Theory Posting

There are always two sides to every debate with polarized opinions regarding each viewpoint. Since the initiation of the achievement gap, students, parents, government officials, and school board officials have disputed over the solution to closing the gap, whether it is increasing parental involvement at home or mandating a higher level of the quality from teachers. Both resolutions have been researched to provide additional evidence regarding which method is more successful than the other, and more results have been found pointing towards parental involvement.

The National Coalition for Parental Involvement in Education promotes the idea that an increase in the involvement of parent’s in their child’s education not only boosts their performance, but also establishes a crucial support system that the child will rely on for years to come. The number of teachers in the nation is too enormous to effectively and speedily establish a system that reconstructs the way that teachers interact with their students and the quality of education that he or she distributes. Therefore, the process of diminishing the achievement gap would be proficiently handled if we began to shift our attention to how parents engage with their students at home. By doing simple, daily activities, such as reviewing their child’s homework to make sure that it is completed and by setting aside time to help their child study for their next test, parents will increase the time the student spends doing their homework, which will result in a higher motivation for the child to complete their schoolwork in a timely and proficient manner.

The authors of the Education Testing Service blames the halt in the progress of closing the achievement gap on “inadequate care in early childhood.” These years are a sensitive time to establish positive study habits that the child will continue to use throughout all of his or her school years. By starting early, parents implement an expectation that the child puts forth the right amount of effort to do well in all of his or her classes. If parents set up a positive learning environment at home, students feel more comfortable doing their work and are less tempted to become involved in other activities that do not necessarily better their education, such as watching television instead of completed homework. A study by the Education Leadership found that 46% of black 6th graders watch six or more hours of television a day, which is three times the amount of white students. This is time that could have been dedicated to other learning activities. The differences between the races shows that white parents have different expectations than minority parents and by rebuilding the academic life of a minority student at home will drastically improve the current statistics of the achievement gap.