Search Results

In this introduction, Kimberly Jenkins Robinson explains that despite some gains from state school finance litigation, educational opportunity and achievement gaps remain prevalent throughout the United States. To address these enduring gaps, many scholars have argued that the United States should recognize a federal right to education, despite the United States Supreme Court’s refusal to recognize this right in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. It also is important to note that after decades in state court litigation, advocates have recently returned to federal court to argue for a federal right to education. Therefore, this introduction outlines that the book takes up three timely and essential questions regarding a federal right to education: Should the United States consider recognizing a federal right to education? How could the United States recognize such a right? And what should the right guarantee? The introduction concludes with a summary of each chapter.

In this chapter, Rachel F. Moran explains that equal educational opportunity is essential to prepare students for civic duties, but significant inequalities inevitably result from sorting students for jobs. In recent years, efficiency has become a driving force behind school reform, one that subordinates equal citizenship to the demands of a global economy. These tensions are most evident in school finance reform as calls for equal education devolve into demands for adequate education. Despite state court victories, disparities in per-pupil resources remain severe, threatening to deprive disadvantaged children of any meaningful opportunity to approximate the accomplishments of their privileged peers. In Moran’s view, reformers must craft a right to education that guarantees every child a fair opportunity to compete. Only then will disadvantaged students have authentic pathways to civic participation and upward mobility, pathways that can make the American dream feel like a real promise rather than a remote possibility.

Kevin Welner and Prudence Carter explain why it is important to shift the nation’s focus back toward an “opportunity gap” framing of educational inequity. Thinking about inputs helps us to focus on the deficiencies in the foundational components of societies, schools, and communities that produce significant differences in educational—and ultimately socioeconomic—outcomes. Thinking in terms of “achievement gaps” emphasizes the symptoms; thinking about unequal opportunity highlights the causes.Importantly, discussions of both achievement and opportunity gaps sensibly begin with the premise that we as a nation must act to redress the serious inequities that exist between and within schools, as well as among different people, groups, and communities across the country. Both discussions include an understanding that outcomes should be measured, analyzed, and addressed. Welner and Carter argue thattest-score and attainment differences will not disappear until policy is dedicated to changing the conditions that shape and impede achievement.

In this chapter, Linda Darling-Hammond confronts the question of what floor of educational opportunity a federal right to education should guarantee. Darling-Hammond considers research regarding the resources that students need to receive an excellent and equitable educational opportunity, including high-quality teachers and principals as well as access to a rigorous curriculum and the course materials and technology needed for a modern education. She argues that a federal right to education should guarantee these resources for all children as the nation strives to eliminate educational opportunity and achievement gaps.

In this chapter, Kimberly Jenkins Robinson concludes this volume by highlighting many of the lessons that emerge from the chapters. She acknowledges the consensus among the authors regarding the urgent need for new and impactful reforms that close opportunity and achievement gaps. She highlights the compelling justifications for a renewed federal commitment to equity and excellence given the failure of states to sustain commitments to equity and excellence for all students. She notes that several authors emphasize the importance of federal reforms that move beyond tinkering at the margins of educational opportunity and achievement. The authors in the volume also concur that a just society demands access to a high-quality education. Robinson explains that the collective insights of this volume establish that among the array of potential reforms, a federal right to education warrants serious consideration. She concludes by explaining how to forge a path toward a federal right to education, including building on a recent unprecedented public commitment by state education chiefs to advance educational equity.

Carter and Welner bring together the evidence compiled by the book’s authors, describing a wide and deep opportunity gap arising from the accumulated impact of many factors: segregation in housing in schooling; differences in resources between poor and wealthier children; differences in access to high-quality preschool; between-school differences in teacher training, teacher experience, and teacher quality, as well as in other resources, such as technology, safe buildings with heating and air conditioning, textbooks, working bathrooms, and class size; differences in the provision of engaging, deep, project-based learning versus instruction focused on raising testscores; stratified school opportunities arising from school choice policies; the widespread provision of culturally unresponsive curriculum and instruction; and the failure to value and build on the strengths of language minority children. The authors offer a summary of policy recommendations that their volume collaborators and they argue would help the United States create a fair and equitable system for its millions of school-aged youth.

