Opportunity In America

772 Words4 Pages

The article opens by stating two ideas focused on America and the success that anyone can find there. America is a place where the opportunities are endless and all around you. The article begins accessing the outcome and balance of opportunity and the fact that although it is certainly there, it may depend on who a person is or even a person’s effort as for how successful they may become. The thesis of this article seems to be that although America might be seen as the land of opportunity; there are a lot of factors that can make it very hard to succeed here. The article explicitly and bluntly explains that sometimes there are factors in place that make it a lot harder to succeed than it would be if you were better off in economic standing, …show more content…

The article itself almost critiques America on ways that it differentiates opportunities and success based on the opportunity gap. The opportunity gap is basically what the whole article is explaining. The opportunity gap refers to the ways in which race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language proficiency, wealth, familial situations, or other factors contribute to lower educational aspirations, achievement, success rates and attainment for certain groups of people. The article is clearly arguing that the opportunity gap is a huge factor in whether or not certain people will be successful in America and that the unequal or inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities is very …show more content…

A lot of the article discusses how families/ parents have a direct correlation to the children’s success. In detail the article makes a point that a lot of the times the relationship between what background you come from and the overall success you can achieve are directly related because of the different amount of opportunities that are given out. The article also brings up an idea of different parenting styles, and the diverse impacts those styles can have on children. Another main idea is schooling and education. Depending on what town or city a person grows up in makes a difference on where they go to school. Obviously different schools have unlike resources and therefore the opportunities that are available are not the same as one another. The article states that America is trying to get all states and all schools up to current state expectations of learning and if that becomes successful, maybe all children will be able to have the same opportunities available to them no matter where they are