Mgt 311 Week 9 Final Paper

Here we go again with resolutions. Our favorite part of new year. The next paragraphs are my simple resolution. My resolution are jogging for 30 minutes everyday, spend more time with friends and family, get a higher gpa. Every year I make my simple resolution, but only keep one or two of them. But not this year I am going to keep all of my resolution. So let's get started.

McDonald's has successfully created a brand/name for itself as the leading fast food retailer in the world. It is somewhat of impossibility for one to not come across a McDonald's with over 30,000 local restaurants in over 100 countries (McDonald's, 2011). Those restaurants are owned either by a franchise owner or a corporation; a percentage of all the earnings from a franchise owner, including a percentage from their annual revenue go to McDonald's.

Social injustice can have a devastating and crippling effect on persons, both physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Injustice carries with it the potential to trigger life events that negatively affect individuals’ health, lifestyle, and relationships with family members, friends, and the workplace (Hays & Erford, 2014). Currently, in the United States, there are many and more individuals and groups who struggle to overcome past and present prejudices in the areas of housing, education, differential treatment, discrimination, child exploitation, and racial profiling. Barrett (2011) found that multidimensional issues associated with the biological, psychological, and societal differences among persons, social justice, and fundamental human rights many times prevent practitioners from supplying adequate services to all the peoples of a town, area, or country. The complexities of national, state and public administration have generated institutional inequity that is so entrenched within communities that “professional standards and documents and United Nations Conventions and Declarations are not enough” (Barrett, 2011, p. 5). To understand and apply the construct of multicultural counseling and social justice as interdependent and interactive forces practitioners and researchers should analyze and fine-tune traditional counseling theories and methodologies using a systems approach.

The public school systems goal in the United States is to provide every child with equal education. Unfortunately somewhere along the lines the education system in our country has failed to provide this equal education to many of our children, especially minority. It isn’t that the education is not there, but many other things such as , teachers,learning styles, and the culture of the school itself affect a child’s education. African American students at Forest high experience school differently than Whites. For example, many students at school were they are the minority report they feel less connected to school than do their White peers; many Black students contend that they are forced to participate in a system that has little regard

It was noted that most minority students come from families with low socioeconomic statuses (Kim & Sunderman, 2005). Because of this, the children tend to have lower academic success rather than a high-SES child. The effects of SES can start as early as preschool and progress from there. In most cases, by the time a lower-SES child enters school, they already have a lower math and reading ability, which makes it harder to catch up with the rest of the class. Students in lower-SES families often miss out on a variety of educational experiences such as owning books, going to the library or a museum, and traveling. It also doesn’t help that children who are underprivileged are less likely to have high-quality teachers. I too saw this have a huge affect on students while visiting a local high school. It was obvious that the stress of

Not only do African Americans lack the resources they can bring into the educational system, but are trapped into an unsupportive system and school structure on the basis of merit, which marginalizes African American students and negatively affect their academic achievements. White standards and values are the foundations of how the schools are run. For example, schools never acknowledge and integrate black vernaculars into any aspect of the curriculum(Hooks). African Americans have to adjust and conform to white norms implemented by institutions. Black students have difficulty forming positive relationships with teachers and administrators, and more are seen as displaying problem behaviors at a rate far exceeding that of their white peer (Gosa and Alexander). Those who are unwilling to accept the values held by privileged classes are deemed as "troublemakers" and placed into lower level classes, a form of resegregation. The expectation from the teachers and administrators are based primarily on the stereotypes that African Americans are naturally the least intelligent. Teachers’ expectations for success were higher for white students than for African American students(Ferguson). Not only do the teachers have lower expectations for black students, the students consequently end up having lower expectations for themselves. Black students may assume that because no black students are enrolled in high-level classes, they may not excel (Pedro Noguera, 2003). The

Growing up as a middle class white male, I was afforded the privilege to be ignorant of discriminatory practices in relation to race and student achievement. Being white, did not limit my achievements as a student. Only upon reading the textbook and reflection upon my life do I now see that although my academic achievements were not affected by skin color, they were affected by the institutionalized racism of the curriculum. Upon this reflection, I also noticed that there were several ways in which students of another race were affected by their race that I was fortunate to avoid.

In contemporary American society, the most important purpose of schooling is improving the lives of students by attempting to improve equality through equality of opportunity and equal treatment. The youth of America face many hardships, and these hardships are often characterized by intersectionality in the increase of difficulty when multiple factors play a role. In many instances educators and the schools are often the first if not only advocate for a student therefore recognizing issues in the student’s lives is of the highest priority. Examples of hardships faced by students are low socioeconomic status and its effect on educational achievement (Spring, 2016), the personal development of the child including the effects by prejudices and racism on the ability of a child to progress, home issues leading to difficulty in an out of the school system (Spring, 2016), and the level of preparation achieved by students for a successful career whether that be vocational or academic. In addition to reducing hardships faced by students, schools are tasked with giving students moral education to create unity and reduce crime. Therefore, schooling should help to address these hardships and meet the demands of the public to ultimately improve students’ lives and promote equality of education.

