The Achievement Gap - Having spent the weekend at an education curriculum conference addressing the issue of the achievement gap between high and low performing students, I found this article at Salon to be exceptionally relevant. The overriding message of the conference was that the number one thing teachers can do to prevent race or gender or socioeconomic status from keeping a student from high performance is to break the cycle of low expectations.

At the same time, taking the examples from this story, as well as others like the plagarism scandal in Kansas, where students are abusing the system and threatening both the district and their teachers with litigation makes me understand why our nation is in a crisis to find qualified teachers. And instead of learning the value of hard work, students are learning that the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Having to contend with "sophisticated" parents who know the pressure points of the system, it becomes clear that the parents who complain the loudest and most threateningly are the most successful. Therefore, the parents who are less savvy, and often non-English-speaking, struggle even harder to help their children achieve academic success.

The NY Times highlights this fact with regard to accomodations for SAT testing, with a quote from the Dean of Admissions at Pomona College, "It's very clear who's been getting extended-time: the highest-income communities have the highest rates of accommodations." However, these actions further undermine the notion that all students should be given the benefit of high expectations. Instead, it guarantees that expectations for students are arbitrary, and takes the focus away from raising levels of acheivement for high- and low-performing students alike.