Formal Essay #1
As of 2016, 41 percent of children under 18 are low-income and 19 percent are poor in the U.S. As of 2014, the average high school graduation gap between poor and non-poor students is 15.6 percent, in Minnesota, that rate climbed up to 28 percent. So is it possible that the newest trend of character education can repair the achievement gap? A strong advocate for character education is Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who has studied the art of perseverance, or grit, for 11 years, but her research overlooks the daily economic adversities low-income students face. In the 2103 interview, The Significance of Grit: A Conversation with Angela Lee Duckworth, by Deborah Perkins-Gough, Duckworth encourages grit to be taught in the classroom because it will improve students’ learning abilities. On another note, while author and UCLA Graduate School faculty member Mike Rose does not dismiss character education, he urges educators and policymakers not to forget about poverty stricken children while they are caught up in this new educational fad in his 2015 article, “Why teaching kids to have ‘grit’ isn’t always a good thing.” Grit is an important quality that should be taught, however, we need to improve our nation’s poverty rate if we expect character education to be successful among a diverse group of students in America.
Grit may be the best predictor of success, but what is the purpose of its results unless everyone is