When curriculum transformation occurs, students and teachers make paradigm shifts and view the American and world experience from the perspectives of different racial, ethnic, cultural, and gender groups.
There is a clear distinction between superficial curriculum infusion and genuine transformation, emphasizing that the latter involves a profound shift in perspective rather than the mere addition of marginalized voices.
So, on average, what kids from affluent homes and neighborhoods bring to school tends to encourage higher achievement among all stu-dents at those schools. But the opposite is also true: the disorder and violence that kids from impoverished homes and neighborhoods tend to bring to their schools discourages achievement for all students at those schools.
This juxtaposition veers toward a pathologizing of poverty, but it’s not at all wrong—just incomplete in my opinion. What poor kids “bring” is shaped by centuries of extraction, surveillance, and systemic neglect. Until we address that inheritance, no amount of grit will suffice.
para-school funding
The language here—“para-school”—is used as if a second shadow education system exists, operated by parents with means. This reinforces that schools are not necessarily equal just because they are “public.”
Regardless of their own family background, kids do better in schools where the other kids come from affluent, educated homes. This pattern appears to be nearly universal across the developed world.
Peer composition is then not serving as a mere footnote, but as a largely influential force. Defining “good schools” is not just about funding or curriculum, but who surrounds you—academically, socially, aspirationally, and economically.
Reardon's analysis also suggests that schools themselves aren't creating the opportunity gap: the gap is already large by the time children enter kindergarten
I don't personally view this research as information that complicates the narrative because we all play silent parts in systems that we don't agree with, but this as a stand alone statement could easily complicate things painting school as non-originators, giving them the opportunity to deflect any responsibility at all. Schools are not the originators, but they are deeply implicated as amplifiers. It forces a reframe of educational reform—away from fixing schools in isolation, and toward tackling the layered socioeconomic inputs shaping them.
They basically just wanted her money, since a school gets paid for each student. They didn't care that she was going to fail."
Schools functioning as attendance-funded machines, preventing truancy at a state level, rather than institutions of care is a moral failure that provide students with the tools to be civil parts of society. Sofia’s narrative highlights how commodification of students can dehumanize them completely.
Lola: The teachers would even say out loud that they get paid to be there.
This is educational malpractice masquerading as disillusionment. When teachers admit their disengagement, it legitimizes hopelessness. It’s also a glaring indictment of the environments we assign our most vulnerable students to.
I did whatever it took to make sure that my kids were ahead a year.
This level of drive for a parent is admirable, but it may also reinforce a competitive landscape where only the best-resourced survive. The system rewards hyper-involvement and punishes those who, due to labor or language barriers, cannot perform such parental labor. We have to acknowledge what parts we play in the systems we are trying to dismantle because we have been groomed to conform to them as a "moral duty." With that being said with how racist the systems tend to be I would never blame a POC parent for only thinking of the good of their children and family.
We specifically chose to live here so that they could go to Troy High School.
Housing for children within the schooling system is a modernized form of educational privilege. Clara’s meticulous school shopping reflects the high-stakes marketization of opportunity.
"We said, 'We're going to do well academically, and we're going to challenge ourselves, because we need to get our of the neighborhood.'"
Clara’s voice cuts to the heart of immigrant resilience. But the burden of “getting out” often falls entirely on the child. Success is framed as escape—rarely as transformation of the system left behind. That’s the cruelty of “mobility” and escapism from the environment a person is created, born, and formed as a human in, as the only imagined victory.
Students at Santa Ana are four times more likely than students at Troy to drop out, roughly ten rimes more likely to be truant or suspended, and only one third as likely to take the SAT. If they do take the SAT, on average they score in the bottom quartile nationwide, whereas the average SAT taker at Troy scores in the top 10-15 percent.
This is why it is so important to portray these grave disparities numerically because it plainly showcases the severe inequality. These statistics are not educational accidents—they are structural blueprints. It’s not just what schools teach; it’s what they assume their students will become.
Orange County "the Ellis Island of the twenty-first century."
This signifies a shift in the American immigration narrative, while also setting the stage for the layered contradictions in educational access. While Ellis Island symbolized opportunity, here the “American Dream” is unevenly distributed, especially when radicalized and class-based geographies stratify access to high-quality schooling.
