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 socioeconomic differences between schools in white areas and black areas, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, which was signed into law in 2002 and was the law of the land until 2015, attempted to hold all schools to the same test-based performance standards. If schools failed to meet those standards, regardless of their socioeconomic status, the intent was to designate them as "failing" and slate them for state takeover or possible closing. 

However, No Child Left Behind failed to provide any constructive solutions to address the funding issues inherent in public schooling. There was no remediation other than increased pressure on schools and students to perform better on state tests. At one point, as many as forty percent of public schools (most of which were majority-minority) were listed as failing under NCLB. Many looked at that failure rate and saw evidence that supported their presuppositions about public schools and their weaknesses. "See," they seemed to say, "we knew all along the schools weren't worth anything." The problem becomes what happens next? What is a community with failing schools supposed to do if they are not given additional resources or support?

Public education systems around the world are founded on the concept of the improving society through the education and betterment of our children. As a society, we pass on our accumulated knowledge and wisdom through massive, tax-funded public works projects that we call schools. When nearly half of the participants in that system are failing to achieve even on a basic level, is the problem with the participants or with the system?

As Coates says, "No one directly proclaimed that schools were designed to sanctify failure and destruction. But a great number of educators spoke of 'personal responsibility' in a country authored and sustained by criminal irresponsibility" (33). Coates argues that state and local governments were empowered by the NCLB act to brush off schools' failure to reach all students (advantaged and disadvantaged) equally and dismiss it as a failure of "personal responsibility" on the part of the students in the school. In Coates' view, a fundamentally unequal system was creating goals and standards of success--without changing the system in any meaningful way--and then hiding behind the "new" data showing how disadvantaged schools were continuing to fail, without providing any meaningful remedy to the problem.

In the end, Coates' solution to the problem of his own education comes in the form of Howard College, probably the most famous historically black university in the country. But even there, he differentiates between learning and learning in the classroom: "The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me--the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them . . . I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people's interests. The library was open, unending, free" (48). Coates was fortunate because he possessed an intellect and literary acumen that allowed him to channel his own learning and succeed even when the system failed him. But he is also aware enough to know that not everyone has that ability. For many, government-run public schools will be the apex of their educational journey. In Coates' view, those schools will be unable to fulfill the mandate of their important social responsibility if they remain tainted and polluted by bigotries and biases.