The Educational Disparity...
Access to the best possible education is a right all students should possess. For some students in Westchester County, this right can be harder to achieve than for others. This is mainly due to the fact that these children are of minority backgrounds and are the victims of inferior education, in both white and minority schools. In fact, only 63 students of minority heritages participate in Pelham Memorial High School (PMHS)'s honors or Advanced Placement (AP) programs. This number comes out of a total pool of 530 honors/AP students at this predominantly white school in Westchester County. (Survey of honors/AP teachers at PHMS) This percentage of minorities in honors/AP classes, less than twelve percent of the honors/AP population, is a far cry from the percentage of minorities at PMHS (22%). The discrepancies do not end in the Pelham Union Free School District; they exist throughout Westchester County, where schools primarily comprised of minorities constantly perform poorer than their white counterparts. There are numerous reasons for this discrepancy within an educational system that is intended to be nurturing them and lending them every advantage available. While there are many people to place fault upon for this disp
However, these economic factors are fueled by race and politics, creating a vicious loop that is impossible to unravel. Otherwise, students would receive a "local" diploma. They don't understand that somewhere, someplace, students need the ELA's to evaluate themselves. " (Barbanel, 8) While this segregation seems like a poor excuse for the disparity in test results, there are obvious economic factors that go into this as well. This is similar to the educational racism expressed by one African-American junior at PMHS who told our class that the school had once attempted to place him in a Special (remedial) Education class despite the fact that he was performing more than adequately in normal classes. This is exactly the opinion of parents in several affluent school districts that criticize the test for its content. However, in Mount Vernon, only 90% reached local proficiency and only 79% reached Regents level in English. The two focused on Longfellow School, where only thirteen percent of fourth graders had passed the ELA tests the previous year. This is especially true within the cultural diversity that makes up Westchester County. They are blind to the fact that some districts (i. (Traub, 49-50) While superficially, this plan worked, the curriculum became more of a preparatory course and less of a traditional fourth grade education. "In Mamaroneck, students had to put off Shakespeare for test prep.
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