Every occupation that exists in the world stems off of education in one way or another, which makes educators the backbone of society’s success. However, educators and those involved in executive decisions about school systems can be the reason some communities are still struggling. One struggle that still exists in the United States is the achievement gap, which is a growing problem in today’s education. According to Cynthia Palmer Mason, the “Achievement gap refers to the observed, persistent disparity of educational measures between the performances of groups of students” (Mason 14). Some scholars argue that the achievement gap just exists and it’s arbitrarily misfortune if someone suffers from its effects. However, research like Mason’s, proves factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, race or ethnicity are among the top defining factors for the gap among students. Although all these factors can be used to measure the achievement gap, race and ethnicity are the largest contributing factors. One race that seemingly is affected more by the achievement gap is African Americans, which has been proven throughout our country’s history. In order for our country to try to minimize the achievement gap, educators must first recognize the issue, the failed attempt to close the gap, and then create a solution for the problem. Educators need to create positive African American role models through personal relationships, examples, and resources being used in the classroom.

Our society is a melting pot of diverse groups in every aspect, race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Consequently, it is critical to analyze institutionalized practices that yield inequalities amongst minority groups. For these groups, education is viewed as a source for upward mobility in the belief that it is a ticket from poverty to a road of success. The issue that lies behind this concept is that schools are becoming more racially segregated than before and are often coupled with various poor practices that place minority students at a disadvantage while placing majority groups at an advantage. The question still remains, should everyone have equal opportunities to educational achievement? Yes, nevertheless, society has been formed on a notion that rarely functions in the manner of equality.

First of all, there are always differences and achievement gaps between groups of students defined by gender, race, social class, etc. Many people think it is normal, people differ. However, the problem is these differences shaped by the bias in favor of the rich, White, men. In fact, the research has shown that African Americans and other minorities have lower achievement scores in compared to their White peers (Reardon 2011). The result also reveals that the gap between rich and poor students is even bigger than black-white’s gap, nearly twice as large to be specific, and middle- and upper-class students tend to have better performance than those belong to lower-class.

Racial inequality has plagued our nation since its inception. White men have been taking what doesn’t belong to them and deciding that people with skin color different than their own are somehow inferior in intellect, emotion, and humanity. The backlash from people of color came to a head, so to speak, in the 1960s with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream of everyone being treated equally. While the idea of equality for all is ideal in theory, people of color have been pushed to the back of the proverbial “race of life,” and it is equity – everyone getting what they need to succeed – that is our true goal when we strive to reach a place of cultural proficiency. The journal articles “From Selma to Ferguson” and “How Desegregation Unraveled” and the movie Remember the Titans give a clear picture of the damage that racial inequality ravaged upon the American school system.

“Education should be a right, not a privilege.”- Senator Bernie Sanders. Around the world, 59 million children of primary school age are being denied an education. Many of these children have predisposed obstacles against them, including economic status, gender discrimination, or race. Racial disparities in education are found within the organizational structure of the school and community. Racial inequality can disrupt a student’s education, as a result of he or she’s identity role is influenced by their community, the reputation of the school they attend, and their involvement or relationship with teachers and the school.

In today’s society minority students are more likely to be severely judged than caucasians. This is true even in America’s educational system. Someone's race can determine their achievements. This is how the dreaded achievement gap enters into America’s schools. “The achievement gap is discrepancy in educational outcomes between various student groups, namely, African Americans, Native Americans, certain Asian Americans, and Latino students on the lower end of the performance scale, [caucasians] and various Asian Americans students are placed at the higher end of the academic performance scale.”(Howard, 2010, p.10) Due to the achievement gap, “Blacks and Hispanics are less much likely than whites to graduate from high school, acquire a college or advanced degree, or earn a living that places them in middle class.” (Chubb & Loveless, 2002, p.1) The effect that the achievement gap has on minority students can last a lifetime. The achievement gap also affects current minority students in testing and grades. Not only that, but the achievement gap brings up the issue of civil rights. In spite of all the issues there might still be a way to bridge the achievement gap.

“It is one thing to understand that in today’s society many minority groups are educationally disadvantaged due to their race, ethnicity, geographical location, socioeconomic status and gender. It is quite another thing to think that schools might actually be implicated in cementing rather than disrupting this disadvantage; but in this chapter that is what we will be suggesting to you.” (Groundwater-Smith et al, 2009, p.73).