Using Cultural Competence to Close the Achievement Gap (Report‪)‬

Introduction It is clear that the number one issue for public education is finding appropriate ways to close the student achievement gap, especially as this relates to African Americans, other minorities and lower socioeconomic children in our schools. Americans of African descent have always held a strong conviction that ethnic cultures including African Americans and other minorities would be able to assimilate just like the Europeans who migrated here were able to do. This assimilationist idea greatly influenced our culture in the United States for over one hundred years (see Zangwill's play "The Melting Pot," staged in New York City in 1908 ... in Banks, 2003.p.3). While, as Takaki (1998) said, "ethnic cultures and communities often help individuals satisfy important human needs...." However, African American communities which lived in abject segregation and discrimination managed to help each other for the most part, the intense pain and suffering from institutional, societal, and personal racism and discrimination made it very difficult for them to really make the strides to enjoy the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a free society (Takaki 1998).