Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education

Anarosa Pimentel Strangfeld Final Paper SOCL 3310

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education

Education has always been one of the keys to success and that a good education can have an endless opportunity for those who possess it. In todays society children have the right to a public education where the parents do not have to pay tuition to send their children to school. Having the ability to learn the fundamentals of how to act in society comes from the beginning years of schooling; where the teacher sets rule and guidelines on how to act when in class. Where a person lives determines where their child will attend school because schools are designed to be closest to the home. There is inequality when it comes to public education and it starts with class, race and gender by having segregated these individuals in the past to continuing segregating them from having the same education as those with better opportunities and keeps them from advancing. Education was once segregated by race and those who were white attended the school in the better part of the neighborhood compared to the second school that was designated for people of color. This unequal treatment was stopped by the Supreme Courts notion of Brown v. Board of Education in the year 1954. The Supreme Courts declaration was intended to help aid the minorities chances by giving them the same opportunities that the white children already were receiving. Unfortunately, this declaration of desegregating the schools is now a tool that hinders the same minorities it was designed to help. In the article How Tracking Undermines Race Equity in Desegregated Schools by Roslyn Arlin Mickelson gives a careful look on how tracking in todays schooling takes away from the fairness of Brown v Board of Education. A persons race can hinder their chances of exceling in school. Tracking was introduced to help the teaching of children by having a general guideline on where they stand in their current knowledge. Teachers then could plan their curriculum according to the childrens needs, but the way tracking is designed his can also hurt the childrens chances of advancing. Mickelson explains, Black

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education

and Latino students are far more likely to be in the low-track classes, where their opportunities to learn are limited relative to high-track classes.(2005:384) The tracking system shows that white children are more likely to be in the higher tracking classes giving them more advancement. A case study was done by Mickelson where she focused on a high school called CharlotteMecklenburg School in Charlotte, North Carolina to report the effects of desegregation. The findings show, Among students whose 6th-grade CAT English scores ranged from the 40th to 49th percentile, 56% of whites compared with 74% of blacks were placed in regular English. Among the best students-those with 6th-grade CAT scores between the 90th and 99th percentiles52% of whites but only 20% of blacks were in advanced placement or international baccalaureate English.(2005:388) The findings alone show that advancement is slim for blacks even though the test scores show that they should be advanced. This inequality shows that public education is another place where the color of ones skin matters. Along with race comes social class that can also show how there is segregation in education that is by a persons personal and economic background. Social class is determined by a number of things and most of them can be answered in a questionnaire when applying to schools. The questions range from a persons family income, and how far the parents went in their education to a persons culture can determine a childs life. This can determine childrens lives because education can limit how far a child will go. In the article Class Matters by Peter Sacks discusses the issue of class, race and gender that directly effects on a persons education. Sacks showed that equal education opportunity should have a larger gap so that each person can have the same chances of attending the same elite schools as those who come from money. Sacks shows that not much has changed since 1974, The opportunity gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged social classes in the United States have not lessened over the past thirty years. In

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education fact- though one might not know it, given the nations focus on the affirmative action remedydisparities between social classes have significantly worsened on several dimensions of educational opportunity.(2007:404) Being able to advance despite a persons social class is every difficult. Sacks shows this by saying, Indeed, 34 percent of students from the lowest social class with high test scores filed no college applications, compared with just 8 percent of seniors from the highest social classes. In contrast, the difference between whites and blacks on this dimension had become almost trivial.(2009:405) The problem of social class is that these children in Sacks research are more than capable of attending college based off their test scores, but their social class hinders them from even thinking that they can attend college. Segregation in education is seen in low-economic neighborhoods and most do not understand how they become low-economic. In the article Why Our Schools Are Segregated, by

Richard Rothstein gives in sight on how schools are segregated by the different aspects that keep schools the way they are and how it effects these disadvantaged neighborhoods. Rothstein explains how neighborhoods like these do not just happen, Too quickly forgetting 20th-century history, weve persuaded ourselves that residential isolation of low-income black children occurs in practice but is not government-ordained. We think residential segregation is but an accident of economic circumstance, personal preference, and private discrimination.(2013:50-55) Most people do not just choose to live in low-economic neighborhoods for personal preference. Many have no other option but to live where they can afford to have food and shelter for themselves and for their families. Rothstein explains how this is not just a persons first choice but Residential segregation is actually the result of racially motivated law, public policy, and government-sponsored discrimination. The result of state action, residential segregation reflects an ongoing and blatant constitutional violation that calls for explicit remedy.(2013:50-55)

