Centralized Reforms as The Most Efficient Plans to Narrow The Socioeconomic Achievement Gap in The United States

Both federal and local levels have been trying to narrow achievement gaps dominating the United States education system through various reforms. Achievement gaps, formed from public housing segregation due to federal and state government policies, are socially and economically widening decade after decade causing socioeconomically segregated schools (Rothstein, 6). Children raised in low-income and racially isolated neighborhoods come from disadvantaged learning environments that negatively affect their learning. The local approach to narrow the achievement gaps focuses on improving students’ learning environment through local funding and curricula. The centralized approach aims to correct the financial inequity and lack of uniformity that local reforms cannot account for. Centralization, through reforms of financial inequity and uniformity, will more efficiently narrow the socioeconomic achievement gaps, and correct the pervasive divides the U.S. education system allows today.

Reforms on the local level base their aims on the fact that outside factors do not determine a student’s success, and can be overcome through quality education. However, neighborhoods with severe economic depravity and racial isolation, typically found in urban areas, are failing the students in those local schools because quality education cannot be provided with school funding issues. “Poverty and race can hinder academic opportunity in myriad ways. And the cognitive, emotional, and nutritional disadvantages of growing up poor--realities that can significantly reduce a child’s chance at success later in life--are often exacerbated by school funding inequalities,” (Wong, 6). With poor funding consolidated primarily through property taxes, children in disadvantaged areas have an unstable foundation that is crucial for their academic achievement. Even if money collected from property taxes were redistributed more heavily into areas that are more critical to students’ success, it still wouldn’t bring students in poor schools up to the level of those in affluent schools--the money collected is already so limited. Thus localism tries to address the achievement gap through local funding of property taxes, but fails.

Localism also attempts to narrow the achievement gap through varying state, city, and district set standards and curricula. Localism argues they can serve the students that attend that school better because they are more aware of what the students’ need to help them be successful in their academic pursuits. However, even with a curriculum taught by teachers that cater to the students needs and pushes them towards a higher standard of learning, “disadvantages accumulate, lower social class children inevitably have lower average achievement than middle class children, even with the highest quality of instruction,” (Rothstein, 2)”. Localism cannot fix the achievement gap through local curriculum and standard reforms because it still cannot fix the issues that hinder students’ learning in the first place. Higher standards and bettering the curriculum cannot narrow the achievement gap if the outside socioeconomic factors are not addressed.

In answer to issues of localism, we look to centralized reforms imposed through the federal government. Reforms to combat financial inequity are the first, and critical, steps in narrowing the achievement gaps. Reliance on local funding through property taxes gives way to financial inequity; different neighborhoods fall into different sections on the income spectrum, so “...by virtue of their autonomy, can be vulnerable to financial problems and mismanagement… In many states,” even more so at the city and district level, “access to facilities and start-up funds is limited,” (Education Week, 2). Logically, low-income schools have less funding than high-income schools and cannot provide the educational necessities for academic achievement because the funding is hard to attain. Through money redistribution, the federal government can combat financial inequity issues that drive the achievement gaps. On a national scale making up for the permeability in local funding reforms is possible, and will set up a strong national foundation for academic achievement.

Centralized reforms, in addition to fixing financial inequity, emphasize the need for a national uniform-curricula to help close the achievement gap. A lack of uniformity in schools creates issues comparing student achievement; state set standards vary across the nation. “By leaving standards and definitions of ‘proficiency’ to state discretion, it has actually made matters worse… ‘“Proficiency” varies wildly from state to state, with ‘passing scores’ ranging from the 6th percentile to the 77th,” (Miller, 5). An absence of uniform standards in testing as well as proficiency makes it very difficult to understand how well children are learning. This creates conflicts in how, we as a nation understand if our students are making real strides in academic achievement. Implementation of a uniform curricula and standards at the federal level could help fix these issues. With financial inequity fixed due to centralized reforms, leveling the curriculum and standards across the nation will help narrow the achievement gap, teaching children the same content while holding them up to the same, high standards.

Centralized reforms, in my opinion, provide the most efficient plans to narrow the socioeconomic achievement gap. Children in low-income neighborhoods lack the funding needed for a strong foundation for education, setting up students from the beginning of their academic pursuits for failure. With financial problems, a strong curriculum becomes nearly impossible. By implementing nationwide financial and curricula reforms, the federal government would be able to successfully narrow the achievement gap, giving high quality academic opportunity to all students. “The U.S. educational system, ‘reflected the ideal of equality… educational opportunity for all regardless of wealth and ability,’” (Jameison, 68). To narrow the achievement gap we must first take care of the students who are helplessly falling through the cracks of the education system through federal reforms.