Educational Inequality

The United States is a country based on equal opportunity; every citizen is to be given the same chance as another to succeed. This includes the government providing the opportunity of equal education to all children. All children are provided schools to attend. However, the quality of one school compared to another is undoubtedly unfair. Former teacher John Kozol, when being transferred to a new school, said, "The shock from going from one of the poorest schools to one of the wealthiest cannot be overstated (Kozol 2)." The education gap between higher and lower-income schools is obvious: therefore, the United States is making the effort to provide an equal education with questionable results.

The United States has a shameful academic record with the great majority of low-income children. Unfortunately, educators have accepted a common belief that economically disadvantaged children cannot learn as well as others. An educator from New York says that students from less wealthy families are not expected to be as academically advanced (Lewis 648). Numerous education critics claim "Minority and poor students are disproportionately placed in lower track and lower achievement courses in schools, which, are often taught by the least qualified teachers ("Out-of-Field..."). It is difficult to see how these children are being given a fair chance in their educational careers when they are placed under such stereotypes and promoted socially.

Education critics have said that students from poor and disadvantaged communities do not have equal access to qualified teachers. In schools across the Nation teachers are being assigned to teach courses in areas that do not match their formal background preparation. It has been found that lower income schools have a higher level of out-of-field teaching in core-academic classes than the wealthier schools ("Out-of-Field..."). A principal from a public school serving poorer children from the South said that he is forced to hire the "tenth-best teachers," whereas the principal from a school in a nicer neighborhood raves enthusiastically about his excellent teaching staff (Kozol 84). The schools from poorer towns and cities do not have the financial assets available to them to hire the kind of teachers that schools with more money have the capability to employ.

The resources available to an urban, lower income school are to be equal to those available to a suburban, higher income school. Two schools in New York, one from a wealthy school district and one from a poor district, were given computers. The State provided the same number of computers to each school, therefore claiming to evenly supporting each school. However, the school with the poorer children had a larger number of students; the nicer school had twice the number of computers