[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Schooling for Diverse Populations
Nationwide, “66 percent of students in public elementary and secondary schools are white, 17 percent are black, 13 percent are Hispanic, 4 percent are Asian or Pacific Islander, and 1 percent are American Indian/Alaskan Native” (Johnston, 2001). Black and Hispanic students together make up more than half the students in the nation's central city public schools. More than “3 million school-aged children speak English with difficulty” .
Despite narrowing of the gap between the performance of white and black students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics, reading, and science, white students still had higher average scores in 1994. “The gap in writing scores has remained relatively stable since NAEP first assessed writing in 1984” (Web 1).
Diversity is hardly a new concept. Throughout history, different groups of people have had their own ways of making sense of the world and of representing their own values and beliefs. The people of the United States have a long political tradition of struggling with particular issues of diversity, while embracing the general principle of diversity within unity. What is unprecedented, however, is the active effort to transform educational perspectives from seeing the nation as a melting pot to seeing a rich interaction among many distinct people: male and female, from diverse racial, ethnic, social, and economic groups. This view of the nation enables all students to find their own experiences represented in the curriculum; to interpret the curriculum through the lens of their experience; to profit from the kinds of learning opportunities offered both inside and outside the classroom; and to have equal opportunity to experience educational success and mobility..............
