Ladson-Billings, Lomax, and Orfield on "The Other 3 R's: Race, Reform, Rights"

I enjoyed watching this video and it reflected much on the topics we have addressed in our readings. This video connected to Johnson's "Privilege, Power, and Difference", McIntosh "White Privilege" and Kozol "Amazing Grace". This panel of educators cover topics on the achievement gap which is highly reflected upon race and culture and the distribution of teachers based on school performance.

In both Johnson's "Privilege, Power and Difference" and McIntosh "White Privilege" it is said that society is a reflection of white ideals. The norm is based on how they perform and that begins with how they speak. In the video, one of the panelist shows a video of an African American boy rapping about science. This is a reflection of the manner in which they feel comfortable learning and speaking but white society has looked down upon it even though it is simply just poetry. The white race has power over how we learn and how success should be obtained.

One of the panelist actually quoted Jonathan Kozol and she said "If money is good for rich people, think how much better it would be for poor people". She begins to speak about the achievement gap in relation to teacher placements. The most qualified teachers are placed in the highest performing schools. It is basically like giving more money to the rich people. Instead of giving the students that need help a better teacher, we bump up all the good teachers where they are not needed! This system is entirely wrong and theoretically teaching was created make a change in children's lives, those teachers won't make much of a difference in a high performing school. Lets put their abilities to use and actually give these under performing schools an opportunity to succeed because all this system is doing is setting them up for failure.

What other reform actions should be undertaken to shrink the achievement gap? How different are things now than twenty years ago?

This is a video of the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan giving a keynote address on education reforms ideas to close the opportunity gap.

This is an image displaying the achievement gap providing real statistics to why reform is critical.