Page 468 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

36 Are We Creating the Achievement Gap? 443

to reinforce the notion that “white students” are outperforming “students of color”
in the sciences. The success of “white” students is portrayed as one where these
students are individuals who work toward life success.
Racial isolation continues to deepen in the United States, and we face one of the
most segregated eras since the 1950s (Kozol 2005). Because of inequity in funding,
a school with diverse populations and high poverty faces inequities with deteriorating
environments, which threaten the health of students and perpetuates the assumption
that its students are “at-risk” and failing to meet standards. Rather than embracing
the variety of cultural values and individual talents students from diverse back-
grounds bring to the classroom, districts with high diversity seek to “teacher-proof”
the curriculum and deliver knowledge to students as if they were vessels to be filled
with standardized knowledge (Kozol 2005). Students are targeted with “best prac-
tices” teaching strategies designed to facilitate higher test scores and assimilate
students into thinking that certain answers and knowledge is assumed superior
(Kozol 2005). Implications of deficit model thinking have serious consequences for
the science classroom. Moreover, the scholarly science community questions the
lack of diversity in the disciplines, and yet standards-based science curricula state
the need for more students to become scientifically literate (one literacy for all).
When the construction of standards curricula is based upon the notion that a deficit
exists and students and schools need to be “fixed,” economics, not equity, will most
often drive the science standards movement. As a result, economics will never be
challenged and we will continue to problematize the “achievement gap.”

Tracking and the Standards

Perhaps, the most striking manifestation of inequity occurs in the tracking of students
in secondary science. Tracking is defined as the separation of students based upon
achievement and in regards to future career plans such as college or the workforce
(Lynch 2000). Tracking affects a broad spectrum of curricular activities. The amount
of resources, for example, spent in the science classroom is a product of tracking.
Another example is how advanced science classes often consume more lab equipment
while less advanced classrooms use “paper labs,” which seldom require science lab
equipment. The influence of grouping students has been well documented and affects
how students perform. Even when individual differences are accounted for, students
in different science tracks perform differently as a group. If a standardized test is the
measure of performance, then a gap between different tracks is impossible to close
(Lynch 2000). While strong arguments have been waged for tracking, especially in
the realm of gifted and talented education, even those higher tracks with gifted stu-
dents are disproportionately white and upper middle class advantaged (Lynch 2000).
While few, if any, teachers will advocate holding a high-achieving student back simply
to keep group dynamics diverse, these arguments regarding how students are chosen
for advanced tracks need more examination because of a disproportionate representation
of advantaged students in advanced classes.