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Topic Proposal: Broken Promises For African American Students

This document is Madalyn Robinette's topic proposal for her UWRT 1104 class, in which she will investigate the injustices in the United States education system and their harmful effects on African American students. She notes that despite 50 years of efforts to address the achievement gap between white and black students, white students still perform substantially higher. Her interest in this topic stems from her passion for education and justice as a future educator. For her next steps, she plans to conduct further research at the school library and in scholarly databases to find more information on alternative strategies that could help address the issues she uncovered and narrow the achievement gap.

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87 views3 pages

Topic Proposal: Broken Promises For African American Students

This document is Madalyn Robinette's topic proposal for her UWRT 1104 class, in which she will investigate the injustices in the United States education system and their harmful effects on African American students. She notes that despite 50 years of efforts to address the achievement gap between white and black students, white students still perform substantially higher. Her interest in this topic stems from her passion for education and justice as a future educator. For her next steps, she plans to conduct further research at the school library and in scholarly databases to find more information on alternative strategies that could help address the issues she uncovered and narrow the achievement gap.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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Madalyn Robinette

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

February 14, 2017

Topic Proposal: Broken Promises for African American Students

Introduction/ Overview

It is abundantly clear that students from particular ethnic groups, more specifically

African Americans, do not perform well in the United States schooling system. This concern

cries out for immediate, sustained and profound attention. Therefore, I will be investigating the

vital roles that play a part in contributing to the injustice in the United States education system

and its harmful effects upon African American students. While the current education system may

not appear harmless, recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Education NAEP have

shown that there are substantial achievement gaps that have yet to be resolved after five decades.

In 1964, a report from the Department of Education was mandated by the Civil Rights Act to

examine the inequality of educational opportunities in an effort to gauge the differences between

schools attended by white students and black students. The report exposed that white students in

the 12th grade performed 87% higher on testing than African American students in the 12th

grade. Despite efforts over the past fifty years, the achievement gap has yet to be narrowed as

white students are still performing 81% higher than African American students. The lack of
equality associated with educational opportunities has since created a dispute between

individuals as well as ethnic groups as a whole. While some believe that in order to address the

achievement gap we must first address inequities in health, housing, and income, opposers feel

that African Americans lack of academic success can be attributed to broad and undefined

notions of culture, parental influence, and rap music. The opposing views are discussed in their

entirety in the novel, Creating the Opportunity to Learn by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera.

Although there are opposing views I believe that is important to emphasize the importance of

ensuring that all children have an equal opportunity to a quality education. By doing so, it

benefits not only those students but our economy and society as a whole.

Initial Inquiry Question(s)

How do injustices in the United States education system pose a long-term threat to

African American students?

My Interest in this Topic

Im interested in the injustices in the current U.S. school system because I am a future

educator and this will directly affect my students. This topic appealed to me because it deals with

two contents I am strongly passionate about, education and justice. As an educator my main goal

is to ensure that each one of my students are provided an equal opportunity to receive a quality

education. In addition, I have always been passionate about bringing forth change and ensuring

that all people are treated equal, no matter their race, religion, or sex. Therefore, this was the
perfect topic for me because I have enough passion and interest for the topic to keep me engaged

while learning new information and writing my inquiry paper.

Next Steps

For the next step of the inquiry project, I will be visiting the school library to acquire

more books on my topic. In addition to the books I already have and will check out, I will visit

scholarly databases to pull more information that is relevant to my topic. In my next steps of

research I also hope to find more information on what strategies are available to use in place of

the current ones. After seeing little to no change over the past fifty years, I feel that this is an

important piece of my work to acquire more information and elaborate on. If I want to bring

forth change to a specific problem I must also pose a resolution as well.

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