Educational inequality in the United States

The disparity in academics among children in the United States is a result of policy in government, the difference in schools attended by children, the amount of wealth a family holds, the parenting style, the race and ethnicity of the child, and the resources available to the child and school. Educational inequality also causes a number of problems in the United States, one of which is the increasing population in prisons.

According to a 2020 study, education inequality in the United States moves lockstep with trends in income inequality.[1]

History

Educational inequality is the unequal access to education.[2] During the 19th century the individuals who were more likely to have access to knowledge and learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic lived in the Northeastern (New England) region of the United States during the 17th century. During the Reconstruction Era the enrolment of black students began to evolve because of the increased population of freed blacks.[3] Although the enrolment rate of black students would increase from that point in time onward, there is still evidence of unequal achievement between white students and students from non-white racial identities, as well as between students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds [4]

Due to poverty being a significant factor in determining academic achievement, students who reside in impoverished communities historically perform lower than students from affluent communities as a result of lack of parental and school resources, quality teachers, and updated teaching materials. Moreover, students who reside in communities with a low socioeconomic status are often students of color.[5] In more recent research within the 21st century regarding education inequality, there is evidence that students who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and communities of color are more likely to experience the juvenile justice system or incarceration at some point in their life; this is referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline.[6]

Charter schools

Charter schools have been depicted as a controversial solution to alleviate educational inequality in the United States. In an effort to combat the impacts of living in a low-income school district, charter schools have emerged as a means of reorganizing funding to better assist low-income students and their communities. A charter school is an independent learning institution most commonly serving secondary students, that receives public funding through a charter granted to a state or local agency.[7] This method is designed to decrease the negative effects on student's educational quality as a result of living in a low-tax-base community. Schools granted a charter are required to implement specific standards and report educational progress of their students. A charter may be granted to a community organization or a private corporation.

Critics of charter schools argue they de-emphasize the significance of public education and are subject to greedy enterprise exploiting the fundamental right of education for the sole purpose of profiting. While charter schools are technically considered “public schools”, opponents argue that their operational differences implicitly create differences in quality and type of public education, as standards and operating procedures are individualized based on each school. Free-market proponents often support charter schools, arguing they are more effective than typical public schools, specifically in reference to low-income students. However, studies have not found conclusive evidence that charter schools as a whole are more effective than traditional public schools.[8]

One common model of charter schools is called a “no excuses” school. This label has been adopted by many charter schools as a means of indicating their dedication to a rigorous and immersive educational experience. While there is no official list of features required to be a “no-excuse” charter, there are many common characteristics they share. Some of these attributes include high behavioral expectations, strict disciplinary codes, a college preparatory curriculum and initiatives to hire and retain quality teachers.[9]

Early intervention

Research studies conducted in the field of sociology have revealed that early intervention in a child's education can have drastic effects on future growth and development in children. Early intervention can include a wide array of educational activities, including increased emphasis on reading and writing, providing additional tools or resources for learning, as well as supplements to aide special education students.[10]

One of the most notable studies conducted concerning this topic is that of the Perry Preschool Project in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The study assigned random 3- and 4-year-old children from low-income families to attend the Perry school. The school had ample resources and a high teacher to student ratio, and heavily emphasized development of reading and writing skills. Once graduated, students who attended the Perry school were less than 1/5 as likely to have broken the law as compared with students who did not attend the preschool.

The study also discovered that those who attended the preschool program earned, on average, $5,500 more per year than those who did not attend the school. This reveals a higher return on investment for the students who attended Perry when compared with a standard public school in the same low-income community. Researchers who lead the Perry Preschool Project have received widespread acclaim for their contributions to the field, giving validity to the concept that early intervention is a powerful tool useful in alleviating educational and income inequality in America.[11]

Integration

In the United States, integration is the process of ending race-based segregation within public and private schools. While integration of schools is generally referred to in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, integration of schools in the United States continues to be a relevant issue in debate about modern American education. Integration has historically been employed primarily as a method for dealing with the achievement gap which exists between white and nonwhite students in the U.S.

Studies conducted in schools across the country have found that racial integration of schools is effective in reducing the achievement gap.[12] In 1964, in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of that year, the United States Congress commissioned sociologist James Coleman to direct and conduct a study on school inequality in the U.S. The report, known colloquially as the Coleman Report, was a landmark study in the field of sociology and education. In the report, which detailed the extreme levels of racial segregation in schools which still persisted in the U.S. South despite the ruling of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, Coleman found that black students benefited greatly from learning in mixed-race schools. Therefore, Coleman argued that busing black students to white school districts to integrate would be more effective in reducing the disadvantages of black students as opposed to an increase in funding which the report had discovered impacted student achievement very little.[13] These findings would serve as an influential factor in the creation of the practice known as desegregation busing.[14]

Socioeconomic status

In the United States, a family's socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant impact on the child's education. The parents' level of education, income, and jobs combine to determine the level of difficulty their children will face in school. It creates an inequality of learning between children from families of a high SES and children from families of a low SES. Families with a high SES will ensure the child receives a beneficial education while families with a low SES usually are not able to ensure a quality education for their child. This results in children of less wealthy families performing less well in schools as children of wealthier families. There are several factors that contribute to this disparity; these factors narrow into two main subjects: resources and environment.

