Impact of Quality Preschool Programs on Closing the Racial Achievement Gap - Research Paper Example

? Impact of Quality Preschool Programs on Closing the Racial Achievement Gap Introduction All human beings on the globe belong to one universal species and share most appropriately the common origin. Those who are born on the earth are subject to have equal rights and dignity, at the same time no one has the rights to or can be considered as superior or inferior. Hence, the all individual are eligible to acquire equal and the highest technical, political, social, cultural, intellectual and economic development. Conceptually, such factors can in no case be formulated as the bases for distinguishing, classifying or ranking of any individual or group of the nation. Notably, when people are treated differently in similar situation based on color, nationality, descent and ethnic origin, such act is termed as racial discrimination or racism (Dowd, 2011). However, the impact of racial discrimination was significant on the society in the past but fortunately, today such acts are almost eliminated from the society. Meanwhile, another major problem faced by many nations is the situation of racial achievement gap where there exists social and academic gap between the children’s performance based on the color and their origin. In many circumstances, it has been seen that performances of color children lack behind in terms of academic and other subject matters when compared to white children. Such situation has resulted in racial inequality and stagnant growth of the nation. Thus, in order to overcome or narrow the prevailing racial achievement gap, quality preschool programs have been introduced with an aim of closing the racial achievement gap. In the recent past, such programs have shown promising outcomes in developing and improving children’s all round development irrespective of their race or origin. Racial Achievement Gap Racial achievement gap is the phenomenon whereby there exists a major inequality of educational success between the color, low-income and minority groups of children when compared to white, high-income and non-minority children. Hence, minimizing the persistent racial achievement gap among the white and the color students can be regarded as one of the toughest challenges to the governmental and parental efforts towards imparting quality education to their children. Usually, African American students’ score lower when compared to European American students in matters relating to writing, reading, mathematical tests and other intelligence test. Notably, this gap rises before the children are enrolled in school which continues to have its impact even in their adulthood. Contextually, in recent years, closing the racial achievement gap between the white and the color students has attracted considerable concentration of the federal and state government. As a result, a number of federal and state policies have been formulated to reduce the racial achievement gap persisting within the nation. Schools in America have been struggling for years to close the racial achievement gap among the white and Hispanic students (Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, 2004). However, the gap has been lessened since 1970, still the American color children fail to score the competitive percent almost in the entire standardized test. Conceptually, the statement does not intent to imply that all color students’ performances are below than the white pupils. However, there exists a lot of gap between these two groups (Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, 2004). Nonetheless, closing the racial achievement gap between color and white students in the USA would probably require more efforts to narrow racial disparity and further to promote racial equality among the people of the USA. Eliminating the racial achievement gap would require efforts from both color and white people or the families that may probably consume in excess of one generation to achieve the desired outcomes. Components of Quality Preschool Programs The disparities in academic performances are highly correlated to socioeconomic, racial and ethnic factors. The achievement gap can be reflected in a child’s performance in terms of grades, test school enrolment and college completion. The preschool program is designed in such a way that children can reap significant benefits from these quality preschool programs. The programs are conducted effectively and efficiently that provide children with emotional, cognitive and social development needed for preparing children to enroll in school. The most important element of the preschool programs is the presence of well-trained teachers who provide children with necessary guidance and help to reduce achievement gap. The high quality preschool programs have been playing significant role in narrowing racial achievement gap between the white and the color children. The programs undertaken strive to develop and implement strategies that highly benefit the children in developing and improving their academic performance. The strategies implemented are often based on cultural values of the pupils, families and communities with which children are related (California School Boards Association, 2010). Additionally, the programs intend to involve parents in all the aspects of the programs and work in partnership with them to support the requirements of their children in order to make their children ready for the school and beyond. The preschool programs are committed to provide friendly, safe and rich environment to the children where they can flourish the best. The programs are intended to provide high quality services for the children with learning, emotional and physical disabilities. The curriculum focuses on closing the racial achievement gap between the white and the colored children by engaging children in language development activities and allowing them to interact with technology as well as with other important subject matters. The preschool services are provided through several programs including half day preschool, full day and year round programs. The programs also take initiatives to provide parents with necessary educational activities that further help them to support the all round development of their children. The programs also provide health related services such as medical, mental, dental and nutrition services to the children who are deprived of these services. These services include immunization of the children, dental screening as well as the required treatment along with providing children with as a minimum one third of their every day nutritional needs each day, they attend the preschool programs. The programs provide the parents with considerable health information and health related materials so that the children could also find healthy environment at their home and surroundings. The children’s mental healthcare is supported by quality psychologists who provide essential contribution in developing their emotional and psychological development. Another component of the quality preschool programs is in the form