The Achievement Gap: Our Take

Montgomery County and really Maryland as a whole is facing a challenge to its public education system: the achievement gap. Minority students from households and families of color fair worse in school as an overall trend than their non-minority ("white") classmates. For years, the achievement gap has been a phenomenon at the center of the national debate about education: what do we have to do to get kids to succeed?

We do not claim to have the "magic bullet" to make the achievement gap a footnote in history, but we do think we know of at least one ailment that has plagued our school system for far too long: bullying.

The author belongs to a minority. Both his parents are college graduates, they had dinner together a sa family several nights a week, and he grew up in a multilingual family--learning several alphabets by age 7. He has never attended school outside of Maryland, and benefited greatly from both a private and public school education, ultimately graduating from a blue ribbon public high school. 

But there was a demon in the author's life that hounded him for many years. One that, in American culture attracts only shame and accusations of weakness and guilt: the author was bullied as a child, and it did affect his grades, his temperament, and his decision to enter politics. For the first time ever, the author is revealing this side of him, and doing so in a very public way. We hope in doing so, that we might highlight the need to address bullying in our schools, and begin the culture change needed to end bullying once and for all. 

American society, especially when talking about classroom culture awards the socially popular, while punishing the "weird," "strange," and "different." The role this plays in the classroom and the way it affects the lifetime academic performance of students is well documented. A student who does not feel valued often feels apathetic towards schoolwork, and moreover, falls into a cycle of hopelessness and social insularity that can severe consequences in the long run. 

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A Very Personal Aside

To speak from a very personal place: following September 11th, 2001, a classmate of the author inflamed racial and social tensions at his high school by constantly harassing and humiliating students of a particular minority background. The author (and others) complained to the school's administration and to at least one member of the guidance team at their high school. No action was taken to discipline or at least confront the classmate's behavior. Several years later, the student had an altercation with a very well-liked and respected high school teacher. The teacher was suffering from depression, and the classmate (whose behavior remained incorrigible years later) one Friday afternoon told them to go home and die. The teacher committed suicide that weekend. Indirectly, school administration was complicit in aiding and abetting bullying to the extent that lives were endangered. The author believes this strongly.

The author knows of two other students from that same high school, who committed suicide before ever graduating. In both cases, friends circles, the sense of hopelessness and the feeling of social isolation played a serious role. In simpler words: bullying does kill.

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In America, succeeding academically is not viewed in the same light as in other developed countries. In Japan, families pressure (sometimes beyond rhyme and reason) their children to succeed academically, and lives and career paths are generally decided in that very hierarchical society by the end of eighth grade. In Germany and much of the European Union, students excel because society and their families expect and encourage them to do so. In our society: good grades aren't cool, and not being cool can be a devastating weakness just when young people need a proper education most: in high school.

But bullying as an institution does not end with high school graduation. Some students are just late bloomers, who need the part-time and transient educational environment offered by community colleges. That is where societal pressure and the achievement gap's expectations gap kick in; the pressure to attend a four year college right out of high school is so high in Montgomery County, that many times we ignore the obvious (emotional, financial, social, and logistical) benefits of a young person attending Montgomery College for a semester or more. Success does not have to be a pass or fail, sink or swim sort of equation. It can and should be a gentle arc of achievement culminating in a meaningful addition and presence in human society. 

The peer pressure on students of certain minority backgrounds to not succeed academically is well-known. The author felt it too, at times, but luckily grew up in an environment that was diverse enough to not be pressured to act, talk, or behave a certain way in order to "fit in". Many other students, across the state, are not as lucky. More must be done to secure a sense of safety in the classroom for all students, regardless of their background. 

Conclusion

To conclude: there are countless systematic failures not enumerated in this post relating to why we have an achievement gap. We do not dare to belittle any of them. But one factor we encourage the Board of Education on both the county and state level to investigate more thoroughly, is just how many young people's academic careers are we losing to peer pressure in general, and bullying in particular. We speak anecdotally in saying: the problem does exist, and lives are being ruined simply because enough is not being done to end American Academia's ugliest of traditions.