Achieving Our Full Potential

By Anonymous / Winter 2021

In 2020, the United Stated was ranked the #1 country for having the best education system. To me this is ironic because I feel like the educational system has failed me in reaching my full potential as a student. I grew up in a small town in the Bay Area where the majority of people were minorities. My classmates were mainly made up of Hispanics/Latinos, African Americans, Asians, etc., and there would, at most, be one white person in the class. However, with this diversity came people with low-income backgrounds, myself included. Growing up in a low-income, underrepresented community, there was a very poor educational system implemented from k-12, but more specifically in grades 9-12, which is high school. In high school, we had very limited resources for succeeding in high school and setting up a path for higher education. And the resources we did have, weren’t very good. However, there wasn’t a lot done to improve the resources available to us. Since my old high school has a bad academic reputation, it was assumed that a lot of its students would either drop out or not pursue a higher education after graduation. Because the students at my old high school are mainly minorities, this reputation sets up a bad image for minority and low-income students.

People from surrounding towns, which are predominantly white, would assume that minorities weren’t smart enough to succeed academically or in life. This is something that is not only happening in my community, but in communities all over the United States. Minorities, especially Hispanic and Black individuals, are viewed as academically inferior to their white and Asian counterparts. On paper, this is true. SAT scores are not as high among minority groups compared with the SAT scores of White students or Asian students. In 2019, the average SAT scores among Hispanic/Latino students was 978 and average scores among Black/African American students was 933, while average scores among white students was 1114 and average scores among Asian students was 1223. (SAT Suite Results: 2019) By looking that these average SAT scores, it is easy to assume that minorities, specifically African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos, are academically inferior to Whites. However, people fail to consider that there are outside factors that contribute to these low SAT scores among minorities.

To understand the reasons behind these low SAT scores among minorities, we must begin with how redlining and racial zoning has impacted minority groups within the United States. Throughout history, minority groups have been pushed out of certain residential areas by unfair laws and policies and mobs of white residents. After the Civil War had ended and slaves were free to move and reside wherever they wanted, white residents were not happy about having to integrate their lives with these former slaves. In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President of the United States and ordered the withdrawal of federal troops, who had been placed to protect African Americans after the Civil War. In the early 1900’s, white residents and the local governments tried everything they could to keep African Americans out of predominantly white areas, and some African American communities were forced to leave completely by violent white mobs. In 1910, the first ordinance was made prohibiting African Americans from buying homes on blocks where whites were a majority and vice versa. (Rothstein) These ordinances were adapted in many other cities until 1917. In the case of Buchanan v. Warley, the Supreme Court ruled these racial zoning ordinances as unconstitutional as it violated the 14th amendment because they did not allow the property owner to sell to whomever they pleased. (Rothstein)

Although racial zoning was prohibited by the Supreme Court, this did not stop residence and local governments from working around the court ruling and finding other ways to keep African Americans out of certain neighborhoods. Many cities kept trying to adopt similar ordinances but had no luck until the 1920’s where cities began to adopt a zoning ordinance that separated residents economically instead of racially.  The cities separated multifamily residential, commercial, and industrial structures from single-family residential areas. At that time, there were still laws preventing African Americans from being able to buy single-family homes. A side from that, many African Americans could not afford to buy single-family homes, so they had no choice but to stay in these industrialized and overpopulated areas. In these same areas, local governments would put landfills and toxic waste plants next to these predominantly Black areas to maintain this “slum” image that was portrayed onto African American communities. Because of this negative view, when African Americans tried moving into the suburbs, white residents would leave so that they would not have to live next to or near these “slums”.

Although this was happening in the early 1900’s, systematic racial segregation is still occurring today. For example, we are going to look at two well known cities in my area, Oakland and Berkeley. These two cities are right next to each other, yet they have different reputations and different demographics. In 2019, the population of Oakland was consisted of 23.8% Black/African Americans, 27% Hispanic/Latino, and 35.5% White. In the same year, Berkeley was consisted of 7.9% Black/African Americans, 11.4% Hispanic/Latino, and 58.8% White. (US 2019 Census) Although these racial zoning ordinances aren’t as prominent today as they were before, minorities are facing the same problem African Americans faced in the 1900’s. They can’t afford to live in the better, predominantly white areas. Looking again at Berkeley and Oakland, the median cost of a home in Berkeley is $1,197,700, and the median cost of a home in Oakland is $731,400. Since a lot of Hispanics/Latinos and African Americans in the Bay Area are working class people, it is a much less financial strain to live in neighborhoods and cities like Oakland.

