The Importance Of Racial Disparities In Education

It has become common today to dismiss the lack of education coming from our impoverished public schools. Jonathan Kozol an award winning social injustice writer, trying to bring to light how our school system talks to their students. In his essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal," Kozol visits many public high schools as well as public elementary schools across the country, realizing the outrageous truth about segregating in our public education system. Kozol, cross-examining children describing their feelings as being put away where no one desires your presence. Children feeling diminished for being a minority; attending a school that does not take into consideration at the least the child’s well being. Showing clear signs of segregation in the education system.

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.

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

With landmark Supreme Court decisions in regards to education such as Brown v Board of Education, which made segregation within schools illegal, one would be inclined to believe that modern schools are void of any inequality. However, at a deeper glance, it is apparent that there is a glaring inequality within public school systems at the national, statewide, and even district-wide level. Such an inequality has drastic results as the education one receives has a high correlation to the college they will attend, and the job they will work. It is in society's best interest that public school systems be improved to equally supplement students with the tools necessary to succeed. While the public school system aims to reduce the inequality within it, they have proven ineffective in guaranteeing children of all races and economic classes an equal education.

How should society handle the perceived differences between races when it comes to education? The goal of both researchers is to narrow the academic gap between white and black students. Both authors attribute the gap between the academic scores of black and white students from opposite sides of racial identity. As Dr. Beverly Daniels Tatum, President of Spelman College and clinical psychologist has written an article entitled “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” Her approach is from the perspective of the student and how they perceive their role and upper limits while maintaining their place in their peer group's expectations of their race. Dr. Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, has written an article entitled "The Facts about the Achievement Gap.” Her approach is from the perspective of how schools and society implicitly or explicitly cast students into achievement tracks based on their race. Both approach the same idea about racial identity, but they have different solutions, such as peer groups, the school board, and who is right about the solution.

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.

Education and economic justice were two forms of systemic inequalities that make inequality difficult to talk about. Education is a requirement if someone wishes to have a better life, but not everyone has access to quality education. In the U.S there has always been a battle, people of color have fought to be able to access quality education, (Philips, 2016: 130) they are constantly attending inferior and ineffective school where there are many distractions for students to be fully successful in the classrooms. Often these schools where children of color attend lack quality facilities, educational resources, and qualified teachers. Someone can’t help to notice that in general such unqualified schools are mostly in color people’s neighborhoods.

A school setting provides opportunities where issues of social justice, oppression, and discrimination can be addressed. According to Bemak and Chung (2009), students of color and economically disadvantaged students are likely to have low academic achievement, in comparison to their White middle class counterparts. These disparities in academic

In the week's reading it offered a unique perspective education of segregated school by the percentage of black and hispanic students. The arguments that can be mafe about the myth of educations and empowerment in the reading "Still Separate, Still Unequal" by Jonathan Kozol, is still being affected by funds. The author speaks about statistics present the overpopulated schools are filled with minorities. "Whether the issue is inequity alone or deepening resegregation or the labyrinthine intertwining of the two, it is well past the time for us to start the work that it will take to change this." "We do not have the things you have," Alliyah told me when she wrote to ask if I would come and visit her school in the South Bronx. "Can you help us?"

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

Who we are and how we are treated as children is directly correlated to who we will become as adults. Spoken by Lyndon B. Johnson, “Until Justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.” These words are echoed throughout the educational system that is put in place today. Jonathan Kozol, an award-winning writer and public lecturer who focuses on social injustice in the United States, reverberates these words in his article, “From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”. Kozol proves his mastery in persuasion by the facts he provides and the personal anecdotes from teachers and students.

The author, Amanda Lewis, conducted a study in the 1990s to examine how race and racial inequality are reproduced on a day-to-day basis in schools. She argues that the curriculums, educators, and the children themselves create and reinforce racial lessons. She picked three elementary schools in Southern California: Foresthills, West City, and Metro2. The schools were selected based on their location and cultural composition. At each school she was paired with a teacher who would be the best help for the study. She observed the behaviors and interactions of students in fourth/fifth grade classes. Interviews were conducted with the students, teachers, members of the school community, and parents as well.

Equal access to quality education is a human right every individual deserves to acquire. However, disadvantaged communities are at risk when it comes to receiving quality education hence creating the achievement gap between colored students and white students. The article “In Their Own Words: Perceived Barriers To Achievement By African American and Latino High School Students” by Desireé Vega, James L. Moore III, and Antoinette H. Miranda and “Black Children Still Left Behind” by Ed Finkel both address the many factors that contribute to the achievement gap.

Education has been a staple necessity throughout the United States for years. From an early age, children attend school in order to learn concepts that will better prepare them for success in the future. Since Brown v. Board of Education, a nineteen fifty four court case that declared segregation in the United States public school system holds no ground, integration has been essentially mandated between blacks and whites in the education program (Hannah-Jones, 2014). Over the years, however, the system has received many alterations, such as a division between blacks and whites through poverty, that challenges the ideas of integration in the school system. These new economic and social issues bring into question whether or not the school

Building wealth becomes increasingly unmanageable without steady employment, but the unemployment rate for people of color has been consistently twice that white people, regardless of the fluctuations in the economy. An education is a way to help you achieve that goal. However, the rate for unemployment for blacks with college degrees is twice as high to be unemployed than all other graduates, according to The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism, a book published by Nancy DiTomaso, a professor of sociology, at Rutgers University who lectures inequality and organizational diversity. This is because applications with white-sounding names have a fifty percent chance higher than black sounding names to get callbacks, even when the resume does not change. Previous to the business opportunities, a person must obtain an education.