The type of environment a student lives in is a determinant of the education they receive. The environment a child is raised in creates their perceptions of education. In low SES homes, literacy is not stressed as much as it is in high SES homes. It is proven that wealthier parents spend more time talking to their children and this builds up their vocabulary early on and enhances their literacy skills.[15] Low SES families may not be able to afford as many books at the child's ever changing reading level. This endangers the child's ability to quickly build up their literacy skills because their only access to books of differing levels is at school. They are unable to challenge their reading skills at home while wealthier children may have a wide variety of books because they are in an environment that encourages reading. Children of low SES are also exposed to a more stressful environment than higher SES children. They worry about influences a lack of money in the household could create (such as bills and food). Monetary struggles also increase the number of arguments parents have which creates a high-stress environment for the child and may prevent them from concentrating on their schoolwork. This inability to concentrate on homework or in class without worrying about the environmental factors at home will cause a decline in academic performance. This decline is less likely to occur to high-SES students because their home environment produces fewer stressors. The student is able to give their full attention to their academics.

There is a great variation in the resources available to children in the home and in the school. Families of higher SES are able to invest more into the education of their children. This ability manifests in the popular tactic of shopping around school districts. This is when parents plan where they are going to settle down and live based on the quality of the school district. There are able to choose where they live and can afford to live in areas where other families of high SES reside. This congregation of high-SES families produces a school district that is well funded. These families are capable of donating to their children's schools, literally investing in their children's education. Having access to such funds gives the schools capacity to hold high caliber resources. Resources like excellent teachers, technology, nutrition options, clubs, sports, and books. These resources have a notable effect on education attainment. If students have access to such resources, they are able to learn more effectively. Children of lower SES families do not have such resources. Their families are not able to shop around school districts; they tend to settle down where there is an availability of jobs. Clusters of low-SES families typically produce worse school districts. The families are not in a position to donate to their children's school and see to it that they are well funded. This results in school that cannot compete with wealthier schools. They lack the appropriate funding for quality teachers, technology, and books. These provide the fundamentals of gaining a good education. When a student does not have access to these they fall behind those who do.[16][17]

Summer learning gap

An imbalance in resources at home creates a phenomenon called the summer learning gap. This exhibits the impact of resources outside of school that influence a child's education progression. It uncovers a troubling contrast between the growth in math skills over the summer between children of high SES and children of low SES.

The graph displaying the summer learning gap shows the higher SES children starting above the lower SES children at year one. The higher SES children are already ahead of the lower SES children before grade school even starts because of the amount of resources available to them at home. This may be due to their early introduction into literacy and higher vocabulary due to the higher amount of words they are exposed to as mention in a previous paragraph. Also, the lower SES children's access to books is solely through school and their reading skills are not developed at all at year one because they have not had the exposure yet.

As the graph goes on, it is evident that the two groups of children learn at the same rate only when they are in school. The higher SES students are still above the lower SES students because the rate of learning of the children changes radically during the summer. In the summer the higher SES children show a very slight increase in learning. This is due to their access to various resources during the summer months. Their families are able to enrol them in summer enrichment activities such as summer camp. These activities ensures that they are still being educationally stimulated even when not in school. While at the same time, lower SES students show evidence of a slight decrease in learning during the summer months. Lower SES students do not have the same opportunities as the higher SES students. During the summer, these students are not focused on learning during the summer. Their parents do not enrol them in as many summer activities because they cannot afford them and so the children are able to have more autonomy and freedom in those three months. They are concerned with having fun and thus forget some of what they gained during the school year. This continuing disparity from year to year results in an approximately 100 point difference in their math scores at year six.[18]

School funding

Much research dispels the notion that school funding determines the educational achievement of students, however, funding and or quality has been shown to account for as much of a 40% variance in student achievement. Thus, school funding can be seen as a factor that can not only reproduce educational inequality, but assist in mitigating it as well.

The funding gap is a term often used to explain the differences in resource allocation between high income and low income schools.[19] Many studies have found that states are spending less money on students from low income communities than they are on students from high income communities (Growing Gaps figure), a recent 2015 study found that across the United States school districts with high levels of poverty are likely to receive 10 percent less per student (in resources provided from the state and local government) compared to more affluent school districts. For students of color this funding gap is more pervasive, school districts where students of color are the majority have been shown to receive 15 percent less per student compared to school districts that are mostly white.[20][21]

The funding gap has many implications for those students whose school districts are receiving less aid from the state and local government (in comparison to less impoverished districts). For students in the former districts, this funding gap has led to poorer teacher quality which has been shown to lead to low levels of educational attainment.[22] In summary, recent research has pointed to school funding as an explanation for the higher levels of low educational attainment among poor and minority students.

Neighborhood effects

Neighborhoods play a significant effect on the development in adolescents and young adults. As a result, much research has studied how neighborhoods can explain a person's level of educational attainment. These findings are highlighted below.