Now that we have discussed how our society has become systematically racially segregated, we can now discuss how this affects the quality of education within these different communities. Since minorities are grouped together and away from white people, lower-income and working-class families result in that same separation from middle and upper-class families. This causes a funding gap within different districts because the local property taxes used to fund schools are not the same for every district. The wealthier districts, which were predominantly white, collected more than $77 billion (just over $7,000 per student), while poorer districts, which were predominantly students of color, took in about $54 billion (about $4,500 per student) in 2016 in local tax dollars. (Meckler) School districts do receive some funding from the state government, but since the state has to provide every district with funding, it doesn’t make a difference when comparing the total funding of different school districts. According to the Washington Post, “On average, states added another $6,900 per student to white districts and almost $7,200 per student in nonwhite districts.” (Meckler) In total, that is $13,900 per student in wealthier districts and $11,700 per student in poorer districts. That is a $2,200 difference per student that could be used for computers, tutoring, counseling, etc. For a country that claims to offer equal opportunities to all, this is unacceptable.

For the districts that are more racially integrated, there is a different system that separates different groups and creates a disadvantage for minority students. This system is called tracking. Tracking is not implemented in all districts, but those who do implement it offer different “tracks” for students who are more advanced, those who need more supports, and those who are at an average pace. This system does seem good at first, but it is another way for school districts to place minorities at an academic disadvantage. After the Brown v. Board of education ruling, parents who had money and resources often did all they could to get their children into higher-level classer, and away from their African American classmates, leaving the poorer children to go to the lower-level classes. Because of this history of white students going into the high-level class and minority students going into lower-level classes, this often leads to discrimination when placing the students in their respective levels. An example of this is Walter Fields and his African American daughter. Fields’ daughter was denied entry to an advanced freshman math class even though she had the middle school grades and standardized test scores to take the higher-level math class. The school denied her request because she didn’t have the required recommendation from a teacher and wasn’t let into the class until her mother petitioned the principal to allow her to take the class. (Kohli & Quartz) This is just one case out of many that may have occurred throughout the Unites States. This can be discouraging to students because not only are they being denied access to high-level classes, but the lower-level classes will be filled with minorities, and they will begin to internalize the idea that they are not smart enough for higher-level classes and won’t try as hard to improve.

We can see that minority groups are often underrepresented and under resourced, but this isn’t the only obstacle minorities have to face. Going back to the SATs, the SAT itself also discriminates minorities. It is odd to hear that a test can discriminate students, but it is the way in which the questions are chosen that creates racial bias. The way SAT questions are selected are through an actual trial. The SAT tries out their new question on a group of students and if the test taker gets the question correct and gets a high overall score, then the question will be incorporated in future SAT’s. This sounds like a good way to test questions, however, Wayne Au, a writer for the Jacobin, found, “A 2003 study by Kidder and Rosner published in the Santa Clara Law Review found racist outcomes in the SAT test-question selection: there were trial SAT questions where blacks got the right answer more often than whites, and where Latinos got the right answer more often than whites. However, these questions … were deemed invalid as real questions for use of future tests.” (Au) In other words, when a substantial number of students who were Latino or African American got a question correct, the question was not considered to be in future SATs. This is because Latinos and African Americans had lower overall SAT scores compared to White test takers. Because of this, the SAT questions favor white students who were able to have access to better education than minority students.