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education Meaning that there are over forces at work that are keeping people of color and low social class in these communities. In turn public school are funded by the local taxes from property taxes and if only people from a low social class are living there that means that the funds for their public school will be low causing less opportunity for the students. Students from disadvantage neighborhoods are effected by the schools they attend in many ways that other children may not have to face. Many of these children have parents with little to no education causing there to be a disconnection from what is expected from them in their academics to the childs reality. Many of these children do not have the proper nutrition to

keep them focused all day and many go to school with an empty tummy. With these children not having the proper care often cause schools in these areas to function poorly. Rothstein explains, Segregated schools with poorly performing students can rarely be turned around while remaining racially isolated. The problems students bring to school are so overwhelming that policy should never assume that even the most skilled and dedicated faculty can overcome them.(2013:50-55) Rothstein clarifies that some may make a difference but that there is too much damage that is done by having the school be racially isolated. The expectations that these children have to maintain a good education and then have to worry about how they are going to eat to survive is not what a child from a middle class background has to face. Segregation by gender is another social inequality that todays students face. Society already has a strong awareness that this is a male driven society. This can be seen in todays education as well. The unequal opportunities that women face compared to the male students. In the article From the Ghetto to the Ivory Tower: Gendered Effects of Segregation on Elite-College Completion by Nicholas Ehrmann presents whether or not male and female students have the same opportunities as each other in a case study. In contrary Ehrmanns study shows that

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education Descriptive data confirms that males and females are exposed to roughly similar levels of school and teacher quality. Whether they respond to those environments in a different ways will be formally tested.(2007:11). Males and females are both taught the same way but each gender may learn differently. His findings do show that gender is an important factor mediating the

effects of racial segregation on college achievement. The interaction between gender, family, and environmental background is of fundamental importance for individuals navigating new social and academic environments in college.(2007:20). This is because female often feel the stress from their families than the males do. Disadvantage children have many challenges to face while attending school, and those children also include brown children. Latino children have different challenges to face as well. In the article The Keys To The Nations Educational Future: The Latina/o Struggle For Education Equity, by Kevin R. Johnson goes over the different struggles that Latin children are facing from migration to being able access a fair education. Johnson covers the Supreme Courts decision in Keys v. School District No.1 that faces the challenge of desegregating a school in Denver, Colorado so that all children could have the same access to the school regardless of the color of their skin or how well their partial ability to speak English. Some of the main concerns for Latino children is the struggle for fairness in their schools. This struggle for fairness is because all together there is nearly 25% of the enrollment in the countrys public elementary and secondary schools. Moreover, Hispanics today comprise the largest minority group on the U.S college campuses, about 16.5% of college enrollment.(Johnson, 2013:4). The numbers show that Hispanics are settling in major states like California and other states the boarder Mexico. The inequality that Latino students are facing is the lack of funding for the schools that they attend.

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education Making it harder for them to have the proper essentials to be taught correctly and standard learning. Latino children have to face that many of them did not choose to come to the United States and that they were brought by their families for better opportunities. These opportunities are limited when the students undocumented and want to continue their schooling with higher education. The problem that presents itself is if undocumented students should pay the same tuition as those who are residences of the state. There has been a proposed law by Congress

known generically as the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would expressly authorize states to allow undocumented students to pay in-state fees to attend public colleges and universities and permit the U.S government to regularize the immigration status of eligible students.(Johnson, 2013:14). The act would allow undocumented students the opportunities to advance in a country that they call their home. To be able to have the same opportunities as those who have been born in the United States. The problem with the DREAM Act is Several states, including Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, acted to affirmatively restrict, if not deny, access of undocumented immigrants to public colleges and universities. Such prohibitions can be expected to have a disparate impact on Mexican nationals who comprise roughly 60% of the undocumented population.(Johnson, 2013:16). This controversy is one of the many inequalities that Latino children face. Having an education is one thing that many try to achieve in order to prove that they have the proper background knowledge to better help them in their career. This token of achievement can provide many opportunities to those who achieve a degree of higher education. Public education is intended to be free and provide students the proper education to better help them advance in school and in life. Schools are designed to be closets for the students to be able to

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education access them in their neighborhoods. There is injustice in the education system because the education provided to one person may not be the same as a person who lives in the poor side of the tracks. The inequality lies with where a persons social economic status to the color of their skin, and whether or not they are a male or a female can be seen by the segregation that still continues to happen in the education system.

Unequal Opportunities in Todays Education Bibliography Ehrmann, Nicholas. 2007. From the Ghetto to the Ivory Tower: Gendered Effects of Segregation on Elite-College Completion. Social Science Quarterly 88(5):11 Johnson, Kevin R. 2013. The Keys to The Nations Educational Future: The Latina/o Struggle For Education Equity. Denver University Law Review 90(5):4 Mickelson, Roslyn A. 2005. " How Tracking Undermines Race Equity in Desegregated Schools." Pp.383-891 in Race, Gender, Sexuality, & Social Class, edited by S. J. Ferguson. LA: Sage Rothstein, Richard. 2013. Why Our Schools Are Segregated. Educational Leadership 70(8):50-55 Sacks,Peter. 2007. " Class Matters." Pp.403-413 in Race, Gender, Sexuality, & Social Class, edited by S. J. Ferguson. LA: Sage