African American Education Inequality

An achievement gap between White students and students of color has been documented consistently at all education levels. Racial inequality in education is a serious problem in the United States. The Educational Longitudinal Study carried out in 2002 examined the relationship between race and composite reading and math scores among Black and White students. A total of 8,315 tenth grade students were included in this analysis. The results showed a difference in test scores between Black and White students with Whites scoring higher than Blacks (Rowely & Wright, 2011).The findings from this study suggest that discrimination based on race as well as family factors outside the school setting contribute to this difference

In this paper, I will explore the aspects regarding racial inequality pertaining to education in the United States of America. It has come to my attention, based on my observations, that race is a definitive factor that plays a role in establishing socioeconomic status. In relation to socioeconomic status, variables correlating with race that I will be focusing on, is the educational and wealth aspects. An individual’s level of education is pivotal to establishing stable, consistent wealth and vice-versa; the access for quality education is inconsistent primarily among minority races/ethnicities. According to historical records ranging from the year 1980 to 2000, between Whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Native Americans, the educational attainment gap is widening (Kelly 2005). Education is seen to be a source of respect and key to gaining a higher income, which transfers over to greater wealth. Acknowledging the slow expansion of the educational attainment disparities, I argue that the society’s perceptions and actions addressing race perpetuates and produces social inequalities by limiting opportunities despite “equal” resources, privileges, and rights through social policies that have contributed towards the quality of America’s education system.

For centuries African Americans have fought for equal rights, one of them being an opportunity for the chance to get an equal education. Many people believe that African Americans have an equal or better chance at getting an education than other students. This is not the case when in fact, it is actually harder for these three reasons: African American students tend to come from harsh, poverty stricken atmospheres. Shattered family lifestyles that make it difficult to pursue a higher education because they have not received the proper information. Secondly, just because African Americans are minorities does not mean that they receive a vast amount of government assistance or financial aid to pursue a higher education. Lastly, African

Racial disparities exist in every aspect of our society. It exists in religion, socioeconomic status, life-chances, media, etc. It affects everyone even if they realize or not. Education is one of the things that are also affected by the racial stratification occurring in the United States. In this paper I will look in to whether Tennessee is better or worse for educational advancement by comparing four races and their high school graduation rates on the national and state levels. The four races used will be; Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, and White. I will then tie specific theories to why these disparities may exist. This will hopefully give insight in to this touchy topic and provide a starting point for correcting the gap.

females (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011). The second reason is that the less experienced teachers are commonly placed in the most difficult schools teaching the most difficult students (Douglas, Lewis, Scott, & Garrison-Wade, 2008). Poor teacher quality is a huge factor in the achievement gap (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011).

Racial inequality persists in the current U.S. education system, despite nationwide efforts to promote the acceptance of students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Minority students, most notably African American and Latino, receive lower qualities of education compared to the Caucasian majority and are, as a result, at an indisputable disadvantage after primary and secondary education. According to a 2014 study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, “students of color in public schools are punished more and receive less access than white students to experienced teachers” (Abdul-Jabbar 31). Higher suspension rates and an increased frequency of corporal punishment use, allowed in 19 states as of 2014 according to Business Insider (Adwar), for minority students are two disciplinary examples of underlying racial discrimination with the current U.S. education system. Economic repercussions of racial inequality in education have been proven to include wealth gaps, higher unemployment rates, and financial instability for minorities in later life. Due to the prominence of racial segregation within schools, it remains a controversial point of debate in modern-day society, resulting in attempts such as affirmative action to establish racial equality in education. In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the United States Supreme Court declared affirmative action to be a justified policy in the

In American education, there is overwhelming evidence that there is an achievement gap between groups of students. In other words, there are measurable differences in the educations and test scores of different groups of students. Some gaps exist between groups or differing gender or socioeconomic status, but the largest gaps exist between groups of different races. America has always been a country with an influx of different cultures through immigration. In schools, these cultures still remain separated. The most noticeable separation is probably that of White and African American students. Although the achievement gap between White and Black students is easily seen there are other clear gaps in the education of Latino and Asian American

In the United States, African American faced prejudice for hundreds of years. Even now, African American are still facing inequality. However, though these cruelties persist, according to Martin Luther King Jr. and Elie Wiesel, the past should not be forgotten.