Research has shown that an adolescent's neighborhood can significantly affect his or her life chances.[23] Children from poorer neighborhoods are less likely to climb out of poverty compared to children who grow up in more affluent neighborhoods. In terms of education, students from neighborhoods with a high SES have higher levels of school readiness and higher IQ levels. Studies have also shown that there are “links between neighborhood high SES and educational attainment” in regards to older adolescents.[24] Children growing up in neighborhoods with a high SES are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college compared to students growing up in low SES neighborhoods. Living in a low SES neighborhood has many implications in terms of education. Among them are “greater chances of having a child before age 18; lesser chances of graduating from high school; and earning lower wages as a young adult. Experiencing more neighborhood poverty as a child is also associated with a lower rate of college graduation.” [25]

The neighborhood effect is mitigated when students who grow up in low SES neighborhoods move to high SES neighborhoods. These students are more likely to reap the same benefits of the students in high SES neighborhoods and school systems; their chances of attending college are much higher than the student's who stayed in low SES neighborhoods. Such policies that could give way to this are compulsory integration and busing, however, they have found themselves to be the source of great controversy historically.

Achievement gap

The achievement gap describes the inconsistencies in standardized test scores, rates of high school and college completion, grade point average between students of color (Black and Latino) and White students.[26] It is significant because White students tend to achieve far more academically compared to Black and Latino students.[27] Latino and Black students have some of the lowest college school completion rates in the United States, on average, they also have lower literacy rates in school, and lag behind White students in terms of math and science proficiency.[28] It is important to understand that these discrepancies have long-term achievement effects on Latino and Black students.

There are several factors that can explain the achievement gap. Among some of the most studied and popular theories are that predominantly Black/Latino schools are concentrated in low SES neighborhoods that do not receive adequate resources to invest in their student's education (such as the ability to pay for qualified teachers) and that parental influence in Black and Latino families lags behind White families in terms of involvement in school.[29] Family influence is significant as is seen by a study that demonstrated how high levels of parental involvement in low income communities can actually assist in mitigating the achievement gap.[30]

Prison pipeline

The school-to-prison pipeline is a national trend in the United States of children who are transitioning out of their public schools and into the juvenile criminal justice system through their school districts policies, such as zero tolerance, which use law enforcement to address behavioral issues. In the face of increasing awareness of bullying in schools a response growing in popularity has been the implementation of policies such as zero tolerance, where school officials are required to enforce the strictest punishments for set infractions regardless of the circumstances in which they occurred. Rather than the reduction of bullying and school violence that was intended, zero tolerance instead functions as a mechanism of expulsion. These policies disproportionately target students of color, evidence reveals a rise among African American males in the prison system who were expelled from schools with more recently implemented zero tolerance policies.[31] This trend, as a result of institutional racism, ends in students being moved into the criminal justice system.

In the event that students do not directly enter the juvenile system through these policies there are several manners in which they do indirectly. One of these has been recognized as the push-out phenomenon where the punitive measures such as suspension and expulsion combine to push students to dropping out of school, a major predictors for incarceration. Students of color are being pushed out of learning spaces where they should be welcomed and given the opportunity to learn and grow, in the direction of the prison system. There are only so many absences and transfers a child could endure before the only reasonable solution to end what must feel like a never ending cycle. Zero Tolerance and policies similar in nature lead to the criminalization of acts have no such nature. In 2012, in Texas, an honors student named Diane Tran was fined and sentenced to adult prison with people who have committed serious crimes for the offense of truancy. She missed her class due to having to work two jobs in order to support her family.[32] Tran is one example of many students who have been persecuted and punished far too harshly for minor infractions. These disparities in punishment between race and ability manifest themselves in what is known as the Discipline Gap.

Discipline gap

This discipline gap is the disproportionate representation of minority students rates of expulsion and suspension as opposed to their privileged peers. At the primary and secondary education level, the trend of African American students being the worst punished in schools holds[33] even when students are engaging in the same infraction.[34]

The loss of instruction time in the classroom can hugely impact student performance. They academically suffer and gain an increased chance in grade retention after one is suspended once they are more likely to be again. The increasingly severe consequences of their actions have students become prey to the push-out mechanism and drop out of school altogether.

The cultural barrier in education between teachers, students, and parents can manifest itself in ways that disadvantage students. In parenting, styles could make itself apparent in the children's response to authority. The concerted cultivation approach of parent is when students are taught from a young age how to engage with authority and are given the opportunity to practice this in after school activities. These are opportunities that are less often afforded to students of color as opposed to their white counterparts. The alternate approach of natural growth is one that encourages obedience rather than communication with authority figures as a child, but this tends to become less effective as one becomes an adult. Minority students are more commonly raised with the natural growth approach and as a result of their lacking in skill of communicating with authority figures, they learn less and are less liked by teachers. At a point where a teacher must discipline students, they are more likely to harshly punish the student they struggle with communicating.

See also

• Inequality in the United States
• Public school funding

References

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