Race and Education

"It's very hard for me to see how you can have a racial objective, but a non-racial means to get there." -Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (12-4-06)

...They are divided over what role race should play, if any, in competitive admissions at elementary and secondary schools. Some justices highlighted the benefits of racial diversity in the classroom, while others on the bench worried about whether the voluntary integration programs constitute illegal racial quotas. -CNN.com

I have seen different efforts to ensure that each race receives equal educational opportunity. I have worked in public schools in upper class neighborhoods, where the student body was over 95% White, and I have worked in public schools in lower-middle class neighborhoods, where the student body was over 80% Black and Hispanic. What does race have to do with educational privilege in terms of the public education experience? I will list some interesting demographic information from New York City:

Over all, Hispanic students are the largest group in the city’s schools at 36.7%, and black students are next at 34.7%. The 1.1 million-student system is 14.3% Asian and 14.2% white. In the 2005-6 school year, blacks made up 4.8% of the Bronx Science student body, down from 11.8% in 1994-95. At Brooklyn Technical High School, the percentage of black students dropped 2005-06 to 14.9% from 37.3% 11 years ago at Stuyvesant High School, blacks comprised 2.2% of the student body, down from 4.4%. Hispanic enrollment has declined at the three schools and white enrollment has declined at two of the three. At the same time, the Asian population has soared to 60.6% at Bronx Science, up from 40.8% 11 years ago.

Competitive entrance exams are the sole criteria for admission.

If the sole criteria for entrance is a competitive entrance exam, why is it that fewer Hispanics and Blacks are getting into the elite high schools? It must be because they are not prepared for the test. Why are they not prepared for the tests? Because the middle school in the neighborhood did not offer appropriate training for the competitive entrance exams? In the end, it seems like neighborhood plays a large role in education.

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