We Belong (Philosophy Paper)

In this paper I plan to write about the struggles of two cultural/ethnic groups when comes to education in the United States.  I plan to talk about the inequality in education between African American and Latino American students. My paper will show evidence that African American and Latino American are not as successful in the classroom as Euro Americans.  I believe that race may be a factor and plan to show evidence that it does. 

            African Americans are one of the largest Minority groups in America today.  African Americans were the largest minority in 23 different states in 2009, and in 18 states had an estimate million African American residents as well.  African Americans are one of the fastest growing cultural groups in the United States.  But the African American race also has various problems as well.

            In terms of jobs and businesses only 28% of African Americans 16 and older were employed in management, professional and related occupations in 2009.  In 2007 about 28.2%  “of businesses in the District of Columbia in 2007 were black-owned, this is a higher percentage than all states or state-equivalents. Georgia and Maryland followed, at 20.4 percent and 19.3 percent, respectively.”  I believe we can improve these numbers and I believe that African American race is underachieving.  I also believe they can do a lot better but I think that success starts in the classroom and with excellent education. 

            Before you even begin evaluating the educational system you see why not many African American adults have management jobs or trusted leadership positions in the work place.  About 84% of Blacks 25 years and older were the portion who had at least a high school diploma in 2009.  These days you need more than a high school diploma to be given a chance at a respectable well-paying job.  It is very difficult to work your way up to a management position at jobs like McDonalds and Wendy’s now a days.  Approximately 19% of African Americans 25 years and older had a bachelor's degree or higher in 2009, and in today’s business environment it is very hard to find a job or a career path without at least a Bachelor’s degree.

            Latin Americans are currently the fastest growing minority group in the United States.  From 2008 to 2009 the Hispanic population in America raised 3.1%.  In 2009 only Mexico had a larger Hispanic population than the United States.  26% of children under the age of 5 are Hispanic American.  In 2009 16 different states had at least half a million Hispanic American residents living there. “About 47% of New Mexico's population that was Hispanic in 2009, the highest of any state. Hispanics also made up at least one fifth of the population in California and Texas, at 37 percent each, followed by Arizona (31 percent), Nevada (26 percent), Florida (22 percent) and Colorado (20 percent). New Mexico had 916,000 Hispanics.”  In 2009 in 20 different states Hispanic Americans were the fastest growing minority group.

            Over the past few years Hispanics have been the fastest growing cultural group in the United States.  But it seems as though they are not gaining ground when it comes to education and income.  The median income of Hispanic households in 2008 was $37,913 which is down 5% from the previous year.  This is because the jobs most Latin American people are working are do not pay well. 

            69% of Hispanics 16 and older who are in the civilian labor force in 2008.  But these are the jobs these are the jobs that employ a lot of Latino Americans.  18% “of civilian employed Hispanics or Latinos 16 years and older who worked in management, professional and related occupations in 2008, the same percentage worked in production, transportation and material moving occupations. Another 15 percent worked in construction, extraction, maintenance and repair occupations. Approximately 24 percent of Hispanics 16 or older worked in service occupations; 22 percent in sales and office occupations; and 2 percent in farming, fishing and forestry occupations.” 

            The reason a lot of Latin American workers have low paying jobs is because a lot of them are not well educated.  Many Latin American young people are forced to drop out of school and join the work force before graduating high school.  As mentioned previously in today’s economy you must have at least a high school level education to even get an entry level job and to be able to get a management position job you will probably need a Bachelor’s degree or higher.  Out of the 48 million Hispanic Americans living in the United States only 3.7 million 18 or older has a bachelor’s degree.  And in 2008 only 12% of college students’ graduate and under graduate were Latin American students. 

            My belief is that the educators are not adjusting well to teaching the minority students.  I think that the culture differences are forming a barrier that is keeping the teachers who are mostly white from helping the Latin and African American students.  I think that when talking about the Latin American students that there may be a language barrier as well as an inability to relate to the students due to cultural differences.  I also believe that lower income Americans who tend to be minorities, African American and Latin American, receive substandard education.  The best and brightest educators are not typically attracted to low income areas with low budget school systems.  These are the reasons I can think of especially since the gap between the white students and the minority students not getting smaller. 

            I read an article written by Jim McCabe called “Afro-American and Latino Teenagers in New York City: Race and Language Development.”  At the beginning of the article his views were the same as mine.  He figured that the teachers were to blame for the fact that the white students are reading much better than African and Latin Americans. “A 1990 report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress put this gap in reading skills at four years.”  So according to this when the kids reached the 12^th grade the white students would be four grades higher than the African and Latin American students.

            The results in the 1990 test were a surprise because in the 1970’s and 80’s the gap between the cultures narrowed considerably.  So to find out why the improvement stopped Mr. McCabe interviewed 35 high school students that went to school in New York City.  A lot of the kids didn’t have a lot to say about the classes they were taking.  Like Robert Holmes an African American 9^th grader said that these classes were not given any novels or books to read other than his text book.  Tonya Blair an African American 11^th grader told Mr. McCabe “we watch a lot of movies, that’s basically what we do in that class, watch movies…we don’t use any books.”  She was referring to her African American history class.  A Hispanic Student named Lillian Vasquez talked about how she used to read a lot on her spare time but now she only reads what she is assigned in school.  What happened as she got older? Why did she walk away from reading her books and novels?

            Then Mr.McCabe interviewed white students as well.  Daphne Greene a 9^th grader and Theresa Cella a 12^th grader and even though I saw slight improvements in what they did in their spare time mostly all of what they said about what the students were asked to do in school were the same as the minority students.  And the author of the article saw the same thing.  In his conclusion he wrote that the lack of reading by the white students in the neighborhood high schools made him rethink his initial statement that “white teachers have low expectations of minority students.”  I agree with him when he says that it seems like teachers in these public neighborhood schools don’t just have low expectations for the minority students but for the white students as well.  

            So maybe it’s not the teachers that are the problem.  After reading this article I believe that household income may come into play as reasons why minority students are having trouble catching up in with white students in reading.  I believe now that because of the poor education in the public schools that most white parent then enroll their children into private schools that are better at challenging them in the class room.  Since a lot of African American and Latin American parents can’t afford private school the gap in the reading skills.  .  I also believe that low income minority parents have to work additional hours to support their families and have less time to do things like read to or with their children.

            My second article was written by Ana Lucia Hurtado.  She is Hispanic and coming out of high school she had 10 full academic scholarships to 10 different universities.  She didn’t go to a private school but she was enrolled in a magnet school which allowed her to do different things that students enrolled in regular public school just don’t have the chance to do. 

            So in conclusion I believe that the educators are not teaching white students more and are not under estimating the abilities of African and Latin American students.  It is my belief that the educators teaching the kids in the public high schools just aren’t as good as the teachers teaching at the private and magnet schools.  It’s more of an income problem because most of the African and Latin American parents cannot afford to send their children to private school.  This is the reason why the gap is growing wider when it comes to minority and white student’s reading levels.