Analysis Of Ain t No Makin It By Jay Macleod - 1277 Words

Race to the Bottom: How Obama’s â€Å"Race to the Top† Initiative Will Damage the Lower Class and Minorities Sean Reardon of the Center for Education Policy Analysis wrote, â€Å"If we do not find ways to reduce the growing inequality in education outcomes – between the rich and the poor – schools will no longer be the great equalizer we want them to be.† President Obama’s â€Å"Race to the Top† policy will perpetuate race and class inequality in America’s education system. Low-income students as a group already have poorer academic performance, grade point averages and standardized test scores, than higher-income students. In â€Å"Ain’t No Makin It,† author Jay Macleod depicts the Adjustment Class taught by Jimmy Sullivan as an example of how â€Å"culturally responsive pedagogy† can motivate students academically while helping them maintain their street identities. The Obama Administration’s 2009, Race to the Top competition has been greatly damaging to lower income schools around the country, by enforcing policies t hat making it much less likely that students will have minority teachers with shared backgrounds like Jimmy Sullivan. Obama’s â€Å"Race to the Top† policy would destroy the greatest asset of the Adjustment Class, a teacher who the students respect and enables the preservation of their street identities. When the Hallway Hangers struggled in school, they attributed their failure to individual inadequacies, rather than a failed system. This is because they, like many lower classShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Jay Macleod s `` Ain t No Makin And The Brothers 1234 Words   |  5 Pagesa similar dream was carried over by the â€Å"Brothers.† In Ain’t No Makin’ It, Jay Macleod conducts a longitudinal study on two groups of teen boys in a low income housing project, Clarendon Heights, near Boston, Massachusetts. The study consists of the â€Å"Hallway Hangers† and the â€Å"Brothers†; the Hangers mainly composed of all white boys and the latter of black boys. Although both groups have roots from the same economic background, Macleod display how class inequal ity, generational immobility, and poverty