How Current Public Education Is Interwoven with Its Past: Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Gender
The modern school system is plagued by its history which is rooted in racism, classism, and sexism. The gap between belief in the American dream and its practice has been attributed by some to demographic, historical, individual, and structural causes (Hochschild and Scovronick 2003, 5). Pervasive stereotyping and current policy agendas that appear to be aimed at improving both quality and access of education are doing the opposite, furthering the detrimental nature of inequity in the school system. This essay will examine how the history of race, socioeconomic status (SES), and gender in the public education system impacts the current public school system. Specifically, these three realms of inequity will be analyzed through the examples of teacher performance scoring systems, the drawing of district lines, and the gender disparity in STEM studies/professions.
The Implications of Race in the Public Education System
The public education system was built on racial inequality and this inequity continues to pervade the system 150+ years later. James Anderson paints a painfully accurate depiction of racial inequity in education stating that “the successful campaign to contain and repress literacy among enslaved Americans triumphed just as the crusade for popular education for free people began to flourish” (Anderson 1988, 2). The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in December of 1865 and Black people emerged from slavery with a strong desire to read and write. Ex-enslaved people campaigned for free schooling and universal education which, in turn, formed the foundation of the concept that is known today as public education (Anderson 1988, 5). However, white elites sought to suppress Black educational efforts due to the Southern economy’s reliance on low-wage Black labor and, as a result, schools remained legally segregated until 1954 (Reece and O’Connell 2016, 44). In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Often this time period is thought of in terms of the impact on students, but it is also important to consider how Black teachers were affected. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, Black school staff were fired, demoted, harassed, and bullied as White communities in the south reacted to desegregation. Further, staff members were dismissed, demoted, forced to resign, given token promotions, and their salaries were reduced (Fultz 2004, 14). Many white legislators in the south behaved as if an integrated public school system would be worse than no public school system at all (Goldstein 2014, 112). This sort of blatant opposition to racial integration is not as apparent at first glance in today’s world, but there are still ways in which policy functions to suppress Black educators in very similar ways.
It is important to remember that public education’s historical roots of racism appear in ways that might not be expected. Without the knowledge of this history, it would be much more difficult to identify ways that issues of racism continue to permeate schools today. Steinberg and Sartain recently investigated the role of race in observation scores using Chicago Public Schools newly implemented teacher evaluation system, Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago’s Students (REACH), and found evidence of a race gap in teacher evaluation scores. The study found that the scores did not reflect real differences in teacher performance, but they were rather a reflection of differences in school and classroom settings. So, what is the impact of this scoring? A disproportionate number of Black teachers are ranked in the lowest quartile of teacher performance when these scores do not account for the school and classroom settings - an unfair and inaccurate ranking. Additionally, school systems rely on data to drive decision-making and the nature of inaccuracy in these scoring metrics could result in firing Black teachers and decreasing the amount of racial diversity in teachers (Steinberg and Sartain 2021).
The Implications of Socioeconomic Status in the Public Education System
Before the introduction of socioeconomic status (SES) in the public education system, it is imperative to remember that the implications of race in the school system are undoubtedly linked to this realm. In 1966, James Coleman submitted a report titled “Equality of Education Opportunity” to Congress in which he attributed family poverty and segregation to an estimated two-thirds of the academic achievement gap between black and white children (Goldstein 2014, 120). Additionally, schools varied by the average income of the area. Once the Supreme Court ruled that students could not be assigned to schools based on their race, there was a rise in advocacy for assignment to be based on socioeconomic status. Essentially, racial segregation came to be replaced with economic segregation (Armor, Marks, and Malatinszky 2018, 613). During the time of Coleman’s report, national surveys found that half of all teachers in low-income schools wanted to transfer to middle-class settings (Goldstein 2014, 124). Thus, it is clear to see how the histories of race and socioeconomic status in the public school system are intertwined.
Today, socioeconomic segregation is propagated by the policies that dictate the drawing of district lines. Following Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled in Milliken v. Bradley that federal courts do not have the authority to impose a multi-district desegregation plan on schools outside the Detroit area (Milliken v. Bradley, 1974). This resulted in district lines becoming a tool, deemed legal by the Supreme Court, for segregation. EdBuild describes the districting process as follows, “When the [district] border outlines an area with high property values, that school system will almost certainly benefit from high local tax receipts. This serves the interests of better-off communities, who have every financial incentive to draw and maintain borders that keep local dollars in.” As a result, district lines that are drawn based on these incentives cause some districts to be concentrated in poverty while other districts have rich tax bases and low levels of student poverty (EdBuild 2020, 11). Research has also found that the strongest correlates of achievement gaps are “local racial/ethnic differences in parental income and educational attainment, local average parental education levels, and patterns of racial/ethnic segregation” (Reardon, Kalogrides, and Shores 2019, 1). In translation, achievement gaps are being further expanded as a result of these district inequities; inequities that are rooted in the racist and classist history of education.
