Educational Inequity: The Problem Is Real
A conservative commentator, Ben Shapiro, gave a speech at Berkeley back in 2017. In it, he addressed many subjects including educational inequity, white privilege, and poverty. I’ll be going to a community discussion about his perspective. Therefore I wanted to spend a little time preparing my thoughts.
To summarize his words, he said:
Okay. Here are the three rules that you need to fulfill as a person before you can start complaining about your life failures being the result of somebody else’s actions…You need to finish high school. Number two: you need to get married before you have babies. Number three: You need to get a job.
That’s it. You do those things you will not be permanently poor in the United States of America.
According to the Brookings Institute, 2% of Americans who followed these rules are in poverty. 75% have joined the middle class. What about racism? 71% of poor families with children are unmarried. The poverty rate among non-married white families was 22% in 2008; that same year the poverty rate among black married couples was less than 7%.
But what happened to racism? Why weren’t those black married couples poorer than the single white moms? Because it doesn’t have to do with color; it has to do with life decisions.
Ben Shapiro
Educational Inequity: How It Works
First of all, I could write many, many blog posts in response to these ideas. Today, I’m just going to respond to Rule #1: Finish High School. Rule #1 is most connected to my experience in the world. I have been working in education in low-income communities (primarily with Children of Color) for 20 years.
Finishing high school is harder than it looks when the entire system is stacked against you. And the system is stacked against Children of Color from low-income communities in several ways. Because there are so many ways, I won’t be able to address them comprehensively. Instead, I’m going to share the biggest ones that come to my mind.
Let’s start before a Child of Color in a low-income community even makes it to school. Our country has disparate maternal health rates, depending on your racial and ethnic group.
If Children of Color in low-income communities do make it to school age, they are at greater risk for living in neighborhoods with more environmental hazards. Environmental hazards impact health, leading to things like asthma and cardiovascular problems.
With increased health issues connected to increased environmental hazards in low-income areas, one would hope that families have equal access to health care. But they don’t.
Children living in low-income neighborhoods are more likely to experience Adverse Childhood Experiences. The more they experience (which is obviously out of their control), the less likely they are to graduate from high school.
Additional Issues of Educational Inequity
Additionally, the vast majority of teachers in the U.S. are white. Children of Color don’t see “mirrors” of themselves or “windows” of what they could become in their teachers or administrators.
Second, they don’t see “mirrors” of themselves or “windows” of what they could become in characters in books.
Third, they don’t see “mirrors” of themselves or “windows” of what they could become in heroes in textbooks.
Additionally, Children of Color face implicit bias when it comes to teacher discipline.
And then we have the fact that our under-performing schools are typically located in low-income neighborhoods. Many of these schools don’t even get their fair share of funding. Affluent families in Austin “buy” their way into their preferred public schools by carefully purchasing homes in expensive neighborhoods.
The educational inequity rampant throughout our educational system hinders Children of Color in low-income communities. Simply telling them to “finish high school” is like pulling a fish out of water and telling it to just swim.