what is happening around them. I’d like to use another great activity I was a part of at the Institute for Healing Racism. All twenty of us were asked to line up, in no particular order and hold hands. We all started from the same line in the patterned carpet and were given simple instructions. When given a question, if we could answer “Yes”, then we stepped forward, if we could answer “No”, then we stay put. All questions had to be answered based on our race. Questions were posed such as “Can you walk into a convenient store without being followed”; “Can you buy band aids to match the tone of your skin?”; “Can you buy blemish cream to match the tone of your skin?”, etc. In total, there were 20 or so questions. At the end, every single Caucasian person in the room was on the complete opposite side of the room from where we started. The African American males hadn’t moved. One African American female hadn’t moved. The biracial women in the room had only moved two or three steps.
What this activity demonstrated was the institutional and overt racism that minorities face on a daily basis. It can be assumed some of that overt racism is experienced in schools, and even institutional racism, whether intentional or unintentional. So how can we expect our minority students to perform the same when they are most likely encountering these things that hold them back on a daily basis? The fact that institutional and overt racism still exists today, is deepening the education debt further.
An additional way we are perpetuating the education debt is through the discipline gap. The conversation around the discipline gap begins with the conversation about HOW students are disciplined. Gregory, Russell, and Noguera (2010) remind us in “The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin” that most discipline results in the removal of a student from the classroom (pg. 59). This might be a short term fix when a student is disruptive or it might be long term fix when a student is suspended. This type of action automatically puts the student behind. Furthermore, Gregory, Russell and Noguera (2010) claim this tactic “contributes tot he well-documented racial gaps in academic achievement" (pg. 59). Every single day thousands of students across America are being removed from their learning environment.
The next part of the conversation comes with WHO is being disciplined. It has been reported that African-American students are more likely to be suspended than White or Asian students, 1 in 5 compared to 1 in 10, respectively (Gregory, Russell and Noguera, 2010, pg. 59). At Berkley High School, many of the students being removed from the classroom are African American (Noguera & Wing, 2006, pg. 122). The students who are being removed from a learning space are going to struggle academically, and in some cases, or many, they are already struggling. This is what causes the discipline gap to be a factor in the education debt, rather than just the achievement gap. If this type of pattern is common at many schools throughout the country, then minority students are starting out behind non-minority students simply based on their race. This is just one more battle our minority students must try to combat. Noguera and Wing (2006) hit the nail right on the head referring to a young man who got into trouble at Berkley High School, “Ray’s status as a low-income, African American male robbed him of the second chances that are routinely available to middle-class white student who make similarly poor choices” (pg. 130).
Additionally, due to the nature of our country, it’s history, it’s politics, “poor students of color are more likely to attend schools with lower quality resources and facilities” (Gregory, Russell and Noguera, 2010, pg. 61). Schools around the country aren’t being given adequate tools to truly help students succeed. When you put a minority student in a school that is under-supported, that students education debt gets deeper. Typically, urban schools have a high percentage of minority students and are underfunded. Strong teachers are a necessity to those schools, but more often than not, those schools experience “higher teacher turnover, and a lower percentage of highly qualified teachers” (Gregory, Russell and Noguera, 2010, pg. 62). Society is essentially telling them, make the same shot the non-minority student is making but make it 20 feet further away than they are.
Educators need to ask themselves “What can I do? How can I make even a small difference? What steps do I take to make up for this education debt that our minority students are basically born with?” Well, expecting educators to “make up” for literally hundreds of years of oppression isn’t reasonable and quite frankly, isn’t fair. What’s been done been’s done. However, awareness of what minority students come to us with could make a difference. Recognition of the fact that they aren’t starting at the same “start line” as the nonminority students are can make a world of difference in a student’s life.
Of course, there are more drastic measures that can be taken. For example, we could throw money at the problem (let me pause while you laugh at this statement). We know this is a likely story, money for schools is getting cut and cut and cut. Soon lawmakers will be expecting our students to be achieving perfect SAT scores with just some old textbooks and some chalk (To be fair, I bet there are some teachers who could achieve this ridiculous task).
But perhaps rather than just giving more money to those schools/students who have an education debt, we focus on equalizing the amount of money given to each district. How ridiculous is it that school districts who tend to have a more affluent community receive more funding than those who do not? While I recognize that this is indeed simplifying the issue this is something that sticks out like a sore thumb. In Ladson-Billing’s article (2006), she writes:
a report entitled The Funding Gap 2005, the Education Trust tells us that in 27 of the 49 states studied, the highest-poverty school districts receive fewer resources than the lowest-poverty districts…even more states shortchange their highest minority districts. In 30 states, high minority districts receive less money for each child than low minority students (pg. 9).
That is deepening the education debt. We must take action to create a more equal fund for our schools.
When it comes to the discipline gap, something that educators can, and must address is the reason behind the discipline. The research done at Berkley High School reminds us that “the most common reason for students to be sent to OCS (On-Campus Suspension) was disruption and defiance….this…category is a broad and subjective one” (Noguera & Wing, 2006, pg. 135). This is something that can really confuse a student. One hour they have a teacher that is relaxed when it comes to tardies within reason while the next gives a tardy for be a second late past the bell. Students are having to keep track of which teacher has which rules and must change accordingly. This is not ideal discipline for any student or school. Finding ways to erase these subjective opinions on minor behaviors would help to alleviate the initial problem of how many students are receiving discipline. Small steps such as this can become investments in ending the education debt.
Another aspect to the reason behind discipline is what Gregory, Russell, and Noguera (2010) refer to as the “cultural mismatch” (pg 64). Students and teachers are being thrown together without understanding each other’s backgrounds and behaviors. Then we expect them to get along with each other without any hiccups, and are surprised when a teacher and a student don’t seem to “get along”. More effort needs to be made on the educators part to learn and understand their student’s background, expectations and behavior. If a student is combative a different approach should be attempted before resorting to removal from the classroom. A teacher at Berkley High School had a positive experience by working hard to “intervene” before an issue led to the on campus suspension (Noguera & Wing, 2006, pg. 137).
It is these disparities that must be addressed. Someone calculate for the historical, social and economic debt that minority students have started off with. Resources need to be diverted to fill in this hole. Then, and only then, can we begin to adequately close the achievement gap that exists between minority and non-minority students. We are not giving these kids what they need. We are not considering the educational debt they come to school with. We are not investing our resources properly to erase that debt. We are simply standing by and watching as they fall further in debt, in the hole.
Reference List
Gregory, A., Skiba, R., & Noguera, P. (2010). The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Educational Researcher, 39(1), 59-68. Retrieved from http://er.aera.net
Ladson-Billings, Gloria (2006). From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher, 35 (7), 3-12.
Noguera, P. (2006). Unfinished business: Closing the racial achievement gap in our schools (J. Wing, Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.