Chapter 2: The current state of education for diverse students in the US

The states which the largest school systems are Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. In 2006, it was found that nearly half of all math classes in high-minority and high-poverty areas were taught by teachers who don't even have a minor in the field. It was also found that there was a positive correlation between teacher prep, teacher satisfaction, and continuation in teaching. Also, the physical aspects of the school buildings are very likely to be in disrepair. The argument for tracking is that it is easier to teach a homogeneous group of students and not everyone can master the same curriculum. The modern form of tracking can be see as the division of remidial, basic, and advanced courses. No Child Left Behind, enacted by President George W Bush in 2006, tries to put in place higher standards, greater accountability, and a focus on lower performing student populations. There have however been many opponents to the law due to its many issues. The percentage of students who graduate high school areas follows: 94.6 Asian 91.8 White 83.7 African-American 64.1 Hispanic "The dimensions of multicultural education encompass content integration, the knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, an equity pedagogy, an empowering school culture, and the vie of a school as a social system." (Taylor & Whitaker, p.23). The authors here are stating what they believe will help to improve multicultural education. However when they discuss how learning styles are different for different cultures, I feel that diverse students can learn through other learning styles besides the one they are most used to through their own culture and that to think otherwise ignores the changes and adaptability of children. Some other interesting facts from the chapt include: Asthma is the leading cause of student absences between the ages of 5-17. The suggestion that parents should participate in a certain amount of volunteer hours at the school. According the the PowerPoint provided, Illinois has a higher gap between cultures in Math grades four and eight. The pie graph of foreign born people are as follows: 53.3% Latin Aamereica 25% Asia 13.7% Europe 8% other This restates what was read in the chapter, that the greateest amount of immigrants come from Latin America, and most likely across the Mexican border. The greatest amount of immigrants live in cities and their surrounding suburbs. Having visual representations and maps helps to see the patterns of immigrants. The national map shows howw immigrants reside mostly around large cities around the border of the US. However there are some clusters in teh West thata confuse me, such as the large immigrant popluations in northern Texas and into Nebraska, as well as the ones in Idaho.