LaSHAWN PAYTON: This vowel says it's, what?

Its name.

That's right.

(children conversing) ANGIE MILES: Who remembers what it was like to b LaSHAWN PAYTON: I did not like it.

The teachers were not they were not really nice.

And the learning to me was ju It was just, it didn't welcome me into the work.

It was boring to me.

'Sit at the table.

Do what I say.

Move when I tell you to move.'

I felt like, you know, almost lik ANGIE MILES: She says she cried at the start of first grade and got sent to a coat closet.

Payton is now head of the Montessori s she founded in Northern Virginia.

Here, she strives to make instruction responsive to the students' interests and needs.

She says, her own start in school was the opposit As an adult, she's had to shrug off the weight of others' low expectations, based in part, she says, on her ethnic-soundin LaSHAWN PAYTON: Seeing my name on the resume, it probably got skipped to the bot Plenty of times I got overlooked in position where I was overqualified for a position, but they gave it to somebody else.

So, many times, just through my name, I've been o or people just judge me based upon my name.

ANGIE MILES: And she says that name bias began when she sat in classrooms taught by white teachers.

Corey Harris and Cedric Jennings are educators, both teaching at the college level and both Ph.D. candidates.

Harris recalls being the lone Black child in his suburban classroom, when his teacher without as planned to label him, "In need of remedial help.

COREY HARRIS: That was very upsetting to my mother because at that point I could already read and w I ended up helping, you know, to read to the class.

I ended up reading to the class, which was, yeah, it really showed me a at a early age, about the implicit biases within teachers.

ANGIE MILES: Harris was later identified as, "Gifted," but has misgivings still about bias against Black, brown and low income students within a system that, he says, is not designed to help them achieve.

COREY HARRIS: The effect of the history in this country, where Black people have been racialized and we have been continually, shown or depicted, I should say, as those who are behind or in need of some so And even when that's the case, it's often assumed that the reason we're behind is because of some innate quality.

ANGIE MILES: Jennings, whose early life is chronicled in a Pulitzer sa ys the burden of low expectations came when he left his impoverished Washington, D.C. High School and arrived at his Ivy League college.

CEDRIC JENNINGS: Being part of a underrepresented population, not only are you trying to do you can do academically, but going into settings and rooms where you know and can feel, your white peers question your worthiness of even being able to come in and sit at the table.

That's challenging, whether or not you 'c ause you don't want to be seen ANGIE MILES: University of Virginia, Professor Tonya Moon, has spent decades studying the Black-white achievement gap.

She says it makes a great deal of difference, not only what expectations and support students e but also, what their economic lives are like before they ever reach the schoolhouse doors.

TONYA MOON: Oftentimes, what we see is kids who don't have access to Ri ch family learning experiences.

Those kids often times come to school either as an early reader are already as a reader.

Kids who don't have access to those things.

oftentimes, don't come to school as an early reader or a reader and so, at the outset, kids start behind.

And that mostly, is not a Black-white issue, it's really an income issue.

ANGIE MILES: So if the Black-white achievement gap is not primarily because of race, then why does it appear that way?

Possibly because of the disproportionate of Black students who live in poverty.

In America, more than 12% of children are living below the poverty line.

What that really means, is about 7% and nearly 18% of Black children, live in poverty.

And for children of Hispanic descent, the number is even higher.

Black and brown children are to be poor than white children.

A recent study by Harvard researchers that traumatic events connected with poverty can adversely impact the brain development of children.

And according to the study's authors, the differences are not genetic, but to the extent that systemic racism might be subjecting some to more poverty than others experience.

And until we can figure out how to eliminate the inequities that we see in our society, we'll always deal with the inequities that we see in achievement in schools.

Often times, kids who don#t have access to higher levels of income also go to educational systems in areas that are economically deprived.

ANGIE MILES: That was the case for Jennings, who graduated from a high school in an impoverished, urban while dealing with hard days at home.

Jennings describes his single mother as a supermom, a federal employee with a strong work ethic and abundant Christian convictions, who was always looking for enrichment opportun expecting him to learn and excel.

But finances were a major challenge.

ANGIE MILES: Could you describe what life was like at school, and what life was like at home and some of the more traumatic th during your youth?

CEDRIC JENNINGS: When I knew that I had to eat.

And I was on free an so I made it a point to eat breakfast and I made it a point to eat lunch because on some days I knew that if I didn't eat, I wouldn't get a meal at home because there was Yo u learn to appreciate the heat (chuckl when you're at school in the wintertime, knowing that there were periods wher You had to boil the water to even take a bath, a hot bath.

ANGIE MILES: Jennings says that enduring multiple evictions, learning to go without, taught him to go within to focus intently on getting an education as the surest path to a better future.

He says that teaching incoming students at Northern Virginia Community College opened his eyes to how poverty does not discriminat in its negative effects.

CEDRIC JENNINGS: And it is a hi color who experience the sting of poverty.

But there's some white folk who experience it too, and they end up in my classes as well.

So it's just an interesting dynamic enga helping them to really navigate the environment.

I deal from compassion.

I deal out of the experience of what I would've wanted people to say to me when I first got to that environment.

ANGIE MILES: Compassion is what Payton says And as the girl who was sent to cry in a closet at the beginning of her school career, who became an adolescent, who made trouble, got expelled, she says, "It's the compassion, cultural understanding, and access to resources that will help close the achievement gap and improve outcomes for all children."

There is research to support her viewpoint.

One University of Virginia study finds that the Montessori approach, which Peyton offers at h the gap as these learners continue with their education.

LaSHAWN PAYTON: When it comes to Montessori, they don't need to ask for pencils, paper, Everything is right there.

They don't need to ask the teacher for snacks, it's right there in the environment.

If I'm hungry, I can go get a snack and then I can go back If we just follow the lead of the child, Montessori gives them An d that's one of the benefits that I see in the Montessori environment.

My son, he choos I don't tell him he has to read.

He chooses to do it.

If we put the funding into early an d we make sure that those programs are at quality level, when they leave early childhood education they know the alphabet.

They know the sounds.

They can read.

They can und They can understand the concept of numbers.

If we put the resources in the foundation, the achievement gap would be nonexistent.

ANGIE MILES: The need for better economic health for all American children and families, the need for high expectations that are free from implicit biases and supported by a responsive and well-funded early childhood education.

These are some of the suggests, based on research and based on the experiences of these high achievers.

And the research suggests the achievement gap is not the result of a genetic or innate flaw in the students, but more about the environment that shapes them before they arrive at the school doors and after.

COREY HARRIS: It's assumed that there#s nothing wrong with the system, and it's only the childr But actually, I submit that there's really something wrong with the system.

If you look at in America, it's not working for everybody.

And going forward, we need to interrogate what's wrong with the system and how the system can meet peopl instead of having people meet the system where it is.

LaSHAWN PAYTON: We could talk about statistics.

We could talk about all the We could talk about all of these thi We've talked about it for many existence, it#s still happening when we think about the ac Let's put the same resources that we put in wea communities into these lower income communities.

The fact is, is we need people and the pencils and get out here and do the work.

We can bridge that gap.