Current Event Assignment
Cassandra Ekwem White
Education 305
Instructor Lunde
September 28, 2015

In the article, “Education Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider”, Eduardo Porter does a good job discussing the disparity between the social classes. The past movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement, should have closed the gap a great deal when it comes to higher education. Instead, the disparity between lower and upper classes is becoming larger and more pronounced. Mr. Porter discusses how only 5 per cent of 34 to 25 year olds whose parents did not finish high school have a college degree (Porter, 2015). He goes on further to discuss how the socio-economic factors have had a profound effect on the disparities of the children. Research has shown how low-income children are automatically a year behind in both reading and math (Porter, 2015). Even further, it has been shown that even with the best of efforts, nine years down the road, the gap is even wider from one-half to two-thirds. This article goes on to show the disparity in the social classes through living arrangements. Only about half of all low socio-economic children live with both parents, while 7 out of ten are born to teenage mothers. However, for those with college degrees, eighty-three percent are living with both parents (Porter, 2015). It appears that low-income school systems cannot keep tenured school teachers for any length of time. Most of them are novices. The disparities are clearly noticed in the Pre-K programs. Children from low income backgrounds are taught the rudiments more so than upper social classes like middle and rich. Trying to close the proficiency gap is one of the main goals of instruction today (Porter, 2015). One last key fact is that the proficiency gap between the poor and rich is twice that of between black and white children (Porter, 2015). As