ILLUSTRATIONS BY SAVANNAH DONALD/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR
Jordan Smith
Opinion Columnist
[email protected]
A 17-year old student at Woodlawn is facing jail time because of lack of education, while Alex Washington from Mountain Brook has received an acceptance letter to Harvard University along with 18 other scholarship offers. Headline after headline proclaims the news: Black schools marked as “failing.” Woodlawn High School, a historic school, has a college readiness score of 3.5 out of 100, reading proficiency of 13 percent and 0 percent of passed AP classes. Parker High school, has a college readiness of 6.1, reading proficiency of 18 percent, and to 0 percent of passed AP classes. Both high schools are predominately black. Mountain Brook High School and Briarwood Christian School are two predominately white high schools. Both high schools have a college readiness score above 50, over 90 percent have passed AP classes and graduation rates above 90 percent.
Black students are forgotten and failing. There are gaps in the educational achievements between white and non-Asian minority students. The United States education system is still separate and unequal.
According to the Brookings, the “United States educational system is one of the most unequal in the industrialized world. Students routinely receive dramatically different learning opportunities based on their social status.”
These problems are not addressed, instead, the conversation is guided in a mishap in the function of genes, culture or a lack of effort and will. The problem is a function of race. We have not confronted and addressed these inequalities. Minority students are less likely to receive these resources. Black students are likely to be assigned to lower-track, non-academic classes, classes are 15 percent larger, materials are lower in quality, and teachers are less qualified in the fields they teach. The students who attend these school districts represent 57 percent of the population “dropout factories.” The disparities that minorities face makes them ill-prepared for a four-year college degree or a high-paying career. Minorities should have the opportunity to strive to achieve a level of power reserved for the rich white man. Proper equal education is essential. We must acknowledge the racism and discrimination to equip minorities with better tools, analyze the problem and find solutions.
We need to focus on what matters and what can make a difference in children. Our future teachers, judges, doctors, nurses and engineers. States have the power to equalize education spending and enforce teaching standards. The inequality is illustrated, we must now fix the severity of the problem.