Moreover, despite their egalitarian claims these pre-Civil Rights era reforms largely excluded African Americans.
I think we would be largely remiss if at the beginning of each statement surrounding multicultural education and the newfound data around income inequality for students that Black people will always be considered the lowest of the low. We are socially dead beings and our freedom from this necessitates the end of the world. Human equality will often not include Black bodies because we are not considered human by the standards of social life vs. social death. It is so crucial to make progress where we can, but we must acknowledge that this progress often does not include everybody.
What is less obvious is ·the way in which the school structure is also implicated in rein-forcing patterns of disadvantage and privilege.
Until we hold structures—not students—accountable, the cycle of racialized failure will continue, cloaked in language of “achievement gaps.”
one out of three white seniors rook c.-1lculus, while only two out of one hundred African American seniors did so.
The racial calculus of calculus: this gap in access to advanced math isn't incidental—it’s a predictive map of future exclusion. We talk about STEM diversity, yet ignore the early and persistent divestment in Black and Brown talent.
For many students of color, however, "freedom of choice" too often h1-s meant freedom to fail
This is one of the most powerful lines in the reading to me. It calls out the neoliberal myth of educational choice. When support isn’t equitably distributed, “choice” becomes a setup. We can’t keep hiding institutional neglect behind the façade of personal responsibility.
Students who are new to Berkeley High and have no circle of adults or peers co advise them often wind up with the teachers whom few others choose.
So from this example would it be informed to essentially summarize it as: Education access is not just about course offerings, but insider knowledge—usually inherited or whispered from parent to parent. It’s nepotism masquerading as open access.
83 percent of rhc ninth graders who were placed in Math A, the low~crack prealgebra class, were African American. In contrast,►87 Qercent of students from that same cohort of ninth graJers \yho were placed in Honors Geometry, the advanced-track math class,
This is why it is essential to highlight numerical statistics. Not only is that the best way some people learn and visualize, but it puts it into a larger scale perspective that is comprehendible to the average human mind. These numbers reveal the not-so-hidden curriculum of racial tracking. Even in “progressive” districts like Berkeley, race determines rigor. We pretend ability grouping is objective, but this data shows it’s just a polite mechanism for segregation within schools.
The achievement gap at Berkeley High is, in ome sense, a source of puzzlement. How, in a progressive community like Berkeley and in a high school that appears to revel in its commitment to diversity-with its African American Studies Department and freshman ethnic studies requirement-does the structure of the school lend itself to repro<lucing the racial achievement gap?
As a Black woman it is clear to me that this statement was written by a non-Black person. That achievement gap is global weaved intricately into the foundations of every single system. If we escape that it necessitates the end of the word (Wilderson III, Afropessimism). Puzzling? Not at all. In fact, it is the exact opposite and extremely expected as a part of the systems. A progressive community does not mean freedom, opportunity, and equality for Black beings. That is something we create on our own because we are socially dead and seen as so other that we are not even a part of the definition of "community" let alone truly considered within a "progressive" one. What it is is unfortunate, despicable, and inhumane. It is quite the opposite of puzzling to me. Once we acknowledge that these are our systems and always have been instead of just --emphasis on "just" because questions should never stop being asked-- questioning "why," we can mobilize against them.
First, we need to make the invisible visi-ble-to unveil the hidden curriculum.
This is an urgent and necessary call to action We —American school systems— cannot continue pretending that school is a neutral space. The curriculum may say one thing, but the culture—the tone, the body language, the silence—teaches something entirely different.
I was left vulnerable to a teacher who had seemed to understand me.
Marginalized students often invest in the few teachers who seem safe—only to be retraumatized when that trust is broken. Teacher preparation should include how to carry that trust ethically and with care.
Because I was respectful and did not disagree with or challenge other students or educators, teachers accepted me. I was one of the "good ones." My compliance and obedience were rewarded with good grades.
Acceptance in school often depends on silence and submission—especially for poor students of color. The hidden curriculum is not about learning; it’s about learning to not take up too much space as a person of color. Our influence and embracing of our unabashed selves and cultures is often punished in ways that have more to do with education and less to do with a student expression or influence. The disadvantage this creates cannot be statistically quantified.