of social services through which the programs intend to assist parents to meet their a few of the needs and develop strategies as well as the program also assists families in solving problems that would influence the children’s behavior in social and academic circumstances. The quality preschool programs seek active involvement of parents in all the programs initiated for closing the racial achievement gap (California School Boards Association, 2010). In precise, the major components that the quality preschool programs desire to achieve include: To ensure that children (both color and white) are physically and mentally competent Both color and white children become efficient in personal and social environment Children are capable to display physical agility Children are competent enough to score and to perform better in their academic activities Families to support their children’s overall development and actively participate in narrowing racial achievement gap Create environment where children can flourish and enhance their inner capabilities Impact of Quality Preschool Programs on Closing the Racial Achievement Gap Preschools may narrow the early racial achievement gap by allocating children with higher quality study environment that they would be facilitated with. The benefits of preschool programs in the early childhood are manifold and are being widely supported by many child psychologists and veteran teachers. According to them, a child in the toddler years is inside the period when they learn the most. During this period, the child’s brain works at a faster pace in processing information and retaining those facts and information which are continuously being focused on. Hence, the preschool programs in the early childhood set a foundation for quality values and education that the child will be holding throughout his/her life. Moreover, the increasing research activities have provided certain evidences regarding the importance of preschool programs and their positive impacts on the children’s development in matters relating to social and academic outcomes. In fact, the growing sense of importance of preschool programs is an essential component for the children to succeed in school, irrespective of their race and economic status. The research has found that preschool programs can reasonably contribute to narrow the racial achievement gap. During the years 2002 to 2009, the percentage of children enrolled in preschool programs recorded slight increase from 14 to 26 percent (Strategies for Children, 2005). According to the research conducted at the University of Virginia, colored children and children belonging to low-income families were the most benefitted with the preschool programs. It is because of the success factor of the preschool programs that more and more preschool programs are being developed for accessing universally. Universally assessable preschool programs with their quality learning systems are believed to narrow the racial achievement gap between the color and the white children as well as children belonging to low and high income families. At present, the achievement gap between the colored (including Hispanic, minority) children and white (high income and non-minority) children is one of the largely debated topics. Researches that have been conducted in recent past have revealed that the achievement gap has its origin before the children are enrolled in the school. Nearly forty-six percent of the teachers rendering their services in the kindergarten reported that more than the half of the children in their classroom are uncomfortable or have problems while working in groups. They further reported that children from low income group score relatively lower than those children belonging to higher income group. However, in last thirty years racial achievement gap has been substantially narrowed due to the meaningful preschool programs along with the federal and states efforts (Strategies for Children, 2005). Notably, the children attending preschool programs are comparatively more ready to enter school to learn than those who hardly attend pre-schooling programs. Hence, the schools are providing comprehensive efforts to constrict the academic achievement gap between the color and ethnic minority students and the high income white students, however they need to provide more consolidated efforts in order to close the racial achievement gap rather than narrowing the gap. Nonetheless, the presence of achievement gap is not because of the school’s inability to focus on such matter or the system itself is getting worse. The importance of quality preschool programs can be realized from the fact that the children in the preschool environment are fostered and respected and further they are guided to display appropriate disciplines and skills in their daily lives (Braverman, 2001). Additionally, the children in such environment are frequently engaged in communicating and interacting with adults or their friends and thus they further develop their interests and skills for school and education. In the USA, Department of Education has offered a comprehensive program to narrow the racial achievement between the black and white pupils through National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). According to the report submitted by the NAEP, black pupils have trailed their fellow white students in many of the academic aspects. The report ascertains that overall scores by the color and the Hispanic pupils have risen considerably and thereby providing the evidence that pre-school programs have reasonably able to narrow the racial disparities among the children. Children of 3-4 years are able to differentiate the people based on color and size (Espinosa, 2002). At this age, the sense of stereotype and prejudice can be easily inculcated, as such the role of preschool becomes essential to create positive and non-racial sense among the minds of the children. The friendship and the cordial relationship that the children develop in their early years while indulging themselves in the preschool activities greatly helps the children in their latter stages to overcome certain stereotypes and intolerance related with racial and ethnic origin. It is worth mentioning that noteworthy disparity tends to exist between the white children and color children in terms of academic achievement. The disparity gap is very often profound before the children enter into the kindergarten. Nevertheless, the racial gap can be minimized with effective improvement in the students’ academic performance by initializing high quality preschool programs along with the participation of highly qualified teachers. High quality childcare is essential outside the home to reduce the racial achievement between the color and the white children. The research has clearly demonstrated that investing in high quality preschool programs will greatly benefit the children to overcome and the federal as well as the state to close the racial achievement gap. The quality preschool programs have been greatly advantageous in nurturing relationship between teacher and child. It has increased