Promised but Neglected
Words are
so powerful that when used can constructively encourage a person, or
destructively discourage them. Famous leaders like Former President Barack
Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. continually emphasized that America was
founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed,
regardless of where they come from, or how they look like. The United States of
America to other nations is known as the land of the free, immigrants who came
to find a better future, however that is not the case now. Despite the equal
opportunities that the U.S. Constitution promises to give to its citizens, the
country has one of the most unequal educational system in the modern world
where minority students, mainly because of race, do not have access to equal
educational resources, including skilled teachers, and quality curriculum.
Education
in the U.S. is provided by public, private and home schools- usually run by
state governments. As the nation that sets its overall educational standards
based on no outside factors, like race or gender, except for standardized
tests, board of regents, or college entrance exams is still faced with
inequality. Having equal opportunity is protected , specifically through the
First Amendment of the Constitution, where everyone is equal under the law.
Although education may not be a fundamental right under the constitution, the
14th Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause states that once a public school
system is created, no child residing in that state is denied “equal access to
schooling” (Costly). Even though the clause is created to help every students
get knowledge, some of the ways minorities were treated in history and how they
are dealt with in present clearly show that American ideologies have not been
progressed.
Everyday
the average American citizen wakes up to the news of another person being
deprived of its constitutional right, might it be for religion or basic right
like freedom. This concept is not new. In elementary, middle and high-school
students learn about segregation and how the founding fathers as well as known
activists like W.E. DuBois fought to bring in equality. In fact, W.E. DuBois
inferred that the problem of the 21st Century would be the division between
line (Brookings). In 1960s, schools were segregated based on race. Although the
case of having colored people in one room, and whites in the other is not the
fact today; the concept is still there. In the country, there are various
institutions that are purposely separated, especially those in urban districts,
where differences in the kinds of teachers and curriculums they get are quite
obvious to notice.
In essentially minority schools,
where most colored students go, have less qualified teachers in terms of levels
of education, certification, and training in the fields they teach. On the
other hand, predominantly white schools have more teachers with smaller sized
classes with less students, that is 15 % less than the African American
classes. Teachers in integrated schools were less knowledgeable about the
subject that they taught, as a research conducted by Ferguson and Duke
economist Helen Ladd showed. The economists analyzed that more of the
difference between the high- and low-scoring districts was explained by teacher
qualifications and class sizes than by poverty, race, and parent education.
Those teachers coming from broken families, do not have enough skills to be
teaching in a sensitive environment where giving attention to every single
student is essential because after all, student are the future. In fact, in another analysis in about 900
Texas school districts, Harvard economist Ronald Ferguson found that teachers’
expertise, measured by scores on a
licensing examination, master’s degrees, and experience was perhaps the single
most important determinant of student achievement, which accounted for roughly
40 percent of the measured variance in students’ reading and math achievement
gains in grades 1-12. (Brookings). As shown in Figure 1, black students lag
significantly behind white students in their educational performance in
Delaware in Math. The difference in average percentage in the scores between
blacks and whites in 2013, was 25.4%.
When children are assigned to ineffective teachers for years, they
perform lower on achievement tests-which was the case for a Tennessee school
where fifty percent of students at an elementary school scored less than those
that were with highly effective teachers. If America’s principles were truly
based on “equality,” then such scenarios would not exist. Perhaps, differences
in qualified teachers for race show that the country has not moved a bit from
what was happening during the Civil Rights Movement where the same group was
not allowed to practice what they were promised for. Due to unqualified teachers,
teaching in minority schools and larger classroom sizes, students often are put
at greater risk of not getting the right curriculums.
More research by a University of
California, Berkeley professor Marcia Linn described in a report entitled
"A Splintered Vision: An Investigation of U.S. Science and Mathematics
Education," indicated that teachers “respond by attempting to teach a
topic a week which may be reflected in the lower scores of U.S. students on
standardized math and science tests. If an unqualified or a teacher with less
knowledge is teaching a topic that he or she is not too confident about, the
process will take longer than a week-jeopardizing student’s educations once
more. Putting their education in jeopardy and not giving them access to what
they need, harms them but also harms the economy in a significant way, as shown
in Figure 2. Unemployment rates were
declining most of the races and ethnicities (Blacks, Hispanics, and
Asians), but the rate for Blacks remained much higher than the rates for the
other major race and ethnicity groups, although it had dropped by “1.4 percent
after 2010.’’ Having accessibility to every resource that every other group has
is a right given as citizens of the country; it’s failure to do so indicate
that America has a decentralized educational system.
Minority students underscore when
the right resources are not provided to them. Critics might argue that there is
a constant effort to merge the gap between the educational opportunities
differences between minorities and whites, because as the National Assessment
of Educational Progress explains, where the “gap in minority and white
students’ test scores narrowed substantially between 1970 and 1990 and the
scores of African-American students climbed 54 percent between 1976 and 1994”
(Brookings). This may be the case but the reality is this usually the case for
wealthy or hard working African-Americans. In an experiment that randomly assigned seventh
grade “at-risk”students to remedial, average, and honors mathematics classes
performed better when they were given the opportunity to take honors class in
pre-algebra curriculum. If students are given the right tools and the correct
platform, nothing is impossible, but sadly it is not the case for minorities,
because America still has an unjust educational system. There isn’t a general
education crisis in the country; the crisis is for black, Latino, and some
Asian and poor white kids. The children are not provided with, in W.E.B. Du
Bois' words, "a fair start which will equip them with such an array of
facts and such an attitude toward truth that they can have a real chance to
judge what the world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be”
(Campbell). However, no matter how progressive the country gets, the dilemma of
racism will remain in the educational system.
Works Cited
Vogel, Gretchen. "Global review
faults U.S. curricula." Science,
vol. 274, no. 5286, 1996, p. 335. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context,
http://ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A18826783/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&xid=4abe6012.
Accessed 14 Mar. 2018.
Campbell, Duane. "Racial and
Economic Inequities Harm Public Education." Education, edited by Mary E. Williams, Greenhaven Press, 2005.
Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints
in Context,
http://ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010129247/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&xid=20dff2c3.
Accessed 15 Mar. 2018. Originally published as "Racism and the Crisis of
Urban Education," Democratic Left,
vol. 30, Winter 2002, pp. 6-14.
Costly, Andrew. “CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATIONBill of
Rights in Action.” BRIA 7 4 c Education
and the 14th Amendment - Constitutional Rights Foundation, www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-7-4-c-education-and-the-14th-amendment.
http://sites.udel.edu/csd/2014/05/09/racial-disparities-in-delawares-public-schools/
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/unemployment-rate-nears-prerecession-level-by-end-of-2015.htm
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