I loved being Black, but I hated being poor.
I heavily relate to this comment, however, in a different way. I grew up middle to upper-middle class, but many aspects of being Black are violently hard to exist as while also being the most sought after and fetishized.
The same unease students feel with their more affluent peers can transfer over to their professors. They may not reach out to their professors when they are performing poorly in the class, fearing that they will be judged as lacking in the ability to succeed in school. Starting in kindergarten, schools rarely reward poor students for the quali-ties they bring to their schools: their perseverance, compassion, flexibility, patience, and creativity, just to name a few. Instead they are judged on quali-ties determined by dominant cultural norms: the attitudes, preferences, tastes, mannerisms, and abilities valued by a system that never was designed to meet their needs
It unfortunately seems like at the core, there is much more encouragement, positivity, and self-motivating in wealthy environments and this is an important value to transfer over into adulthood. Not having that is hindering the progress, access to resources, and ability to ask for help for the poorer students leaves them lost, but unable to pinpoint what they are missing during college education and even while preparing their own children for schooling in the future if they are stuck in the same cycle. Which is a system that is very, very, VERY, easy to stay stuck in.
enrichment expenditures, while higher-income families spent more than $3,700, already a substantial difference (figure 3.2).12 By 2005-2006, low-income families had increased their expenditures to about $1,400, but high-income families had increased theirs much more, to more than $9,300 per child.
The phrase “enrichment expenditure” feels sterile for what it actually represents: access to imagination, opportunity, and future security. This number isn’t just a statistic—it’s the price of privilege. It’s what makes middle-class parents feel calm and low-income families feel frantic and lesser-than.
children from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution already outscore children from the bottom 20 percent by 106 points in early literacy.
When inequality appears this early, it invalidates the very idea of a level playing field. It makes the American dream feel like a rigged game pretending to be fair.
Alexander's family was able to spend far more money on Alexander's education, lessons, and other enrichment activities than Anthony's parents could devote to their son's needs.
This contrast between Alexander and Anthony reads like a quiet indictment of American meritocracy. It's not a matter of grit or intelligence—it’s capital. We need to stop treating disparities in educational outcomes as natural or unfortunate and start naming them as economic design choices. The gap isn't random; it’s structured and sustained.
24 RESTORING OPPORTUNITY Which of these factors are most powerful in determining a child's s Uc-cess in school?
Income and cultural background play the largest part in this scenario. Alexander's additional family income, quality parental time, and cultural environment have set him up for success and offered him with many more constructivist learning opportunities. Anthony, although he has a job, a clear will to live, and is in school he will be unable to afford to attend an ivy league school without a large scholarship. Additionally, his motivation is greatly impacted by the energy he spends at work, worrying about family situations, and he is much less likely to get a productive and positive educator who values his learning and even considers his harsh cultural and familial background.
there can be, and usually is, som e degree o f pain involved in giving up oid ways of thinking and knowing and )earning new approaches
This line struck me as more of a pedagogue. Learning is not always joyous—it can be a reckoning. hooks’s honesty about discomfort as part of transformation is a rare gift, offering grace to students and educators alike.
They bave told me that many professors never showed any interest in hearing their voices.
As a student of color who is the older sister to three other students of color this greatly speaks to the factual experience that educators often fail and refuse to recognize when sending POC students down the school to prison pipeline. Work place politics and burnt out, underpaid educators play a large part as well.
Making the classroom a democratic setting where everyone feels a responsibility to contribute is a central goa! of trans-formative pedagogy.
This reimagines education as collaboration, not transmission. The emphasis on voice, presence, and community resonates with Freire’s ideas and offers a practical compass for liberatory teaching.
The unwillingness to approach teaching from a standpoint that includes awareness o f race, sex, and class is often rooted in the fear
Personal Note: Change isn’t just resisted out of ignorance—it’s also avoided because it threatens the illusion of control. It made me think about how faculty development should include emotional support, not just ideological training.