In this chapter, Kristine Bowman continues this volume’s exploration of why a federal right to education would be beneficial. She explores state-level obstacles to closing educational opportunity gaps that explain why the United States should not solely rely on state courts or legislatures to remedy inequitable and inadequate state education systems. At the state level, weak or unenforceable rights to education, limited fiscal capacity, and the absence of sufficient political will too often intersect in ways that undermine educational opportunity and leave many schoolchildren without an effective avenue for relief. Bowman focuses on Michigan as a case study to understand these dynamics and also situates Michigan’s experience in a national context that sheds light on the limitations of state reform.

This chapter explores the demographic trends in the United States of youth for whom youth social entrepreneurship may be most important, those framed by the Opportunity Gap, conceptualized by the field of education to better explain outcome disparities for youth of color and/or from low-income families. Academic disciplines and the nonprofit sector have embraced this framework and furthered it by identifying the youth “haves” and “have-nots” depending on their access to opportunities of many kinds: educational and economic among them. Youth without, or with fewer, opportunities tend to also lack connections of many kinds that can inhibit their educational, employment, housing, and health outcomes. This, then, is the central concern of this chapter: how can youth social entrepreneurship be part of the solution for disconnected youth?

Chapter 2 focuses on the importance of gaining a greater understanding of students’ lives and experiences to build on these experiences within the music classroom. The chapter opens with an examination of the “opportunity gap,” a counter to the frequently described “achievement gap” that is often associated with particular student populations. This section explains the documented structural inequities faced by many of these student populations even before formal school ever begins. The chapter also examines the concept of a “culture of power” that often leads teachers and administrators to misunderstand and misinterpret the behaviors of their students. Strategies for assisting students are provided. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the important issues of student race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, along with implications for the music classroom.

Teachers and administrators explain the educational differences between students. Such explanations focus on biological and cultural arguments where Asian Americans are assumed to value schooling and hard work more than Latinas/os. Along with a discussion of the general silence regarding Whites, white privilege, and whiteness in general at the school, there is also consideration of how federal educational policies that emphasize performance on standardized tests influence school discourses and practices.

Beginning with students’ reflections on the racial/ethnic divides on campus, this chapter provides the book’s socio-political and academic context. I challenge the limitations of studies and policies that focus on a so-called achievement gap. I then explain the neoliberal and neoconservative context, how this work adds to the academic scholarship, the book’s macro-meso-micro framework (which includes a brief history of Mexican Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans). The introduction ends with a chapter outline.

Students describe the school policies and practices influencing their educational trajectories and peer relationships. Of particular importance are the significance of segregated and unequally valued middle schools and the inequalities attached to a rigid track system that includes placement in the International Baccalaureate Program, Advancement Via Individual Determination Program, or non-honors college preparatory classes.

This chapter reveals the intensification of a tutoring industry. Some students—primarily middle and upper middle class Asian American students–receive extensive tutoring in Chinese schools and from for-profit organizations. In contrast, many Latina/o students across class position receive no tutoring or limited tutoring. Such unequal access to tutoring fuels academic and social differences, and some teachers are even changing their curriculum in ways that benefit students with tutoring.

Reflecting on my experiences sharing the research findings with the school, this chapter conveys the urgency and the difficulty of change. While presenting, I learned that some heard my analysis through the same frameworks that I aimed to critique. Others found it difficult to transform school practices in the current period of schooling where assessment drives education.

Beginning with a discussion of a program that was established at the school after my research, this chapter discusses what the high school teaches us about the detrimental impacts of the current state of U.S. schooling. In many ways, the high school under study is any-school USA. Just as it is premised on competition, individualism, and assimilation, it overlooks the significance of opportunity and social gaps and the wealth of knowledge, experiences, and resources that its students, their families, and the surrounding communities possess.