Education Inequities in 21st Century America
Source: Time.com & Getty Images In addition to examining the larger issues of racial discrimination in American society, Ta-Nehisi Coates' book Between the World and Me also specifically addresses the American school system and how it reflects America's larger racial issues. Coates argues that "the streets" and "the schools" are "arms of the same beast" (33). The beast that he's referring to is the larger issue of what some refer to as "systemic racism," or the idea that racial inequities are built into any society's institutional structures. This idea applies to public schools because of how they are funded. Local property taxes fund American schools. Because, according to the Brookings Institute , the typical white American family has almost ten times the wealth of the typical black family, schools in predominately white areas tend to be vastly better funded than schools in black areas. Despite the massive socioe...