Unequal opportunity

Hey all!

While looking into readings about inequality in America's school system, I found an article dealing with unequal opportunity: Race and Education (http://www.brookings.edu/articles/1998/spring_education_darling-hammond.aspx).  This article talked about how minorities are not getting the same opportunities as other students in school.  There is a gap in standardized testing between white and non-Asian minority students.  I found this article interesting because it related this gap in testing to the ridiculous book, The Bell Curve, where it states that if a students are continually getting low test scores that it is not the schools fault.  It means that the students achievement is part of their genes, culture, or lack of effort and will.  That makes no sense to me, and no one should believe that a person's genes or culture means that they are not as smart as the other students around them.  Everybody is unique so everybody has different strengths and weaknesses.  Schools with more opportunities and better teachers will probably have better test scores than other schools that don't have the same opportunities and teachers.  The curriculum is also different between the good and poor schools meaning that students are not all at the same level on the learning scale.  So to say that a person has low test scores because of their background is absurd.  The article goes on to say from a study done they took some 7th grade at-risk students and put them in a honors class to see how they would do.  The students performed significantly better then the other students showing that it is not genes or a person's culture that makes a successful student.  Those students weren't put in the class because of a standardized test either.  I think that also goes to show that a students intelligence shouldn't be determined by a test.  Testing also doesn't help show a student what they are worth either.  Just because a student doesn't do good in a subject doesn't mean they are not smart.  I believe all students deserve a chance and should be in classes no matter what testing level they are at.