“Is Demography Still Destiny?” and Roda and Wells’s article approach the issue of racial imbalance from two very different angles. Focusing on policies developed by the Bloomberg Administration, “Is Demography Still Destiny?” reveals that despite the effort put into narrowing the racial achievement gap, college readiness is still highly correlated to demographics and neighbourhoods. The research suggests that the underlying cause is the algorithms designed to match students and high schools. On the other hand, Roda and Well’s article discusses the racial achievement gap by analyzing the definitions and causes of “good” school and “bad” school.
“Is Demography Still Destiny?” brings up two potential solutions: small-school system and in-school counselling system. According to the research, investing in these two systems into high schools may help decrease the racial achievement gap. And increasing the counselor-to-student ratio can increase the degree of attractiveness to students, parents, and future high school employees. This is directly connected to what is discussed in Roda and Wells’s article (and the article somehow contradicts the solution mentioned in the research). According to Roda and Wells, many parents have a stereotype that schools with white as a major population perform much better than the schools with Latino and African American as major population. Sadly, whether a school was good or bad “was often based more on who was enrolled in each school as opposed to what was taught” (282). If that’s the case, increasing the counselor-to-student ratio will not make a big difference since parents only focus on the existing student demographics.
In my opinion, destructing existed stereotypes on our educational system and building confidence in parents and students are the keys to decrease the racial achievement gap. I went to an absolutely “not-special” public high school in Queens. The school is neither a specialized school nor a magnet or charter high school. The school has no special affiliation with religions. My high school hosts more than 3,500 students, and there are only 4 college advisors. But what made my parents pick that high school? The answer lies in the demographics of the school – approximately 46% of the student population is Asian. I am an Asian. My parents feel more comfortable and safer putting me in an environment where there are a lot of Asian peers. Therefore, from my personal experience, changing people’s mindsets is more important than setting up mandatory policies.
Thanks for this analysis, Sophie. It does seem that if what parents and students are most interested in, adding counselors or making the schools smaller won’t really make too much of a difference. I appreciate you pointing that out. In fact the solution does seem to rest with perceptions. Or perhaps to use another word, racism.