Kwame Griffith, Teach for America's national director for diversity outreach, and education professor Kimberly Williams spoke at "Race Income and Education," a panel to raise awareness about current racial and socioeconomic inequalities in education hosted by Student Assembly on Thursday evening in Brace Commons.
Co-organizer of the event Josh Wexler '08 asked attendees to consider how the issues addressed affect and relate to Dartmouth.
According to Teach for America's website, nine-year-old children in low-income areas test three grade levels behind children of the same age in wealthier areas, and only half of the low-income students graduate high school. The students who do graduate often exhibit math and reading skills up to par with an eighth-grade student from a high-income area.
Statistics suggesting that African American and Latino children are three times as likely to grow up in poverty imply that these students have lower chances of receiving an education equal to that of other students from more lucrative backgrounds.
Griffith said the purpose of his contribution to the panel was to personify these statistics. He told a story about a troubled student named Desmond who, in fifth grade, was at a second grade reading level and a third grade math level. After eight months of intensive study under Griffith, after school and weekend tutoring sessions and a parent-teacher conference, Desmond passed his state-wide promotional examinations.
"His mom thought I had worked some kind of magic in that classroom, but there's no magic required," Griffith said. According to Griffith, the magic lied in his being a "teacher who truly cared."
Griffith contrasted his dedication to that of another teacher who retired early, leaving her 30 students under Griffith's responsibility.
"My goal in life is to just make people mad enough to do something about [the discrepancies in education]," Williams said.
Williams said she blames society and the present political structure for today's educational injustices. According to Williams, the government's "No Child Left Behind" policy has made "negligible improvement."
The biggest problem, according to Williams, is that "we live in a racist and segregated society" which causes the current achievement gaps.
"The impact of segregation is alive and well," Williams said.
The situation is only getting worse, Williams said, noting that there is more segregation in the north than in the south.
Williams said that supreme court decisions, such as Rodriguez v. San Antonio in 1993 and Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1 in 1973, which concluded that the federal government is limited in its funding to state education programs, have caused re-segregation.
Both Wexler and co-organizer Yuki Kondo-Shah '07 are membrs of the Diversity and Community committee of Student Assembly.
Founded in 1990, Teach for America places college graduates at schools in low-income neighborhoods across the country.