The Implications of Gender in the Public Education System
As public schools increased across the nation, women were accelerated into fields of social life beyond the domestic sphere and both the need for educators, which women began to fill, as well as the enrollment of girls in school increased (Pisapia 2010, 240). However, there was still a deep sentiment of bias against the capabilities of women in respect to professional work and intellect. Thus, the increase of women in teaching positions led to the feminization of teaching in such a way that it began to lose respect from the public as a career (Goldstein 2014, 30). This perspective most likely led to the continued perpetuation of the female stereotype as one that is less qualified/skilled than men, soft, and incapable of certain tasks deemed to be too masculine. The feminization of teaching as a profession has caused a continued sense of gender stereotype in the classroom for students, as evidenced by the current gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields.
Data-driven research demonstrates an almost nonexistent gender gap (roughly 0.03 standard deviations) on math tests for grades 3 through 8, equal math performance on math tests by the eighth grade, and a continually declining math gap on an annual basis (Reardon, Fahle, and Kalogrides 2019, 2499). The 2018 PISA results indicated that highschool aged boys outperform girls of the same age in math by nine score points but boys and girls performed similarly in science (OECD, 2019). In higher education, women received over half of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in biological science in 2015 yet received only 18% in computer science, 20% in engineering, and 43% in mathematics. Further, women make up a mere 28% of the STEM workforce (Statistics, n.d.). All of this data paints a picture of the impact of the feminization of teaching and female stereotyping on women in public education and beyond. Despite proven similar scores in STEM-related fields, women are underrepresented in higher education and professional fields related to STEM. In fact, researchers have found that perceived gender bias emerges as the dominant predictor of the gender balance in college majors (Ganley et al 2018, 453).
This essay has utilized a historical understanding of how race, socioeconomic status, and gender each played a role in the foundation of today’s public school system before examining specific current issues related to each area. Although there has been much progress since the histories discussed in this essay, there is still much work to be done before equity is attainable in public education. An in-depth understanding of these historical foundations permits a broader lens for policymakers and educators to fight for equal education for every student regardless of their race, socioeconomic status, or gender.
References
Anderson, James D. 2010. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. Univ of North Carolina Press.
Armor, David J., Gary N. Marks, and Aron Malatinszky. 2018. “The Impact of School SES on Student Achievement: Evidence From U.S. Statewide Achievement Data.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 40 (4): 613–30. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373718787917.
Brown v. Board of Education. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
EdBuild. (2020). Fault Lines: America’s Most Segregating School District Borders. Retrieved from https://edbuild.org/content/fault-lines/full-report.pdf
Fultz Michael. 2004. The displacement of black educators post-Brown: an overview and analysis. History of Education Quarterly. 44(1):1–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2004.tb00144.x
Ganley, Colleen M., Casey E. George, Joseph R. Cimpian, and Martha B. Makowski. 2018. “Gender Equity in College Majors: Looking Beyond the STEM/Non-STEM Dichotomy for Answers Regarding Female Participation.” American Educational Research Journal 55, (3): 453–87. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831217740221.
Goldstein, Dana. 2015. The Teacher Wars: a History of America's Most Embattled Profession. New York: Anchor Books LLC.
Hochschild, J. L., and N. Scovronick. 2003. American Dream and Public Schools. Oxford University Press.
Milliken v. Bradley. 418 U.S. 771 (1974).
OECD. 2019. “PISA 2018 Results (Volume I): What Students Know and Can Do.” PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5f07c754-en.
Pisapia, Michael Callaghan. 2010. “The Authority of Women in the Political Development of American Public Education, 1860–1930.” Studies in American Political Development 24 (1). Cambridge University Press: 24–56. doi:10.1017/S0898588X09990113.
Reardon, Sean F., Demetra Kalogrides, and Kenneth Shores. 2019. “The Geography of Racial/Ethnic Test Score Gaps.” The American Journal of Sociology, 124(4). https://doi.org/10.1086/700678
Reardon, Sean F., Erin M. Fahle, Demetra Kalogrides, Anne Podolsky, and Rosalía C. Zárate. 2019. “Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts.” American Educational Research Journal 56 (6): 2474–2508. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219843824.
Reece, Robert L., and Heather A. O’Connell. 2016. “How the Legacy of Slavery and Racial Composition Shape Public School Enrollment in the American South.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 2(1): 42–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649215582251.
“Statistics.” National Girls Collaborative Project. Accessed March 5, 2021. https://ngcproject.org/statistics.
Steinberg, Matthew P., and Lauren Sartain. 2021. “What Explains the Race Gap in Teacher Performance Ratings? Evidence From Chicago Public Schools.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 43 (1): 60–82. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720970204.