Final Paper Topic

Working Title: The Impact of Race on Educational Outcomes

Bibliography:

Andrews, Rodney and Omari Swinton

   2014     The Persistent Myths of ‘Acting White’ and Race Neutral Alternatives to

   Affirmative Action in Admissions. Review of Black Political Economy 41(3): 357-371.

Cashin, Sheryll

   2014     Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action and the Geography of Educational

   Opportunity. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 47(4): 935-965.

Donner, Jamel K.

   2012     Whose Compelling Interest? The Ending of Desegregation and the Affirming

   of Racial Inequality in Education. Education & Urban Society 44(5): 535-552.

Murnane, Richard J.

   2013     U.S. High School Graduation Rates: Patterns and Explanations. Journal of

   Economic Literature 51(2): 370-422.

Savas, Gokhan

   2014     Understanding Critical Race Theory as a Framework in Higher Educational

   Research. British Journal of Sociology of Education 35(4): 506-522.

Scott, Janelle and Rand Quinn

   2014     The Politics of Education in the Post-Brown Era: Race, Markets, and the

   Struggle for Equitable Schooling. Educational Administration Quarterly 50(5): 749-

   763.

Elevator Pitch: Schools were desegregated in 1954, yet 60 years later we still struggle with inequality throughout the education system. Depending on where a child lives—which is largely determined by socioeconomic status and, frequently, race—he gets assigned to a school which can offer him numerous opportunities, or to a school which can offer him very few. The abundance or lack of such educational opportunities impacts whether or not a child pursues higher education, and whether he graduates from high school at all. In a push to level the playing field for children assigned to low-opportunity schools, several plans have been proposed to increase minority college admissions, but there is heavy debate over which of these plans truly help the problems at hand.

Theory: To further my research, I will use critical race theory, which is taken from American law. I found a very informative book detailing it called Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Critical race theory examines the institutions already in place (such as the public education system) which negatively impact the opportunities available to racial minorities simply by existing as they do. Because the United States public education system was created with white students in mind, it primarily serves white students, thus white students are more likely than minorities to succeed in the system. The only way to truly achieve education equality, according to critical race theory, is to rebuild the current system.