Essay Sample on Education: Essential for Social Mobility, Status, and Equality

Education is one of the most crucial currencies of any social stratification systems. It allows for social mobility avenues, as it opens up opportunities for individuals from promising careers to higher autonomy and income. Education is highly essential for any civilized community, as it also constitutes status, as it is one of the known forms of social capitalism. Despite the need for any country to achieve equal educational opportunities for its citizens, the United States has failed to eradicate racism in its educational system (Meatto, 2019). These inequalities in the educational system produce unequal opportunities. The existing policies, practices, and stereotypes are against children and the youth of color, as it limits their opportunity to reap the educational benefits (Horsford, 2017). Despite being illegal for over 65 years, racial segregation in the U.S. schools and institutions of higher learning remain a challenge to the U.S. educational policymakers and political leaders (Meatto, 2019). The paper discusses race as an influence on Education in the United States drawing its theories from the existing educational policies that have been developed over time to counter racism in the U.S. educational system.

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In the United States and other developed world states, race is one of the significant dimensions of academic achievement, hence the need to develop a clear understanding of its contributing factors. In the landmark ruling of Brown v. Board in 1954, racial segregation in schools was considered unconstitutional, yet the extent of segregation in U.S. schools remains unknown (Reardon et al., 2012). The Brown v. Board case annihilated the rule of "separate but equal", which the Supreme Court had sanctioned in 1896 that permitted designation of schools as either "white only" or "Negroes-only". Funding in Negro-only schools was multiple times lower than the white schools and worse, they experienced exclusion from institutions of higher education entirely. When legal segregation ended equalization on spending from 1970 made a significant difference (Meatto, 2019).

Upon ruling in favor of Brown, the Supreme Court was however not specific on how segregation would be ended in schools but was asked to hear further arguments. The court proved timid, it faced local resistance, and hence the newly passed rule was insufficient in the community to achieve desegregation goal (Pruitt, 2018). The black students were still attending schools that had very little supplies. In 1955, Brown v. Board II case saw the court giving responsibility to the local school authorities as well as the local courts to implement school desegregation (Pruitt, 2018). The challenge of attaining segregation was however hindered by the fact that politicians, who were segregationists and emboldened to resist desegregation, hence hindering its enforcement, had appointed a majority of the lower judges of the courts in the south.

The Prince Edward County initially filed class-action lawsuits behind Brown and the County School Board was declined fund appropriation by the Board of Supervisors but chose to refuse integration and shutting the schools down for five years (Pruitt, 2018). The verdict of the court backlash reached the highest government levels in 1956 when 82 representatives and 19 senators in Congress endorsed a "Southern Manifesto". They argued that the Southerners utilized "lawful means", which was at their disposal to resist confusion and chaos that would accompany school desegregation (Pruitt, 2018). The southern states even went as far as mobilizing "en masse" to nullify the decree of the Supreme Court. They even set up private academies to offer education to their children by utilizing the public funds to support student attendance in these facilities that were segregated, until when the courts challenged public fund utilization in these academies.

In other instances, the segregationists tried black families' intimidation by the use of violence and economic reprisals against plaintiffs handling the local cases. Back in the south in 1964, 10 years after the court ruling more than 98% of children from the black communities attended segregated schools (Pruitt, 2018). In New Orleans, the school crisis was experienced in 1960 after segregation in public schools was termed unconstitutional. The New Orleans School Board resisted segregation and white parents through resistance, defying, and postponing court orders supported them. The Board went ahead to ask the governor to intervene but despite the massive resistance, it took four African American school girls who attended the all-white schools to integrate the public schools in New Orleans.

Although the Supreme Court passed the rule, the mission of the case has proven difficult to attain, as segregation in schools remains a persistent matter in American public schools. A majority of Americans continued opposing racial segregation in schools and schools even closed down to avoid enrollment of students who were not white. The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 forced the courts to develop a mandate that would intensively desegregate schools (Reardon, 2016). The federal government even followed suit by highly enforcing the order from the Supreme Court that would see the integration of K-12 education.

One can argue that in the past, intellectual inferiority, as well as deprivation of culture, had been some of the prominent theories that would uphold inequalities in school in the past. Currently, tools such as underachievement analysis have been used to maintain status quo. The existing theories blame the students of color as well as their families for their continued academic failure, but instead promote behavioral shift as a solution, for instance asking the parents to remind their children to read more, as well as growing their mind-set (Reardon, 2016). In an ideal situation, these theories should advocate strategic policy shifts that have failed the students of color for instance racial profiling and limited resources.

