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By Treasure Brown

Battlefield Park Elementary School. Photo courtesy of Homes.com.

Battlefield Park Elementary school in Mechanicsville, Virginia boasts a beautiful four-part building and National PTA School of Excellence recognition. Their students have the exciting opportunity to experiment with building rocket ships and prosthetic limbs. Meanwhile, less than an hour away, Matoaca Middle School in Chesterfield County is struggling to meet state accreditation standards in achievement gaps and student outcomes. Unlike Battlefield Park, Matoaca has not been recognized by the National PTA, but was named by the Virginia Department of Education as a Federally Identified School in need of support and improvement for the 2023-24 school year.

Matoaca Middle School. Photo courtesy of Homes.com.

How can you have two schools in the same state with such drastic differences in student achievement? The answer is education inequality: the disproportionate access that schools and students have to necessary resources such as books, appropriate technology, qualified teachers, and funding. Educational inequality creates unequal opportunities for students in all levels of education, and in the US many Black, Latinx, and underprivileged students have significantly less access to a high quality public school education that coulc equip them with the tools, skills, preparedness, and rapport necessary to go on to seek higher degrees and have a successful career.

One of the largest causes of this inequality stems from red-lining, a discriminatory practice in which loans were limited or refused to people who lived in a certain area, specifically people of color. It began in the 1930s, and examiners from The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), would be sent around neighborhoods with maps to determine which neighborhood residents could receive loans.

Old redlining map of Richmond. Photo courtesy of docsteach.org

These maps would give grades and colors to neighborhoods based on transportation availability, housing conditions, pollutants, and other factors. Red areas were given a “D” and considered the worst places to live. On the contrary, green areas were given “A” grades and seen as healthy and prosperous areas to live. Predominantly white (green) neighborhoods were seen as safe investments, while Black communities were often labeled hazardous and dangerous and marked by red lines on the map.

Because it was extremely difficult to get a loan for purchasing a home, this practice prevented some Black people from being able to build generational wealth, resulting in poorer communities that relied on rental housing. Redlining is also one of the main causes of residential segregation, designed to hinder social interaction between white and Black people. This segregation is the primary reason for racial differences in access to education, since the schools you have access to are usually determined by which school district you live in.

School funding also plays a large role in the disparities between schools in predominantly white areas and those with higher populations of students of color. School districts rely heavily on property taxes for funding, and policies such as redlining have continued to make it difficult for minorities to accumulate wealth and acquire property. By 2022, approximately 17.1% of all Black adults continued to live below the poverty line; this is detrimental to schools in those neighborhoods, because the residents in those places have less money to support their livelihoods and to give to taxes, which fund schools. This means that public schools in previously redlined neighborhoods have dramatically decreased access to resources that determine the quality of the neighborhood schools. Additionally, a 2016 study showed that school districts mainly serving Black children receive approximately $23 billion less than schools serving white children. Limited funding means limited resources and quality. Many predominantly Black schools cannot afford proper books, learning materials, or to have smaller classes that give increased attention to individual student needs.

Parents for Public Schools, an advocacy organization dedicated to cultivating a connection between parents and public schools, says that “Equitable funding would offset this gap, acknowledging that less affluent communities require more funding from state and/or federal sources to offset the funding gap.” In research done by economist Kirabo Jackson from Northwestern University, Jackson found that “When a district’s per-pupil spending increased by 10 percent, those exposed to the increases… completed more years of school… as adults, they earned… 7 percent higher wages at age 40 and a 3 percentage-point lower likelihood of adult poverty.”

Furthermore, under-resourced and underfunded schools, typically located in minority communities, often become funnels for the something called the school-to-prison pipeline, coined by American sociologist Robert K. Merton in the 1930s. The concept of the school-to-prison pipeline is that schools in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods funnel students into the criminal justice system for minor infractions at school, such as arguing with teachers, writing on desks, and minor conflicts with other students.

In 2014, a six-year-old special needs student at Pine Ridge Elementary School in Stone Mountain, Georgia, was handcuffed by officers after being disruptive and running from his class. Not only did handcuffing him further upset the boy, but he also had multiple bruises on his wrists after the cuffs were removed. In another case, a 13-year-old from Albuquerque was arrested in 2011 on a misdemeanor charge after burping in class. After arrest, the boy spent an hour in a juvenile detention center before receiving a temporary suspension from school.

Additionally, poverty-stricken schools have higher rates of police-reported crimes than well-funded schools. This is largely due to the fact that schools lack the resources necessary to support students in need of additional support academically, socially, financially, and emotionally. The lack of an appropriate outlet to release their stress and voice their troubles pushes students to lash out in and outside of school. A study by the Pew Research Center in 2018 concluded that “students from low income districts have a significantly higher risk of suspension… low income students also receive longer suspensions.”

Overall, schools in low-income areas, in comparison those in higher income neighborhoods, have lower average test scores, fewer advanced placement students, higher dropout rates, higher rates of teen pregnancy, less qualified teachers, more limited curriculum, less access to academic counseling, and fewer connections with professors and employers. For example, in 2019 the Richmond City Public Schools district, where nearly 67% of students  are eligible for free and reduced priced lunch, only 70.6 percent of high school seniors graduated on time. 24.4 percent of students dropped out that same year. With such lower graduation rates, fewer students go on to higher education and earn a degree and a job where they earn a livable wage. Poor education can lend itself to a cyclical pattern of poverty and lack of education for those areas, since education is linked to economic growth: in a study conducted by Stanford University and Ludwig Maximilian University, from 1960-2000, 75% of the growth in GDP occurred due to more math and science skills being taught in schools.

Huguenot High School. Photo courtesy of Educationsnapshots.com.

Along with the stark differences between Battlefield Park Elementary and Matoaca Middle School, another example of these disparities between schools in the Richmond area are Huguenot High School in Richmond as compared to Atlee High School in Hanover County. At Huguenot, 92.8% of students enrolled for the 2023-2024 school year are minorities, with 60.2% of students being Black, 29.8% Hispanic, 0.7% Asian, 0.1% American Indian, and 1.9% mixed race. Of the 1,339 students, 91 percent of them qualify for free lunch, indicating that the overall student population is economically disadvantaged. Only 16 percent of the students take at least one Advanced Placement class during the course of high school, with only three percent of those students passing an AP exam. Further, the school’s overall proficiency scores from the state’s Standards of Learning (SOL) tests, in mathematics, reading, and science, are concerningly low: 45, 60, and 32 percent, respectively. Most alarming, however, is the 81 percent graduation rate, which is much lower than the state graduation rate of 92%.

Atlee High School. Photo courtesy of Homes.com.

Atlee High School has much higher rates of student achievement and success. 47 percent of the students take at least one Advanced Placement class, with 32 percent passing at least one AP exam. When it comes to proficiency, the school has a 91% proficiency in math and reading and 82% proficiency in science. Lastly, the graduation rate is 98 percent. However, only 18.8% of their students belong to an ethnic minority, with 10 percent of those students qualifying for free or reduced lunches.

These are just a few of the causes and outcomes of educational inequality. This inconsistency in the quality of education at our public schools is complex and the result of unfair policies, laws, and inequitable support. There have been many proposed solutions on how to get rid of unequal education, but the problem is not one that is easily fixable with just monetary support. The Race, Diversity, and Educational Policy Cluster at the University of California, Berkeley, believe that we can only fully respond to educational inequality once we “Craft and invest in policies that acknowledge and address the impact of economic, racial, and social forces on students and schools.” I am hopeful that, together, we can work towards a more promising and equitable future.

Featured image courtesy of Berkeley Political Review.