The Educational Disparity... essays

The Educational Disparity... essays 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 tha n 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 disparity, every facet of the Westchester educational system can take a piece of the blame for its favoritism towards students of white descent. A major reason for the lack of minority students in the honors/AP programs at white high schools, such as PMHS, is a system called tracking. Tracking is a process by which students are separated according to particular measures of intelligence into classes with curriculum deemed suitable for their level of intelligence. However, this system often creates more problems than it solves as it often favors white students over minority students. In many districts, course-enrollment patterns inside individual schools replicate this pattern ...