Segregation In Schools

Max Serna

Ms. Williams

English 1A

September 26 2013

Segregation In Schools

            Being separated apart from others because you are different than the rest is an intolerable situation that many people face. Till this day segregation still exists, especially in schools, not by race but by academic performance compared to the rest of the students that attend a school. When students are not at the proficiency that they are expected to be at, they are sent to a different school often called “continuation school” which is meant to help a student catch up, the problem with this is that when a school is filled with students of poor academic proficiency the chances of improving are very slim. In a class there needs to be a variety of academic skills, in order to challenge one another and motivate to try harder, separating all the less proficient students from the rest of the school doesn’t really help in improving the way that they perform. Segregating students will never help them achieve in life, it’s not fair that students have to be sent to a lower school simply because they aren’t at the level that everyone else is at, this is the chance that schools have to get more involved with students and offer more help instead of just getting rid of the student and making a lower school full of more segregated students sink deeper in the school district. Many parents with highly educated children also try to keep out students with low academic achievements by insisting to the board of education that only kids of some level of knowledgeable potential should be allowed in the classes, Jonathan Kozol mentions in his book, “The city is noted, had refused to build a new school for the project children when they were the only children in the neighborhood. Now that a new school has been built, they find themselves excluded.” (Kozol 74), the lower level students are never given a chance, so therefore they can never improve or advance in life if they always get excluded. The major problem is that these kids are not being helped to reach what they are capable of, and their hopes are dragged down which makes them skeptical about what they can achieve. Schools should really begin to take action for their students instead of sending them off to other schools that are going nowhere.