What does racial and class segregation have to do with academic achievement?

I believe racial and class segregation influence in the academic achievement. I have never seeing such segregated school as we have in the US and also have never stopped to think about many things before as I do now. For example, after reading Shapiro I realized that indeed when we talk about integration, is taking the black kids of their schools and sending them to the white kid’s schools, “Rarely is it about, ‘How do you have other kids come into traditionally black schools and find value?’. And then comes the example of the Bedford-Stuyvesant school where Mr. Barclift opens a school with black people’s values, she even painted the children’s books with brown crayons to color the faces and hair of the other characters. In other words, if the schools are also paying attention to the black and Hispanic students values how these kids will “fit” in a world where the white have the power? The curriculum should show all races and cultures, it should have mixed races children in all school but also teachers. Tyson also talks about this lack of diversity in the classrooms “As I argue below, the lack of diversity in classrooms works as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy and a barrier to more equitable opportunities, because it reinforces ideas about a connection between race and intelligence and who is smart and who is not”. This cultural border the children grow up with affect the way they learn academically, Tyson says “Racialized tracking is one means through which the attributes that signify intelligence are funneled to Whites. is achievement hierarchy can raise the ire of the less privileged students, and privileged students become the target of their peers’ contempt.” When the less privileged kids, that are usually black and Latino, don’t try to get into programs such as a gifted program or other high-level classes is not because they are not smart enough, is just because they don’t really see much of other race than white kids and they feel out of place. Hence, if less black and Latino kids get into high achievement classes and white kids keep taking these spots this academic gap will continue.

I really liked this part of Tyson conclusion “how tracking contributes to a growing opportunity gap between disadvantaged students and their more privileged counterparts and fosters a sense of division and animosity between the two groups.[…] Creating conditions within schools to afford more students, and not just a select group, opportunities to learn advanced curricular materials will go a long way toward nurturing a sense of fairness among students and preparing a broader group of young people for a diverse array of opportunities in the labor market.” If all schools had a good curriculum along with the material that did not value one race more the other and the students had a sense of all being equal, I don’t think class or race would matter and all kids would have the same opportunity to have great academic achievement.