Individualizing the blame on communities of color for lack of equality in education gives a crude reality of the existing academic institutions that have provided the rationale for study or race while evading the concrete questions regarding racism. Evading racism in K-12 schooling has shown to have a negative outcome for the students of color. Schools are known to frame "achievement gaps" to distract the economic, historical, sociopolitical, policies, and the moral decisions that are part and parcel of the American society, hence creating "debt" in education owed to Latina and African American students (Kohli et al., 2017). Although racial disparities are critical in educational success, the lack of understanding of the critical elements of structural racism makes it difficult for decision-makers to address the long-term solutions to segregation in K-12 education.

Multiculturalism in K-12 schools was initially intended to address the negative effects of racism on students of color. Analysis of schools in New England utilizing multicultural approach showed that it initiated racial reassertion and racial hierarchy and materialized the white supremacy (Kohli et al., 2017). The approach is lauded as having the ability to challenge racism, but on the other hand, it replaces approaches focused on marginalized communities termed to be structural and critical. The racism that is experienced in K-12 schools today has not been evaded but has been framed through justice, equality, and rhetoric that are antiracist. Privatization has increased in K-12 schools as well as the racial disparities (Kohli et al., 2017).

Attempts have been made to equate equity to colorblindness, but studies point out that the silence on race makes it legitimate and existent. This intern builds racial climates that are hostile for students of color as well as the teachers. Colorblindness is mainly steeped up by deficit thinking hence reducing visible racism to individual actions that are ignorant (Kohli et al., 2017). It intern allow for mechanisms of racism that are systemic for instance curriculum, student surveillance as well as tracking to be ignored and seen as racial inequity explanations while replacing it with rationales that are based on individual ideologies and opinions for instance views that the students of color have behavioral challenges, lazy or intellectually deficient.

"Separate but Equal" has also been seen in the issue of busing. The controversies in busing however are seen when a minority of students are transported to white schools, while the white students are taken to schools with a high number of minorities (Delmont &Theoharis, 2017). Busing policies have been viewed as affirmative action example with attempts of seeking compensation for past discriminatory practices in schools. Busing was enacted as one of the desegregation programs in schools as a federal court's decision to establish that segregation of race in public schools violated equality protection case of the 14th amendment (Delmont &Theoharis, 2017). Before the Brown case, children were transported to school by bus even in cases in which schools were walking distance from home. Busing remains a remedy for racial injustices of the past and has been used as a desegregation strategy although it continues to inspire debates in schools.

The "Separate but Equal in higher education was aimed at creating learning environments for students from communities of color with an attempt to deal with deficiencies in education among the students of color while creating remedial programs or rather mainstreaming their talents into programs that they would otherwise not handle (Gasman, 2013). It has also been used to address racial integration in colleges and universities, as well as creating peace on campus by conceding the demands of segregationists even if it comes to sacrificing academic standards and equal application principles regardless of race. The lack of adequate access to resources still hinders college admission among the students of color as they originate from economically disadvantaged communities (Gasman, 2013). A majority of students of color may fail to enroll in institutions of higher learning due to insufficient financial support. On the other hand, even if they are lucky, a majority of them faces challenges as they are prone to be discriminated against or may lack sufficient protection from college administration in terms of protecting their rights.

Affirmative action is a debate in the United States that seek to improve the educational as well as the employment opportunities of the minority group members, as a remedy for the persistent discrimination against these groups. It consists of programs, policies, as well as procedures that give preferences to minorities in job hiring, higher education institution admission, awards of government contracts among other social benefits (Park & Liu, 2014). President Lyndon Johnson initiated it to improve African American opportunities as a landmark of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Through Affirmative action, colleges and universities act "affirmatively" thus increasing the population of students of Color in their institution. Through the race-conscious admission policies, they consider the race of a student as a factor of either admitting a student or not. Contrary to "race-blind" and "race-neutral" institutions, race-conscious schools consider the race of an individual during the admission process (Park & Liu, 2014).

The debate has revolved the question on whether or not, the institutions of higher learning should consider race during the application process that reflects the controversy on the issue of color blindness or measure of racial consciousness. Affirmative act...