HW 42

PART A:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/pt7788535p450213/

This is the link to an essay which focuses on the racial inequalities of schools and why these racial inequalities have remained in our society. This essay focuses in on what the author believes are the real causes of these long lasting racial inequalities and why they are so significant still today.

I think this essay does a good job on focusing in on the fact that racial inequalities are still very strong and the racism as a whole is something that still plays a very significant factor in our society. He also shows that this is not something that is going to go away easily. However, he fails to notice the real solutions to the raical inequalities of our education system.

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2003/JF/Feat/Renn.htm

This article focuses on the failure of affirmative action and the does a very good job on showing the gap between minorities and whites in the education system. He proposes many small solutions to try to level the amount of college educated whites and the amount of college educated blacks/Latinos etc.

Much like all the other articles I have read he notices the problem yet fail to come to any real solution. This article is racist in itself in the same way the movie "freedom writers" was racist. His main idea is that white people have to help poor little minority students and save them. He fails to provide any true solutions.

PART B: What is the cause of the major racial inequalities in our education system? How do we fix it?

This is a question that plays a role in almost everyones life regardless of race. If someone is in the public schooling system then most likely this is a topic that affects them in one way or another. For Latinos and blacks they are shown to perform worse on standardized tests, get lower grades, have a lower graduation rate, and a much lower college acceptance rate. This is a question that affects the future of myself and millions of other students in the country. More so this topic questions our society as a whole and it's true functions and the reasons for the major inequalities that exist.

This question matters functionally. People believe that school is the most important institution and if you can fix school everything will be better. Although school plays a major role in our society school depends on other institutions just as much as they depend upon it. The idea of fixing the school is much more complicated then people seem to think. To truly "fix" schools you have to fix everything else around them which is the case with almost every institution.