I speak for myself when I say university students may take our institutions for granted, and we commonly forget a quality education is not always the easiest to come by. While all students have different educational experiences, certain factors have distanced students from opportunities to succeed. This is why you need to start thinking about closing the achievement gap wherever you may be.

The educational achievement gap can be defined as a disparity in academic performance between different demographics of students. Factors such as socioeconomic class and geographic location contribute to one’s ability to do well in school. Some students are held back from future success because of certain aspects of their personal and educational lives.

There have been specific measures taken to help minimize this gape yet, a significant disparity remains. To solve this problem, we must examine the issue at a local level. The educational divide more significantly impacts specific rural communities. We could go on to talk about electricity for late-night studying, recreation/ proper sports facilities, as well as internet access for research and study.

School districts alone will not be able to bridge the divide, as many circumstances can impact a student’s performance or ability to learn. These include out-of-school factors like distance to and from school, housing, income inequality and safety can all these contribute to a student’s ability to succeed.

This is why if we are going to try and tackle the achievement gap, we must be comprehensive, looking beyond the limits of solely school-based solutions. Right now, socioeconomic status is beginning to contribute more significantly to the achievement gap.

Students that drop out of high school are more likely to come from low-income families. These students have to worry about where their next meal will come from. Some would rather smoke weed because they feel that even if they study, they won’t be able to rise to any decent level.

Within the schools, we need to ensure that all of our students are set up to succeed, and this may demand several reformative steps to take place. For instance, we need to expand early childhood education opportunities, as the success of students can be shaped in their early years. Closing the achievement gap would really need such consistency.

Furthermore, we also need to ensure that our schools’ most influential teachers are located in schools with the greatest need. Finally, we must show our students that we believe in their ability to flourish. Give them examples they can look up to and show them that hard work in education pays off.

Unfortunately, the education achievement gap will not diminish overnight, so there is a need to make continual strides to achieve the change our students deserve. We must also increase our understanding of how these achievement gaps come to be so that we can better understand the methods of prevention and mitigation. Thus increased research and policy analysis on the subject is critical.