the involvement of parents as essential partners to enhance the child performance in their family surroundings apart from preschool environment. The programs further contribute towards the involvement of the children in developmentally appropriate cognitive activities and also indulge them in extra curriculum activities to acquire necessary physical and mental experience and abilities. The programs have favorable impact on the both color and white children, it is due to the steady effort of the program that color children belonging to poor family have been able to acquire physical and mental development, social, psychological and emotional development, language and communication development that efficiently enhanced the children’s readiness for the school. The access to high quality preschool programs for children of 3-4 years has resulted in favorable outcomes in terms of early learning and mathematics, and scientific exploration as well as in other vital subject matters. Furthermore, the importance of quality preschool in closing the racial achievement gap can be supported with the fact that the color children who attended the Perry Preschool study has substantially achieved higher grades and scores in reading, mathematics as well as in language achievement tests than those of the white children or the peers (California School Boards Association, 2010). The quality preschool programs have added towards the rapid and dynamic development of the children brains than those who have not attended the quality preschool program. The quality preschool efforts have resulted in rapid brain development of preschool age children. The programs have been able to establish foundation for the successful academic and long-term performance of the color as well as white children, thereby moving ahead towards closing the racial achievement gap completely from the society. The quality preschool programs promote high quality early care and develop an interest for school and education that benefits all the children attending quality preschool programs and their families. The programs have played substantial role in generating educational awareness and building school readiness skills among the children. They have been capable of utilizing the curiosity of the children as the motivating force in order to create healthy and successful environment. Teachers involved in such programs use specific approaches of learning that have contributed in mental and physical development of the children. The research has shown that the quality of education can be achieved only if there is quality of teachers. These principles are strictly adhered by the quality preschool programs and it will be easy to draw for an individual about the quality of teachers and activities that are undertaken in such programs through its conducive and largely successful operation (California School Boards Association, 2010). Furthermore, such programs have also provided parents with opportunities to improve their parenting skills. The performance of each child is shared with his/her parents at routine interval which ensures parents to focus more on the area their children are lacking. Furthermore, the involvement of parents and families in early child care and education by the quality preschool programs has narrowed the racial achievement gap by a considerable extent. High quality pre-school programs have offered a rich array of early childhood care and education that has prepared the children’s readiness for school and beyond. Consequently, the impact of high quality school program is much better than what has been expected. The children attending in such programs have been able to score relatively high in reading, writing and other subject matters when compared to their peers. They have been able to show better behavior in classes and in their home. Furthermore, children attending high quality programs are less likely to need any other special education services. Finally, color and white children as well as their parents are benefitted with the high quality preschool programs. Conclusion All the people who are born on the earth are likely to share equal rights and freedom. Every child either colored or white has the right to acquire the highest quality of education. At the same time, every individual is eligible to lead his/her life with dignity and respect. However, the problem of racial discrimination has been posing serious threat over a nation’s integrity. Racial discrimination is an act of differentiating an individual based on color, nationality, descent and ethnic origin. Racial discrimination however, has been successfully eliminated from the society but still its impact can be felt in the form of racial achievement gap. Very often, it is noticed that color children’s performance are relatively lower than the white children particularly in America. There exists a gap between the performance of white and color children residing in same or relatively different environment. The existence of such gap on the bases of color can be termed as racial achievement gap. In order to reduce this gap, many federal sates along with the assistance of private and non-profit organizations have established and are running quality preschool programs to narrow the racial achievement gap prevailing in the society. These quality preschool programs are designed to improve and develop the mental physical, social and emotional competencies’ of those children who are unable to perform well enough due to genetic cause or their mental inability that makes them incompetent compared to their peers. Quality preschool programs have performed outstandingly in reducing racial achievement gap and ensuring equality among the academic children as well as created an environment that supports children’s readiness for the school. Precisely, the quality preschool programs have set the foundation for the overall development of the children, both color and white that will promote the competencies of the children in school and beyond. References Braverman, G. (2001). It takes more than testing......closing the achievement gap. MASB Journal Special Report, pp. 1-7. California School Boards Association. (2010). Expanding access to high-quality preschool programs. Retrieved from http://www.csba.org/EducationIssues/EducationIssues/~/media/584D4BB7CFEB44D89270FF3A123CD202.ashx Dowd, N .E. (2011). Justice for kids: keeping kids out of the juvenile justice system families, law, and society series. New York: NYU Press. Espinosa, L. M. (2002). High-quality preschool: why we need it and what it looks like. Preschool policy matters, pp. 7. Strategies for Children. (2005). Early childhood education: a strategy for closing the achievement gap. Retrieved from http://www.strategiesforchildren.org/eea/6research_summaries/07_AchievementGap.pdf University of Dayton. (2002). Racial discrimination. Retrieved from http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/race08.htm Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. (2004). Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in education demands commitment. Mind of the gap, pp. 1-7. Read More