The Importance Of Equality In Education

When people think of equality, they usually think of being fair, and without injustice. In fact the true definition of equality is “ the quality of being equal among people, social groups, or organizations”. This was a term that was frequently used in the civil rights movement. We are living in a country that is supposed to be known for its freedom and equality, especially when it comes to public education. Each day, 10.2 million minority children are sent to public schools, believing that they are getting an equal opportunity to education. If this were true, then why is it that over 12% more minority kids were suspended than white kids for the same behavior in schools? . Rather than upholding our “freedom”, we have become a country that accepts

Minority children are spending 12% less time in class because of this! The public school system’s teachers and administration are intolerant to minority youth groups, thus impacting disciplinary issues and unequal application of regulations. This results in student segregation due to being held back from a successful future.

In 1954, a law was passed stating that public education was not a place for segregation nor oppression and that all people of all colors were allowed to have the same education. The school’s ability to suspend a child from learning, plays a key role in the child’s ability to get the same education as everyone else. Suspensions are often used as a “quick fix” for behavioral issues, that in reality, need more support and resources. In many

This pipeline greatly affects students of color. The biggest contributor to this pipeline are inequalities in the disciplinary system in schools. These are often called “zero tolerance policies”. Schools guide their students into this pipeline by involving police in minor on campus situations, often resulting to juvenile detention referrals, arrests, and even incarcerations. What schools tend to forget is that once they involve the police, it then becomes apart of the minor’s permanent record. This follows the child when they grow up, hindering them from getting a proper job, makes it harder to get into any school they want, and doesn’t allow them to access resources that is available to everyone else. There has been studies that prove that the likelihood of a child dropping out of school if they are suspended more than 3 times in their entire K-12 education life, and a proven fact that a child who drops out of school is three times more likely to end up in prison than a child who graduated high school. Did you know that the amount of prisons to be built are determined by the academic levels of minority children in the 3rd grade? This fact is