As Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”(Duncan). However, in many cases not everyone has equal access, let alone any access, to this powerful weapon. This lesson plan examines the determinants of educational inequality and the reasons behind its occurrence.
During the 2020-2021 school year, more than one-third of American students attended a predominantly same-race/ethnicity school (Carillo, et al). Schools with primarily wealthy,White-attendees had increased exposure to higher quality resources. In addition, this school type is twice as likely to offer AP courses in contrast to schools with students chiefly those of color.
Furthermore, even when AP courses are available to both groups of students, White students are generally more likely to be placed in these classes - despite if scores are equivalent amongst White students and students of color (AECF).Therefore, on average, Black and Latino students are behind their White peers up to four grade levels at time of graduation (AECF).
The School-to-prison pipeline is a concept where public school students are pushed out of the school system and into the criminal justice systems as a result of zero tolerance policies, as well as the presence of police officers inside schools. This contributes to behavior criminalization handlings at school with overly harsh punishments.
Black students are at an highly disproportionate risk for these overly harsh punishments. In fact, these students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than White students (ADL).
Students with disabilities are also affected by the School-to-prison pipeline. Further, disabled students make up 8.6% of public school attendees, yet juvenile detention centres consist of 32% disabled children (Elias). Schools having inadequate resources also contributes to the ‘pipeline’.
Moreover, when schools fail to meet their students’ educational needs, such as providing special education teachers. This results in an increase in student dropouts along with a heighten risk of these students becoming involved with crime.*Special education is a term widely used in the education system, however it is up for debate in the disabled community*
In the past couple of years, higher education inequality has grown. In 2013, 9% of students in the bottom income quartiles obtained a post-secondary degree (Marginson). In addition, college tuition has exponentially increased over the years, with selective schools quickly becoming too expensive for the vast majority of Americans.
In accordance with Yale University’s Dean of Admissions, only 5% of American families can afford to pay their tuition in full (Marginson). Therefore in Tier 1 private American universities, or the most prestigious and selective schools in the country, 64% of students come from families who are amongst the top 10% of earners, leading to the majority of high achievers from low-income families not applying to these schools (Marginson).
In fact, while the majority of upper class students who score in the top 10% of the SAT/ACT enroll in the most selective colleges, only 34% of low-income students with the same scores will enroll is highly selective colleges (Higher Learning Advocates). This gap was only further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, where students from lower income families were twice as likely to cancel college plans due to the pandemic versus wealthier families (Higher Learning Advocates).
Gender-based discrimination is still ongoing amongst American schools. For example, in a comparison where girls and boys obtain equal scores in math, teachers still rated boys as more mathematically skilled (Cimpian).
Another example discusses that girls are more likely viewed as stronger writers over boys. Further, these labels affect girls’ tendency to select majors other than STEM (Cimpian).
However, over the years, the number of women in STEM majors has increased to 45% as of 2020. Yet, gaps still exist, where women obtain 16% of computer science degrees, 21% of engineering degrees, and 27% of economic degrees. (Kantrowitz). Within the education industry, in America, women account for less than one in five deanships, fewer than one in three full-time university faculty positions, and make up less than one in four of faculty positions having tenure in business schools (Bentley University).