The gaps in educational achievement between white and non-Asian minority students (as measured by graduation rates and standardized test scores) require consideration of whether the different outcomes are caused by inequality in learning opportunities or the inadequate capacities of minority students to learn and achieve (as some commentators would conclude, based on their genes, culture, lack of effort or will). Below are some data points worth considering:
- 80% of Black and Hispanic students attend high poverty schools
- The wealthiest 10% of US school districts spend nearly 10 times more than the poorest 10%
- 66% of minority students still attend schools that are predominantly minority
- Predominantly minority schools have fewer books, computers and lab resources; significantly larger classes; less highly-trained, certified or experienced teachers; and less access to high quality curriculum (such as math and science courses needed for college)
- Even in otherwise integrated schools, most minority students are ‘tracked’ into lower-track classes with high student-teacher ratios, teachers without a license or degree in field, and lower-quality curriculums.
- Minority students, particularly black boys, and students with disabilities are disproportionately disciplined, including suspensions and expulsions.
- Research shows that minority students that are assigned to honors classes with highly qualified teachers often outperform all other students with similar backgrounds
See U.S. Government Accountability Office, Racial Disparities in Education and the Role of Government” (June 29, 2020); The Brookings Institute, Linda Darling Hammond “Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education” (March 1, 1998) (and sources cited therein).
“In surveying the continuing tensions that exist between the claims of local liberty and those of equity in public education, historians have noted three distinguishable trends within this century. From the turn of the century until the 1950s, equity concerns were muted and the courts did not intrude much upon local governance. From 1954 (the year in which Brown v. Board of Education was decided) up to the early 1970s, equity concerns were more pronounced, although the emphasis was less on economic than on racial factors. From the early 1970s to the present, local control and the efficiency agenda have once again prevailed. The decisive date that scholars generally pinpoint as the start of the most recent era is March 21 of 1973: the day on which the high court [the U.S. Supreme Court in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez] overruled the judgment of a district court in Texas that had found the local funding scheme unconstitutional–and in this way halted in its tracks the drive to equalize the public education system through the federal courts.”
Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991), pp. 213-214.