Paper Topic:

The Ebonics Debate

Ebonics Education

The Ebonics controversy in America has developed into a major conflict over the years . It has become a more serious concern within the public school system . The complex where the nation 's school systems lower their expectations of black youth to coincide with the patterns of Ebonics , the word used to refer to African American Vernacular English has resulted in an epidemic where blacks graduate from High School reading three grade levels below their white counterparts . For the multiple number of theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon very

few have been able to counter the adverse culture that has developed in America as a product of Ebonics being considered a valid dialect

A wide range of theorists and politicians have used the American educational system as a platform on which to gain civil approval . There is a popular consensus that income designates the quality of one 's education in America . This state of socioeconomic prejudice has a detrimental effect on the face of our society . It can be argued that a single standard curriculum should be equally implemented and taught throughout the nation , and that this curriculum should be similar to the elite executive curriculum , which Jean Anyon identifies as the best education our country has to offer in her article Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work . She identifies how many believe that private and public sector schools should be merged together , along with their curriculums (2006 . She breaks down education into two curriculums upper class and lower class , or working and executive class . Equalizing the differences between these two forms of education has always been the job of standardized testing . Initially standardized testing in America was used to asses one 's calculative ability . It is now being replaced starting at the middle school level , with a format that revolves around authentic assessment (Wiggins , 1990 . Authentic assessment is the direct evaluation of student performance through tasks that exercise their intellect . The tests are also known to evaluate creativity , listening and comprehension skills , experimental research in science , speaking and discussion skills and historical inquiry . It has been designed to replace traditional standardized testing , which means it eventually will be used in all schools across the nation to identify the intellectual elite . This is considered to be a major advent in education that will counter act the nation 's stigma of low expectations ushered in by the validation of Ebonics

A major cause of the low expectations placed on black youth in schools can partly be credited to those doing the research , as Kimberly Griffin points out in her article Striving for Success : A Qualitative Exploration of Competing Theories of High-Achieving Black College Students ' Academic Motivation , when she says , research on the academic performance of Black students has focused on low-achievers , framing their academic motivation as maladaptive and driven by externally (e .g competition or compliance ) rather than internally (e .g , love of learning ) generated forces (Griffin , 2006 . This heavy focus on those blacks who have low...

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