Blocker: Achievement Gap Due to Poverty, Socio-Economic Status

The achievement gap between white students on the one hand and African-Americans and Hispanics on the other, persists because of poverty and socio-economic status, and begins in kindergarten, Orange County Public Schools Superintendent Ronald Blocker declared. Blocker was responding to a question regarding the persistence of an educational achievement gap between white students and African-Americans and Hispanics and how it can be closed, in a recent interview with West Orlando News Online.

“You can actually trace that achievement gap to the level of poverty and socio-economic status of certain students,” Blocker said. “So many minorities fall within that category and it becomes a racial and ethnic gap. In reality, even though we are closing that gap, it is difficulty to collapse altogether because it starts in kindergarten.”

Blocker said, children from more affluent communities are engaged in preschool activities and already know colors, shapes and sizes and also how to work in social settings, when they enter kindergarten. Children from poorer neighborhoods don’t have those opportunities and the gap starts widening, as the more priviledged students continue to engage in a range of extra curricular activities.

“Teachers work to bring everybody along, but as research has shown, that gap starts widening because the affluent homes continue to enroll their children in gymnastics, dance classes and tutorial sessions,” Blocker said. “They get them involved in instrumental music and lessons – they do all these social activities and these opportunities are not provided in the poorer neighborhoods.”

Blocker added that Orange County, like the rest of the nation, trys “awfully hard” to close the achievement gap, but it persists, even when the less fortunate students advance.

Read the entire interview with OCPS Superintendent Ronald Blocker Here.