The disparity facing African-Americans in education is cyclic in nature in that if a parent lacks the proper education required to possess a high earning power and as a result become another statistic of the lower class of the economy, hence being unable to provide their children with resources such as tutoring and other services that would help provide educational equity for them, these children are stuck lagging behind their upper-class peers that have access to these resources, leaving them with a lesser quality of education and limiting both their future earning power and their future children’s exposure to better educational resources, hence the cycle of educational disparity that plagues the African-Americans as a race.

Historically in the United States, there has always been a significant difference in the way different races have been treated. Even after many years of laws and bills being passed to create a smaller gap in the inequality of the different races, we still see a large problem with inequality today. One of those inequalities is the difference between white and African American’s, in history whites have always been at the top, and blacks at the bottom, civil rights movements lead by black leaders in the 1950s and 1960s changed the way blacks were treated, but although there was some change our society still recognizes blacks as the inferior race. Looking at inequality today, blacks are still being treated differently in jobs, the criminal justice

Another premise in this review focuses on the significant divergences of opinions about the plight of the African American’s situation here in America. Some scholars are asking, how has this new pattern of inequality for the African American emerged? Many scholars point to the decline of middle level jobs (Harrison & Bluestone 1988), the redistribution of manufacturing jobs away from large cities like Chicago and Detroit, where many jobless blacks live (Sassen 1988), and the rise of earnings inequality among workers of all races (Danziger & Gottschalk 1993) as causes. One manifestation of these changes may be that gains in earnings have been offset by a growing racial disparity in unemployment between black and white men (Moss & Tilly 1991).

This report is, by no means, intended to be a comprehensive study but an indication of one part of a problem. Understanding the dimension and quality of African American overrepresentation is a first step toward resolving the problem. So, to better understand the problem and its roots, more research should be conducted which more critically explores a greater range of possible causes and subsequent outcomes and which utilizes individual student records as the primary unit of analysis. Researchers should examine more closely the decisions made by the school personnel referring the students for corporal punishment, in different districts, because it appears that race may be as much a factor in the classroom as it is in the administrator’s

Social Class is a position held by an individual composed of combinations of parental education, parental occupation status, family income and wealth. Students whose parents have higher levels of any of these traits of class, more often than not, have better opportunities. Essentially, education and opportunities stem from money. If a parent has a higher income, they’ll be able to provide more help to their children if they’re falling behind in school. Also, they have the ability to assist in paying for college and those with higher education feel the need to help their children with paying for college. The more money parents have, the better the schools, and the better the education. Another factor that plays in the role of education inequality

The racial achievement gap is a highly talked about issue within education in the United States. It refers to the differences in standardized test scores between black students and white students. Even though this issue is still prevalent today, it has improved greatly from the past. Ever since Brown v. Board of Education, where the supreme court ruled that it was unconstitutional for schools to be racially segregated, the racial achievement gap has become smaller. However, it still exists which has led many people to wonder why and design experiments to figure out what could be causing it. The racial achievement gap is a big issue because it shows that black students are falling behind in school which can lead to them not going to college or dropping out. It is also an issue because all students deserve to have an equal education and they should all have a chance to succeed in life. In order to fulfill equal education for everyone, the reasons for the achievement gap need to be found and fixed. Some people have already investigated independent variables that could impact the achievement gap such as personal faith, self-affirmation, and students schoolmates. However, not many experiments have been done to test the impact of unequal spending per pupil on the racial achievement gap. In this paper, an experiment will be designed to investigate the possible effects it has on the gap with a hypothesis that the unequal spending increases the achievement gap.

Brown and Park (2002) states it is difficult for people in rural areas to invest enough in education even though they will get more returns in the future. Furthermore, parents in rural areas are likely to have lower level of educational background, so it is hard for them to educate their children (p.1).