When listening to one of Professor
McKinney’s lectures, something he said really stuck with me. He said that “American
education is more segregated than it was in 1954.” I was wondering how this was
possible, considering all of the news surrounding the Little Rock 9, and
stories about how James Meredith was the first black man who was accepted into
the University of Mississippi. I thought that this fact could not be true. When
looking at lower, middle, and high schools, I understand that there can be a
huge divide based on zoning districts. This, more times than not has to do with
space and who has access to it. Growing up in a predominantly black city, I was
able to see how spaces determined how you grew up.
In reading the article Report: The race gap in
higher education is very real, I learned that blacks are more likely to enroll in for profit
schools, compared to not for profit schools. The rate is more than double for
these kids going to for profit schools. This matters because the for profit
schools generally able to give out
more money when it comes to academic scholarships. One man reports on this
issue by saying, “The
fact that African Americans students enroll in the for-profit sector matters
because these institutions are more likely to have poor student outcomes
combined with high levels of student debt…[And] community college students end
up with lower incomes and default on their loans at higher rates.”[1]
When comparing minority families to white families, minority families on
average spend more to send someone to go to college when factoring in the lower
incomes of the minority families.
It seems
that a lot of people are blaming the large distribution of wealth for this
issue. Most families can not afford to send there children to a school that is
small, with small class sizes, well qualified teachers, and a harder curriculum,
which is proven to lead to more success.[2] No
matter how smart someone is, it will be very hard for them to succeed without
money or privilege. So for a lot of non-white families, they are stuck swimming
against the current. How as a nation can we fix this problem? What is the one tangible
thing that we can fix, should it be space, or money and jobs? Education is one of the few foundations that sets
you up for the rest of your life, and with the large number of segregated schools,
it leads to a more segregated society.
Hudson, this article sheds light on an important issue our country must reckon with. Education inequality is a systemic issue invariably connected to the racist nature of government structures. This is especially true in the city of Memphis, whose education system has been plagued by issues of race since forced integration in the early seventies. The decades long de facto segregation of the city's school system was instituted by the split between Shelby County Schools and Memphis City Schools. With the merging of the two school systems, it made Memphis home to the largest school district in the US, with equally deep racial and socioeconomic inequality. Access to education is an issue that faces cities like Memphis all over the country, needing more attention than it gets.
ReplyDeleteThe best time for learning new information in when you are very young. I think we could start to fix this education gap by one thing the United States could do is offer free school for pre schools. This is something that is offered other places but not here. Private Preschools are something lots of low income students cannot afford so kids are at home while higher income students began early allowing for an early advantage.
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