Barriers to Learning

So what can we do:

First we need to identify the barriers that keep African Americans from entering college and pursuing higher education degrees.

Socio-Cultural Causes: One of the main factors associated with low student achievement is poverty. Students living in persistent poverty are more likely than other students to suffer from many conditions that impede their learning, including:poor health care (including inadequate prenatal care for their mothers);frequent changes in residence, requiring transferring to new schools repeatedly;lack of books and other educational resources in the home;parents with lower levels of education; and unstable family structure.

Cultural attitudes and racism also play a part in the achievement gap. Research suggests that some minority students perceive that the majority culture sees them as less capable and expects little of them. These students may not try in school, since they believe they won't succeed anyway. Some researchers believe minority students may maintain low levels of achievement purposely to avoid "acting white" and to gain the approval of their peers, while others see the problem as partly consisting of stereotype threat.

School-Related Causes:
Unfortunately, students who start out with disadvantages often encounter school conditions that only add to the problem. They are more likely to attend schools with inadequate funding staffed with teachers who are not as qualified to teach their subjects as they could be. In addition, especially in schools with high concentrations of poor and minority students, teachers often have low expectations of these students, leading them to have low expectations for themselves.

Cultural causes:If the student is within a different cultural learning environment than his own, feelings of “will I fit in?” and the need to be part of a group may supersede learning. According to Maslow’sHierarchy of Needs, the need to belong and feel loved supersedes the Need to Know stage.
source: http://www.achievementgap.info/causes.html

Those in higher education are charged with educating all citizens that come across its threshold. American educational institutions encompass every segment of the population to include age groups, interests, abilities, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). Due to the diverse nature of schools, challenges arise. However, despite these challenges, educators must continue to forge ahead in the quest to produce productive citizens. The American education system is in a constant battle within itself, and this battle is being fought in the legislative halls and court rooms. State funded institutions as well as private continue to seek out funding to be able to operate.

In my opinion, there are several ways that we as educators and future educators can become involved and proactive in closing the achievement gap. Colleges should increase the work of recruitment and RETENTION! Once you get them into college, there is a need to see that every student matriculate through til the end. Learning methods, including grading should be flexible to allow for different learning styles and methods. Most of the work, as I am finding, must be done before adults reach the higher education level. The majority of the work needs to be done at the elementary and high school levels to prepare students for continuing education.

To address the achievement gap that exists in higher education, it is critically necessary to evaluate what reforms are being implemented in the classroom. Too often “educational reforms” are implemented with no real time to evaluate its effectiveness. Before abandoning these types of reforms, legislatures have to be willing to properly assess the efficiency of these reforms. Legislatures also need to realize that data sets for prescribed goals have some natural tensions associated with them. For this reason, the legislation needs to focus the state’s attention to maintaining student improvement on an individual basis and the rate of individual improvement. Provide universities with flexible funding, allowing the institution to dictate program-offering and personnel needs, thereby allowing them to develop and implement responses to educational needs of the the students. Allocate resources to education providers (universities, government agencies, health care organizations, etc) based on the cost of that provider’s particular needs and mission rather than on its proximity to valuable properties. Eliminate structures that cause duplications of expenses, and create structures that allow for cost sharing and cost reduction.