Student Integration and Educational Equity

I do believe that student integration is necessary in order for children from diverse backround to have access to equitable educational opportunities. In an ideal world, race would matter just as much for education as does hair color - that is to say, a child's racial backround would have no influence upon his or her ability to achieve a quality education. However, in our society, this is extremely unrealistic. Unfortunately, children who have a certain skin tone face innumerable challenges from birth, many of which are too intrinsic to our society to pinpoint. Many of these challenges may stem from a lack of education of the parents - because of slavery and African-American oppression in our country, many African-Americans simply have not had the educational opportunities that white citizens may have had. However, many of these parents still emphasize education greatly and aspire to give their children all of the opportunities that they can. Yet, unfortunately sometimes their efforts may be futile - a huge disparity exists between the education that African-American or Hispanic children can receive in comparison with other children. According to The Nation, a quarter of the schools with the highest percentage of Black and Latino students did not offer Algebra II, and a third of these schools did not offer Chemistry (2014). The study also found that Black students were over three times as likely and Hispanic students over twice as likely to attend schools where less than 60 percent of teachers meet all state certification and license requirements. These statistics are quite disconcerting, yet they portray a truth that we must all come to terms with - if Black and Hispanic students are so much more likely to attend poorly funded schools with bad teachers and limited class offerings, how should we expect them to compete with white students who attend well-funded schools? Even if we disregard the disparity that originates early on, from the home lives of the students, our system still does not provide African-American or Hispanic students with a chance to catch up to, let alone surpass, more advantaged students. As a result, it follows that unfortunately we are burdened with the task of forcefully integrating our schools. Parents of white children often refuse to enroll their kids in schools with predominantly minority student bodies, thus, we must systematically integrate the student bodies of our public schools. Only then will students, teachers, parents, and policy makers alike realize that students who come from different backgrounds and diverse races are able to help one another learn and grow. I wish that this development would happen automatically, and that everyone would realize that learning in a diverse environment is enriching and benefits everyone. However, integration will not happen on its own, and if we do not take action, our schools will remain segregated, and the majority of our country's resources will continue flowing towards the schools with predominantly white student bodies. In order to give every child a chance to succeed and flourish, we must forcefully integrate our schools, however difficult this task may be.