Tania Caldwell
Urban 200
November 18, 2021
In the interview “Democratizing NYC’s Gifted and Talented Education: The Color Lines of Brilliance”, Kaliris Salas-Ramirez explains how the ambitious standardized tests have negative impact African American and Latinos communities. According to the podcast the test had been in most southern schools, created in the 1970s to approve that white kids’ students were smarter, leaving African American, the students with higher perform had the access to because most of them still have better resources such as tutoring, resources in the schools, support. According to Salas-Ramirez, the Gifted and Talent tests are responsible for school segregation in New York City, the kids that earn high scores are more likely to be placed in school with better resources. Today, Asian-Americans are more involved and better effects cores in the Gift and Talented tests and faced, followed by whites’ kids, and African American and Latinos kids have less chance of getting placed in a high performing school. In New York, after many years on his administration, Mayor De Blasio had decided to eliminate the Gifted and Talented test, which would be replaced to reinforce kinder garden kids and end with decades of school segregation.
The education gap not only impacts children at an early age but also in higher education. High education has been beneficial for American students, specifically African Americans and other non-white college students. But college debts hold a lot of students back when they finish college. The Interview “The life Altering Differences Between White and Black” Tressie McMillan Cotton interviewed Louise Seamster who emphasizes that because the federal government oversees most student loans, the government also can eliminate student debt, and make high education free. A free and accessible higher education would not only help to reduce the gap between medium income and low income, but also would help more young people to contribute with their work to society. Louise described how American students still face the punishment for going to college, equal important, the student loan debt is a highly impacting community of color. According to Louise, student loan debts impact white and communities of color in the USA. On the other hand, communities of color have a high negative impact because of the lack of wealth and economic support with their family. Student debts could link to the lack of social and economic mobility, and since most white families have wealth, even if the young adult ends in debt, the family still can provide support with student loan payment, mortgaged, and other economic support. On the other hand, families of color could have a challenging time contributing to their child’s economic mobility and end with more debt and a long time to eliminate the debt.
Communities of color are still behind in academic support in the public education system. On my opinion, community of color has fewer resources in school since the early grades, which could impact high school and college. The government punished the most vulnerable communities, with the demonstration of school performances, white children could have more support in school. At home, tutoring, access to art programs, more time with one of the parents at home because this parent can stay at home, all those facts contribute to the learning development of the child. On the other hand, most communities do not have access to tutoring, art programs, and parents might spend less time with the children because low income means more hours in the workforce. Now, everything could change the game if the government eliminated high-performance tests and instated add more programs for kids to improve their learning perform in school and at home. More programs could help close the gap in education between white and communities of color for decades.
