Unequal Schooling

Unequal Schooling

The Supreme Court in 1954 professed that public education is “a right which must be made available to all on equal terms” (Federal Loophole).  This decision was founded in Brown vs. Board of Education, and required that the federal government no longer allow states and cities to deny equal educational opportunity to a “racial minority.”  Schools were then integrated, which they had never been before.  It was not until the 1980’s that the court gave new and stricter desegregation orders and released to school districts desegregation plans.   

Surprisingly today, our school systems still remain separate and unequal.  The average “white student attends a school where 77% of his or her peers are white” where also the average Hispanic or black student attend a school where “90% of students are non-white” (Federal Loophole). Many critics today explain that the reason for resegregation in schools is because “educational opportunities for poorer, minority students and undermines racial understanding”.  Other critics even say, “minority children cannot achieve academically unless they are in the same classroom with white students”(Karaim).  In colleges today race is still a very prominent aspect, on April 22^nd of this year the Supreme Court “ruled that state schools cannot use race as a factor in admissions if voters oppose it” (Karaim).  Though this new rule “does not apply to the constitutionality or merits of schools’ race-conscious admissions policies” (Karaim). Furthering that aspect, researches are developing studies that are concluding that our school systems are becoming resegregated.  One study in particular displays that “black children across the South now attend majority-black schools at levels not seen in four decades.”  We unfortunately are taking the path back toward segregation. Even today school systems are “as segregated as they were in the 1960s before busing began” (Federal Loophole).      

All of these factors leading up to today are what create the achievement gap.  We see this in the novel Academic Profiling.  The achievement gap is the gap between various ethnicities of how they score.  This gap is discussed like it’s fixed.  But measuring this, many people result to standardized test scores.  When the scores are presented, it is done in racial categories.  They assume it is based on intelligence (naturalized) and many of the teachers within the novel explain it by cultural explanations (work ethic).  These scores do not indicate how one student is doing from the next or as to why the gap is widening between different ethnicities.  There are many aspects that correlate into why the gap is widening and resources that not every one has to achieve well on the standardized tests.  Which in result adds evidence as to why this is not an attainable way to find the achievement gap. 

·      Education, Unequal, and Federal. "Unequal Education." Federal Loophole Enables Lower Spending on Students of Color (n.d.): n. pag. Www.AmericanProgress.org. Aug. 2012. Web. 23 Sept. 2014. <http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/UnequalEduation.pdf>.

·      Karaim, Reed. "Race and Education." CQ Researcher by CQ Press. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2014. <http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2014090500&type=hitlist&num=0>.

·      Ochoa, Gilda L. 1965- Author. Academic Profiling. Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Achievement Gap. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota, 2013. Print.

·      "Race and Ethnicity." CQ Researcher by CQ Press. N.p., 11 June 2014. Web. 23 Sept. 2014. <http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqr_ht_race_and_ethnicity_2014&type=hitlist&num=2>.