Inequality and Underrepresentation in the Classroom

           

            There are many ways that achievement gaps are created, which enforce inequality between the educational outcomes of races. While I was in high school I didn’t notice the underrepresentation of minorities in Advanced Placement courses, but the statistics show otherwise. In the time I was in high school I took a total of seven different AP classes that severely underrepresented the student population. Hanford High School is made up of 59% Hispanic, 32% White, 6% African American, 1% Asian, and 1% American Indian. Although there were some classes that were exceptions, most of the classes had a white majority.

            In my senior year, I took AP Literature with almost the same people I had taken classes with in the years prior. I didn’t notice at the time that the class was mostly white with only three students being minorities, two Mexicans (including myself) and one Filipino. The underrepresentation of Hispanics is obvious in this class because the school was 59% Hispanic and 32% White, but only 3 students of 24 were of minority races. One of the only exceptions in which there was more Hispanics represented was AP Spanish, but that may not be the best comparison since it was an elective and not a requirement. In Tanya Golash-Boza’s book, Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach, data from 1997 showed that half of whites and Asians were in college-preparatory tracks, but only a third of Latino students were in those same tracks. This causes educational inequality for those minorities because students that take advanced classes tend to have more academic success.  

            Had it not been for my counselor that registered me into high school, I also would not have been in a college preparatory track. While I was registering he asked if I had wanted to be in English 1 Honors, because I was qualified for it but my teacher had not recommended me. This same counselor, the only Hispanic one at our school, kept helping me throughout my high school career to get me into college. He was possibly the reason I had never noticed that there was underrepresentation and inequality between students. I had felt as if I was the same as those I took classes with throughout all four years. This counselor served as my institutional agent by helping me succeed after high school, but this also had some downfalls to it.

            Although I was fortunate enough to be in the successful “track” during high school, I think it also blinded me to the educational inequality between races. My experiences created colorblind racism, more specifically abstract liberalism, because while in high school I believed that everyone that wasn’t taking AP courses were not in them because they didn’t try hard enough or didn’t want to be. I did not take into consideration that minorities faced many more obstacles in order to receive an education because I was one of the few in my school to break through the internal segregation. Looking back at my past experiences I see how unequal educational opportunities are between races, even at schools like mine that have a minority as a majority.
            Racism continues to persist in all sectors of our society because we continue enforcing it. Even though laws no longer allow racism, it has become the norm to use it to judge others. For example, one of the most common types of discrimination occurs in stores or restaurants (Holdaway, 319). Minorities are constantly being judged just by the color of their skin because many stereotypes and opinions from the past are still used against them now. Through this and other kinds racial prejudice, racism will continue being prevalent. Advanced Placement classes enforce racism by over representing whites and Asians, and keeping other minorities in an inferior position. With it even being able to determine the type of education an individual receives, it's able to dictate how good or bad the other segments of a person's life turn out to be. Racism may not be allowed anymore, but it will continue to help elevate some races and keep others down as long as we continue to using it to judge one another.