The inequality in the educational system is a serious issue because it greatly effects the level of success of a person’s life and the path in which they choose to follow. For example, the SATs are a significant factor in which someone gets admitted to a certain university. GPA’s also heavily influence whether students continue to go into higher education or go into a working-class job or even getting involved in illegal activities. However, this problem can be solved by providing equitable opportunities and resources to lower-income communities. For example, in 1997, the Vermont Supreme Court passed Act 60, which “ensured that towns spent the same amount of revenue per pupil.” (Semuels) With this act, districts would pay into a common pool and the funds would then be redistributed to low-income areas. In 1990, New Jersey also had a similar Supreme Court ruling in which New Jersey was required to give extra funds to 31 of the state’s poorest school districts. (Semuels) After the court orders, studies have shown that low-income students began to improve in school when more money was given to the districts.

The solution that New Jersey and Vermont adapted seems like a great start to counteracting educational inequality by starting at the local school districts when the students are young. However, this simple solution seems impossible to achieve nationwide due to the neoliberalist society that we currently live in. As Noam Chomsky talked about in the film Requiem for an American Dream, wealthy businesses have made us less sympathetic and have made us believe that we should only care about ourselves. The public school system is no exception from this ideology. The public school system has been attack by neoliberalist ideas because the people who don’t have children in school, or don’t have children at all, don’t want to spend their tax dollars on schools. They rather have their tax dollars go towards something that will benefit them. Therefore, if we are to tell people that we will be using their tax dollars to help the poorer districts, people will become very upset, especially the middle and upper-class taxpayers. They won’t see the reason as to why they should be helping minorities since they see minorities and low-income people as inferior and lazy. However, people fail to realize that some people lack the resources to succeed.

Because of this ideology, we will have to think of other solutions to getting fair educational opportunities for minorities in low-income communities. However, a different approach can be taken to ensure a fair and equal admissions decisions for universities. This approach was suggested by the Lumumba-Zapata activists. They demanded an “automatic admission for the top 12 percent of all high school students and the rejection of economically and culturally biased entrance exams like the SAT.” (Mariscal) Although this won’t directly affect the students’ public education, it gives them a fairer chance of admissions into a university. This way, there admissions is based solely on academic performance and will not be hindered by lower SAT scores or lack of extracurricular activities, which a lot of minorities and low-income students do not have time for due to external responsibilities. This would have been great for students who were in a similar situation I was. When graduating high school, my SAT score was only 80 points above the average test scores for my class. Because of this, I didn’t think I could get into the more prestigious schools like UC Berkeley or UCLA, even though I was in the top 5% of my class. With the demands made by the Lumumba-Zapata activists, I would have been automatically accepted to these schools. To me, not only is this fair, but it can provide more motivation to students because they will know that they will have a guaranteed acceptance if they are the best in their class.

However, there is still issues of inequality with this approach as well. Because students are still getting unequal education, when these students reach the university level some students will still fall behind their peers. Even though everyone in the top 12 percent got accepted, that doesn’t mean that the quality of education was the same. The root cause of inequality in the educational system is students in low-income areas, which mostly consist of minorities, are not getting the funding and resources needed for them to be at a competitive level when compared to students in wealthier areas, which are predominantly white. This is what causes the negative stereotypes that African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos are intellectually inferior to Whites and Asians. We are not given the chance to reach our full potential because we have so many obstacles fighting against us. With enough push back, we begin to internalize the idea that we are failures, when, in reality, it is the educational system that has failed us. I was lucky enough to realize what I could achieve in life my senior year of high school, but many individuals realize this much later in their lives, if at all. This can lead to wasted potential, or people following the wrong path, and end up continuing the cycle of an unjust system.

Works Cited

Au, Wayne, et al. “The Socialist Case Against the SAT.” Jacobin, 14 Apr. 2018.

“Berkeley City, CA.” United States Census Bureau, 2019.

“Berkeley, California Cost of Living.”

Kohli, Sonali, and Quartz. “Modern-Day Segregation in Public Schools.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 21 Nov. 2014,

Mariscal, Jorge. “To Demand That the University Work for Our People.”

“Berkeley City, CA.” United States Census Bureau, 2019.

“Oakland, California Cost of Living.”

Requiem for the American Dream.

Rothstein, Richard. “Racial Zoning.” The Color of Law. Liveright, 2017. Pp 39-57.

Semuels, Alana. “Good School, Rich School; Bad School, Poor School.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 25 Aug. 2016.