Educational Inequality

I grew up here in Atwater, California.  My graduating class was around 500 students. Atwater is around fifteen minutes away from Merced.  The majority of my classmates were Hispanic and then the other group of students for the most part were Asians. We did have a group of Caucasian and African-American however the campus was predominately Hispanic.   There is another high school in the same town and it is known for the “rich” high school where all the rich Caucasian students go.   The high schools are around ten minutes apart from each other however the distinction between them could not be further apart.  The educational inequality and racial disparity was evident and it still persists today.  I graduated in 2012 and I can remember walking in the hallway at Atwater High and seeing people that for the most part looked like me.  The ratio between students and teachers of color was however not equal.  There was very few Hispanic teachers and for the most part they were Caucasian. The very few Hispanic teachers that we did have were Spanish or Avid teachers. Although in general Atwater had an equal distribution when it came to race. Atwater high school seemed to only have Hispanic students.  According to the US Census Bureau the town of Atwater is composed of 57% white residents and 37% Latino residents. The difference is not huge however the segregation in the two high schools is evident. I could not relate to any of my teachers and I felt like none really understood me.  In my Senior year of high schools in my AP Government class I was told by my teacher something that I will never forget.  I knew our school was different than the other “rich” campus because our resources such as our books were always older. The other high school however, was on their way of getting Ipads for all of the students and at the same time we were just receiving older and damaged books. My AP Government teacher said on the last day of class,” well guys you have surpassed my expectations, usually when Hispanic and Blacks come into my classroom I usually don’t expect them to do so well compared to my white students. Well congratulations and I’m happy you all surpassed my expectations.” I was shocked. I felt as though he was complimenting us but at the same time he was insulting us. He had preconceived expectations as to how well we would do in his classroom based on our race.

In chapter 8 in the book called, “Race& Racism: A Critical Approach” written by Tanya Maria Golash-Boza we read about educational inequality. We learned about how disparities in educational outcomes still persists and how they vary among races. The high school graduation rates however between racial groups is converging and the gaps are decreasing.  The question is why do we have these disparities in the first place.  Some of the things that might affect these outcomes in disparities  are the socioeconomic status of the parent, or even the cultural explanation that the book talks about as “acting white”, and lastly social capital can also effect all of these disparities between students of different races compared to white students and their outcome in school.  In the book we see data explaining how schools that are predominantly white are more likely to have advance placement classes than primarily black and Latino schools. These racial disparities can also be seen in the college level. For example; in 2012, 56% of Latino college students were at a four-year college, compared with 72% of white students.