Mayor Kevin Johnson: How Mayors Can Help Improve the Quality of Public Education - the Root
Today the children who attended public schools in 1954 are grandparents and great-grandparents. But nearly three generations later, we’re still fighting to provide equal access to a high-quality education for every student in America.
Consider these staggering data points:
* An African-American student is twice as likely (pdf) as a white student to drop out of high school.
* African-American and Hispanic students, on average, trail their white peers by more than 20 points on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, according to one study. That’s a differential that puts minority students two grade levels behind.
* Public schools whose student populations are mostly students of color spend hundreds of dollars less per student every year and are far more likely to have a higher percentage of underperforming teachers.
It’s clear that we are failing to provide a first-class education equally to all students. Children’s zip codes, their parents’ socioeconomic status and their skin color still play a role in the quality of public schools available to them.
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