Teaching in a Multicultural World
A multicultural world is just the world. The title sounds like this is the first time the author is acknowledging this or they are White and word things with slight microagressions without noticing it, as White people do.
Despite the contemporary focus on multiculturalism in our society, particularly in education, there is not nearly enough practica! discussion of ways classroom settings can be trans-formed so that the learning experience is inclusive
I find this is a really great place to note that as a Black woman who came from a very diverse, ethical, inclusive, multicultural focused, liberal arts high school, places that do perpetuate this contemporary focus are far and few in between and are very sheltered places. I often go into an AFAM class that teaches about all of these concepts on an insanely deep level and then I will go to work in UTC, a STEM side of campus, or just outside in Irvine at all and I come face to face with a great lack of this awareness on these topics, a lack of willingness to gain said awareness, blatant racism, and microagressions. For as much as we place ourselves in environments that place focus on this there are people who do the exact opposite and remain in conservative spaces rooted in inequality. It is becoming more mainstream as Gen Z becomes adults, but we are in a bubble and it does not surprise me how little progress we have made within society.
A Head Start for Whom
This is the vast chasm between federally supported access and privately engineered advantage. Jackson’s comparison between Head Start and elite preschool prep is haunting—it’s not just about access, it’s about the quality and trajectory that follow.
Why are people poor? Because our historical and social structures mean them to be.
This sentence stunned me in its simplicity and force. It demolishes the bootstraps myth and demands that we stop asking how poor students can do better and start asking why they were systemically placed at a disadvantage to begin with.
public education does not serve its intended function as the great equal-izer. Quite contrarily, schools actually structure inequality (gasp!) in insidiously subtle ways.
Jackson flips the script entirely, offering a radical but necessary reframing. Her clarity on this point is refreshing—it removes blame from students and situates it where it belongs: in systemic design.
"the educated, the wealthy, the intelligent" had gone morally astray by abandoning the public was fortified {Johnson, 2002, p. 79).
Mann was absolutely correct with this statement. In EDUC 126: Ethics and Education one of the questions we have been, and continue to be asked is "what makes you moral?" My genuine answer is always that if I can provide another living thing with assistance, peace, relief, relaxation, happiness, anything at all and it causes no harm to me or anyone else I AM GOING TO DO IT. That is what moral humans do and it feels like the most natural instinct to me besides being a mother. Of course, cultural background, and personal motivation play a part, but the rich creating an essential war on the poor so that they always stay above is inhumane and insanely immoral. Why would a person do that to another person?
localism not only accommodates community idiosyncrasies but also serves as a barrier to changes in the distri-bution of students and resources
The worship of local control disguises class and race protectionism.
The gap between belief and action has emerged in different school districts at different times over different issues; education policy has therefore been not only contentious but confusing.
To me this clarifies why educational equity work feels fragmented and exhausting. We don't lack values; we lack the political will to embody them when sacrifice is required. It left me asking: How do we close the action gap without moralizing the privileged into paralysis?
schools are supposed to equal-ize opportunities across generations and to create democratic citizens out of each generation, but people naturally wish to give their own children an ad-vantage in attaining wealth or power, and some can do it.
This is exactly what the moral paradox of public schooling is: our individual instincts sabotage our collective ideals. This tension complicates policymaking and exposes why real reform is so hard to achieve—it would require self-sacrifice from those already advantaged.
T HE AMERICAN DREAM IS A POWERFUL CONCEPT. It encourages each person who lives in the United States to pursue success, and it cre-ates the framework within which everyone can do it.
The American Dream is indeed a powerful concept, however, it is crucially important to note that this power comes from what it promises, not what it provides. This saying came to be because the job market in America is objectively better than the wars, drug cartels, murders, kidnappings, arranged marriages, etc... in certain third world countries. America could have had half of the jobs we can offer and still have framed it that way because it was the objective lesser of all evils. Yet, when a person of color immigrates to America to achieve this dream they are given the absolute bare minimum because we know it is still better than what they came from.
Is it a dream compared to where they came from? Sure. A dream in the climate of America, considering what its citizens are given (i.e. minimum wage, voting rights, citizen rights, better opportunities, etc...)? Not by a long shot. It is very unfortunate, but true, and it must be recognized.