There is a counter argument to my aforementioned position that contains a nativist approach. Through nativist ideology, one would “believe that human nature is a blank slate” and that everyone is born with the same opportunities and those who succeed in life are naturally the strongest in terms of darwinism (Haidt, 2012). So, in relation to education, nativists would believe that it does not matter what school one attends. The students who want to succeed will succeed because they naturally have those qualities of success. And the students who do poorly in school perform that way because they are weaker and do not possess the qualities of success. A nativist would argue that it is not unethical to have extreme differences in schools in wealthy neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods because of the human mind as a blank state theory. However, this is not true because as stated in my background history paper, students who attend schools in poor areas are given fewer opportunities to succeed in comparison to those in wealthier areas. “Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Dean James E. Ryan, a former public interest lawyer, says geography has immense power in determining educational opportunity in America,” suggesting that not everyone is born with the same opportunities to succeed in school (Ireland, 2016). Ryan goes on to say that “there exists an almost ironclad link between a child’s ZIP code and her chances of success,” indicating that the nativist ideology to this problem is wrong because one’s geographic location acts as a predictor of their educational success (Ireland, 2016). It is unethical to discriminate against one’s educational opportunities because of their geographic location.
References:
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion.
London, U.K: Penguin Books.
Ireland, C. (2016, February 15). The costs of inequality: Education’s the one key that rules them
all. Retrieved April 15, 2018