"If the diversity of our school-age population isn't represented among our high-achieving students, we can make the argument that we've failed to achieve either equity or excellence, with serious implications for America's future."
For many people world-wide, a common personal mantra is, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."
The argument can be made that the job of the novelist or screenwriter is to help society plan for the worst by showing what a current situation or condition can turn into in the future. Writers are often society's conscience, as well as the person on the corner screaming "the end is near."
Currently, our species is facing some pretty daunting challenges primarily stemming from over-population, challenges ranging from global warming to supplies of fresh water and food to the even the opportunity for survival. Perhaps even as a species.
Now comes a report about the supply of opportunity, entitled, 'A Permanent Talent Underclass': 'Excellence Gap' Among American Students Charted, by UConn professor Jonathan Plucker and colleagues at two other universities, that concludes:
"The circle of high-achieving American students is becoming a preserve for the white and well-off, with potentially severe consequences for the country's promise of equal opportunity."
Thinking beyond the obvious unfairness of such a situation in the present, what does this situation imply for our species in the future? Already some economists and political thinkers are theorizing on a war between the have and have-nots caused by unfair distribution of land and fresh water and the survival this provides.
The controversy over illegal immigration flowing north from Central and South America into the U.S. and Canada is mirrored in Europe - reference the recent sinking of the ship off the coast of Italy in which hundreds of "illegal" immigrants drowned.
These worthy human beings were doing exactly what you and I would do if we couldn't feed our children. We'd go somewhere were there is a chance, at least, for survival. As a note, Italy faces an illegal immigration problem just as extreme as ours in the days before the recent economic collapse. Thousands of Africans flee to Southern Italy where they have become migrant farm workers, complete with race riots and extremist persecutions of migrants., including that ugliest of human activities, lynching someone merely because of skin color.
Sound familiar? Now carry this forward 20 or 50 or 100 years, and what does your imagination tell you life could be like?
Are we looking at a future of a world permanently divided between affluence and subsistence? It exists now. What happens if this trend continues and deepens? The Dark Ages all over again, only now on steroids?
Will this become an actual war? Some argue it already is.
The Excellence Gap
The report, "Talent on the Sidelines: Excellence Gaps and the Persistence of America's Permanent Talent Underclass" examines the underreported problem of students from particular racial and socioeconomic backgrounds dominating the ranks of those who perform best on national assessment tests.
While a great deal of attention and resources have been focused on the achievement gap among students, which measures basic proficiency in subjects like math and reading, almost none have been devoted to the "excellence gap" at the highest achievement levels.
"the gap between white, relatively affluent students and their poorer, nonwhite classmates has only widened."
A Permanent Talent Underclass
The report follows on a 2010 study led by Plucker that theorized there was the possibility that the excellence gap might narrow. The new data, however, show that the opposite has happened: the gap between white, relatively affluent students and their poorer, nonwhite classmates has only widened.
"The current study should crush anyone's optimism about the country's success in developing academic talent," says Plucker, professor of educational leadership in the Neag School of Education. "The data we explored for this report, along with a growing body of research, provide considerable evidence that America has a permanent talent underclass."
The report, which uses data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and state assessments, shows that while the percentage of white students scoring at the advanced level in Grade 4 mathematics increased from 2.9 percent to 9 percent between 1996 and 2011, the percentage of high-scoring black students barely budged, reaching 1.1 percent in 2011.
The changes in math scores based on economic background were even more dramatic, with students who were ineligible for free or reduced-price lunches improving from 3.1 percent in the advanced range in 1996 to 11.4 percent in 2011. Less affluent students, meanwhile, went from 0.3 percent scoring in the advanced range to 1.8 percent.
The report, which Plucker compiled along with DePauw University's Jacob Hardesty and Michigan State University's Nathan Burroughs, also tracked reading scores and compared high-achieving American students' performance to their international peers, a comparison that found U.S. students lagging.
The report also offers state-by-state comparisons, where the lack of non-white and poorer students among the highest achievers can be even more stark than the national average. In North Carolina, for example, the percentage of black students with advanced scores in Grade 4 math rounds to zero, while in Texas, an impressive 17 percent of more well-off students have advanced scores in that category, compared to just 3 percent of students who receive free or reduced-price lunches.
The report also contains policy recommendations, ranging from requiring states to include the performances of advanced students in accountability systems, to bringing federal resources -- which are now essentially non-existent for excellence education -- to bear. Closing the gap will also require an acknowledgement of the role childhood poverty plays in reducing many students' chance at a quality education.
"If the diversity of our school-age population isn't represented among our high-achieving students," says Plucker, "we can make the argument that we've failed to achieve either equity or excellence, with serious implications for America's future."
And those implications are? It's up to the imagination of a writer to think through the worst that could happen. - ed.
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The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy
by Jack M Hollander
by Jack M Hollander
Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by University of Connecticut, written by Tom Breen, (2013, October 22). 'A permanent talent underclass': 'Excellence gap' among American students charted. ScienceDaily.
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