Education Inequality

Throughout decades, education inequality is still one of the most deliberate and controversial issues in the United States. Thus far, the privilege or right to receive education has not attained the level of equality throughout the nation. Poor districts obtain less educational funds while rich districts obtain more, which create an immense gap between the quality of schools in poor and rich areas. In other words, the education gap is the root of inequality in America. Inequality in education is linked to the major problems in the society. The need for studies to be done to find ways of overcoming these inequalities is very inevitable. The means of mitigating these inequalities are important for the entire world. This is something of great interest due to the fact that children need quality education which is a pillar for a guaranteed future. Generally speaking, the distinctions among races, genders, and classes in the society have caused the educational inequality in America.

The United States is a country based on equal opportunity; every citizen is to be given the same chance as another to succeed. This includes the government providing the opportunity of equal education to all children. All children are provided schools to attend. However, the quality of one school compared to another is undoubtedly unfair. Former teacher John Kozol, when being transferred to a new school, said, "The shock from going from one of the poorest schools to one of the wealthiest cannot be overstated (Kozol 2)." The education gap between higher and lower-income schools is obvious: therefore, the United States is making the effort to provide an equal education with questionable results.

It should be on revelation that African Americans like other minority groups are already receiving an unjust education compared to their white counterparts. Being an African American in today’s education system can already be considered a disadvantage, and from multiple sources such as; Brookings.edu article over “Unequal Opportunity: Race And Education” and Pew Research Center.org article over “On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites are Worlds Apart”, all the data can be traced back to African Americans falling behind on the achievement scale and the educational gap only continuing to rise, and this is without the negligence of Ebonics being factored in.

There have been steps to fix this clear inequality of education in the United States, such as the institution of affirmative action. Unfortunately, this has not been enough because, though it gives minority students to gain acceptance, it does not make up the fact that they learned in an under-resourced environment and may lack the appropriate knowledge and skills to be successful in a university setting. It would take $100-200 billion to fix the public school system, yet we see that these funds are often used for other things, such as the building of a new stadium in Cleveland (“Children in America’s Schools”). It has not been a priority for many politicians, as we have seen in Chicago. There has been many closures of schools

For the first century of the United States, Congress had a restricted but active position in education, which expanded after the Civil War in 1865. At that time, the federal government mandated new union states to offer free public schools and established an early form of the Department of Education. From the late 1930s to the early 1990s, the Supreme Court's opposition to congressional power decreased, clearing the way for a greater federal role in education. The federal role in education increased as Congress provided funding for the construction of schools, teacher salaries, and school lunch programs. However, this assistance was geared toward wealthier school districts, which negatively impacted poorer, urban schools (Martin, 2012).

Educational inequality is attributed to economic disparities that often falls along racial lines and much modern conversation about educational equity conflates the two, showing how they are inseparable from residential location and, more recently, language.Educational inequality between white students and minority students continues to perpetuate social and economic inequality.

The education system in the United States has expanded over the years to prepare individuals for the demanding labor market that constitutes our society. It has shifted from the development of mere intellectual scholars to the development of intellectual scholars competitive enough for a work force that now requires a degree for entrance. As this system of education has expanded throughout the country, so has the reproduction of inequality. To explain the manner in which this system has been structured to achieve a gap of inequity among society’s affluent and disadvantaged members, conflict theorist Karl Marx claims that, “School institutions are intentionally designed to integrate individuals into an unjust society” (Brand lecture, January

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 recent years, the term intersectionality has taken the foregrounds in understanding how differences such as age, gender, race, sexuality, disability, and religion, etc., interweave and intersect upon individual lives in modern society (Beck 1992). Intersectionality has become a demonstration as to understand, employ, and analyze with difference in which difference itself becomes a feature of otherness. Intersectionality is important to understand and realize because it is a dynamic that changes through different spaces and for different people; which works on a micro and macro level. In this paper, the goal is to explore the different views of inequality for individual’s education in the United States and show how intersectionality plays a vital role in understanding those differences that perpetuate education inequality, stratification, and social reproduction.

In the modern world, education is the crucial key to the economic success. It can help a poor country become a developed country, or make a developed country become a more advanced one. A successful education system is a system, which makes sure that every student can have access to knowledge equally. Although the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, there seem to be many inequalities in the American education system. In this essay, the education inequalities will be classified into four areas: race, economic background, gender, and standardized educational testing.

The United States had gone through so many changes over the years and with each change we could say that we have become a better nation. Along the way to becoming a better nation, we have gone through highs and lows; however there seems to be a constant low that is now taking a toll on our children. The low may also end up having an effect on our future and that low is inequality in education among minority races and low income students. Low income students should be concerned with inequality in education in the United States because this means that their chances of continuing their education to obtain a better paying job in the future is significantly harder to do then students in higher income brackets.

I have a profound interest in educational policy research. Last year, I wrote a detailed academic research paper about modern American school segregation, the current achievement gap, and the effects of these unequal systems. Using my research paper and the educational policy I analyzed, I also created a documentary about the topic. It was a finalist at Maryland’s History Day, and won first place at Regional History Day. From this eight-month process, I gained a variety of understanding and opinions about American school inequality that I hold today. I am also an extremely active participant in a debate team, where I have dedicated this full year to researching, debating, and analyzing American educational policy. This has given me a variety

What grade would America receive for our education system? America would probably get a D because we cannot provide everyone with the same quality education as other public schools, private, and charter schools. Education is important in all countries especially in America, but there is so much educational inequality that everyone does not get an equal opportunity at a good education. This can be due to the location and income of families that can determine how successful they are going to be in school. The government has attempted to increase graduation rates by implementing new laws and standards that have actually in time proven to be unsuccessful. This essay is going to highlight the educational inequality in America,

From a young age, my parents instilled in me the belief that education is the pathway to opportunity. By obtaining an education, I could acquire knowledge, develop skills, and pursue a rewarding career. However, as I grew older, I soon recognized that factors outside of my control could decide if I graduated high school and attended college. Three sources, which examine the topic of educational inequality are “A Public Education Primer- Basic (And Sometimes Surprising Facts About the U.S. Education System),” “Money, Race and Success: How Your School District Compares,” and “A Dozen Economic Facts About K-12 Education.” Therefore, funding disparities, educational resource availability, and college accessibility suggest the role educational inequality plays throughout students’ lives.

With the development of economic society in contemporary China, there is an increasingly high demand for high-quality talents and people begin to pay more and more attention to the educational development. The inequality of educational development aggravates the cut-throat competition in the allocation of high-quality educational resources and even evolves into the inequitable “inside story”, which intensifies the issue of educational equality and leads to a radical social response. This paper mainly studies the issue of educational inequality in China’s contemporary society and briefly analyzes three phenomena and relevant reasons of the educational inequality. Meanwhile, this paper also discusses the relationship between education and economic development in a brief way.