Quach 1

Raymond Quach
November 23, 2015
Professor Ogbara
English 101
Research Essay
In our society of education, the wealthy are given the advantage to succeed while the
ones who live in poverty struggle. Today, the expanding wealth gap affects the educational
performances of the poor. It has been proven that people who live a wealthier lifestyle generally
exceed in academics and have an advantage when it comes to education. For example, children
who live in a poor community may be expected to help with things at home or acquire a job
which interferes with their studies. In addition to this, areas with a higher income tend to have a
better schooling system allowing children to learn in a better environment. A family in a higher
social class allows their kids to have access to tutors, private lessons, and private schools while
families in a lower economic class are less likely to have access to these resources. Ethnic groups
also goes in hand with social inequality because often people from a minority group dont have a
family history of education which can affect their childrens education. Ethnic groups and social
class inequality both strongly impact educational performances of the poor because of their
inaccessibility to learning resources, their struggle to make meets ends rather than focusing on
their studies, and the lack of education in the history of certain ethnic groups.

Quach 2
Firstly, the poor do not have the money to access resources they can use to help with their
learning. Some of these resources include tutors, private lessons, private schools, etc. The
wealthy have no problem with affording these learning resources which gives them the
advantage in the society of education. In the article The Widening Academic Achievement Gap
Between the Rich and the Poor the arthur Sean F. Reardon from Stanford University states the
income achievement gap is large when children enter kindergarten and does not appear to grow
(or narrow) appreciably as children progress through school. (Reardon). This implies that the
educational performances of children strongly contributes to the expanding wealth gap. The level
of education of a student strongly indicates how successful you will be in the future. For
example, when you compare a student receiving straight As in high school to a student receiving
Cs and Ds, the student receiving straight As will most likely have the means of leading a
successful life and thus sets the wealth gap between the successful student and the student who
did poorly. High income jobs require a high degree of educationThe poor are limited to free
public learning facilities which is not as advanced as paid learning resources which makes their
learning insignificant compared to students who can afford paid learning resources. A struggling
child of a wealthy family can easily have access to tutors when theyre in the need of help, but a
child in poverty will not have access because they cant afford it. This also applies to private
school which provides an entirely new and better schooling system than free public schools. The
childrens of the higher economic class tend to have a better schooling system due to the fact that
they live in an wealthy area and that teachers get paid more while the children of the lower
economic class will not have as good of a schooling system. Due

Quach 3
to these reasons, the expanding wealth gap is signifcantly impacting the performances of
unwealthy students.

Second of all, many poor students will need to help their family or maintain a job in order
to make ends meet. Doing so, this could interfere with their studies and their time at school. An
independent college student might struggle to become a full-time student while maintaing a job
because of time inavailiability and it could also affect their amount of sleep or the amount of
time that goes into their studies which will affect their performance in school. As for students in
high school or middle school who live in poverty, they could be needed at home because their
parents are struggling to make a living. Especially when it is a single parent. In this case, it is
more likely for a student of a single parent to be at home or working to help with the bills and to
afford food.
The poor and the wealthy both have different mindsets. A student growing up in a poor
family will have been taught to cope and adapt with what they have. As for a student growing up
in a wealthy family, they basically receive anything they could ever want and will rarely be
declined. The difference in their mindsets can affect their educational performances. An
unwealthy student is committed to succeed while a rich student will be tied to what they believe
and to achieve their dreams. Franklin Delano Roosevelt grew up rich and managed to become
President later in his life because that was his focus. This is a good example of how rich people
will strive for success. Not saying poor people will not strive for success, but it is just more

Quach 4
likely for wealthy people and that affects their performance in education which will contribute to
the expanding wealth gap.
The lack of education in the history of certain ethnic group also affects how a student will
perform in school. A student who grew up in a well-educated family will most likely excel in
school compared to those students without an educated family. Parents are likely to teach their
kids the basic neccessities needed in order to excel in school and in this case, students with welleducated parents will have an advantage. Not only that, but certain race and minority ethnic
groups generally do not perform as well as other races. According to statistics for graduation
rates from the National Center for Education Statistics, white people generally have the most for
graduation with black people with the least. Whites being a majority group has had a good
history of education while blacks did not and that affects education performances between racial
groups.
There are many factors of social inequality that can affect educational performances.
These include inaccessibility to paid resources, time unavailiability between jobs and school, and
the lack of education in certain racial and ethnic groups. Students from a lower socioeconomical
class tend to more trouble with achieving a higher education than those from a higher
economical class. As this continues, the wealth gap will continue to expand. Wealthy students
will continue succeed and poor students will struggle.

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"The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and
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<https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/
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"Social Inequality and Educational Disadvantage." Russelsage. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
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