Amongst the many benefits of a formal education diversity seems to be the most ignored. While we emphasize all the many things children will learn in a classroom such are reading, writing, and social skills we often do not talk about the benefits their children will reap by interacting with members of different backgrounds. That it is one of the perks of being a student at a public school, but it is useless when the opportunity is not being taken advantage of. If a white student is willing to take up this opportunity they will then be more open-minded and be willing to share their knowledge to other folks in their same race about people of color and their inequalities living in a dominate white privilege society. The education system has its very own ideological state apparatuses that then effect how it then functions within social forms of society. The educational apparatus is dominated in Ideological State Apparatus and it functions as the “reproduction of the relations of production, i.e. of capitalist relations of exploitation” (Althusser).
In an article I read in The New York Times Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice by Tamar Lewin is about students of color who are “determined to get good grades to prevent their white roommates from developing negative racial view.” This is coming from Ohio State University with several recent studies conducted there and by many other universities have “found that having a roommate of a different race can reduce prejudice, diversify friendships and even boost black students’ academic performance. But, the research found, such relationships are more stressful and more likely to break up than same-race pairings” (Lewin The New York Times). When this is broken down it explains that students of color living with a white roommate tend to get better grades then their roommate and that having a white roommate prepares students of color adjust to a predominantly white university (Fazio OSU Psych Professor, The New York Times). It also claims that living within an interracial setting may help relieve racial disparities between the two races and is an important factor in the university fight in diversity. That is not always the case for first year freshman living in dorm rooms that are in a interracially integrated living space may find it hard to live with a white roommate because many will find that racist jokes/remarks are not welcome and that it is not their responsibility to educate them about race.
There is positive news that dose comes from this and that is students attitudes will change about race and will see a decline in prejudice. Also that white students will likely to have had develop more diverse relationships then coming into their freshman year (Lewin The New York Times). This may not account for all interracially roommate experiences but it is a step that all universities should look into when wanting to bring up diversity and what their policies are doing to correct it. Being aware of diversity should not start at the undergraduate level but rather should have been learned before then like at the elementary, middle school and high school level. If they were culturally aware of their surroundings at an early age in life maybe this wouldn’t be an issue at the university level.
The lack of funding for public schools, low number of educators, and institutional racism maybe the reason why the achievement gap between people of color are below average compared to white students. This is especially true for states in the Deep South where many of African American students test scores fall below the national average as compared to white students in math and writing. Recently that has changed in Southern states where African American students were able to make important gains on there test scores. Unfortunately the shift has turned over to Northern states like Wisconsin that represents the nation’s largest achievement gap between people of color and white students. The article by Sam Dillon a writer for The New York Times wrote an article titled “Racial Gap in Testing Sees Shift by Region” that revealed this information and that it is not exactly sure if acts such as the No Child Left Behind act really worked or failed.
I wasn’t surprised after I read this article because people of color do receive inadequate education. What I listed earlier the lack of funding, teacher, and racism dose have an effect on students of color on how they are being educated. If a child is not educated the same as a privilege student how dose anyone expects them to compete with an individual who went to a school with well educated teachers, the school district can spend money on new text books and technology every year, and how oneself is privilege enough to be considered equal to everyone else at the school. This is many of the reasons why students of color to do not receive an undergraduate education because they might be behind. The thing is the government implements new laws into legislation, but is not sure they are helping or hurting these children towards graduation. Instead of implementing new educational laws that are hindering these students from graduating, should rather be focusing on the immediate crisis at hand and most likely will receive results.
Many school districts in urban areas are not fortunate enough to have big budgets and are the first to receive budget cuts. That’s the case for many schools across the nation, where the public schools suffer from overcrowding in their schools because lack of funds and how the surrounding community economy is doing. For middle class communities where their school district is suffering from financial disparity parents have come together to raise private funds to hire assistance to help teachers in all subjects. Not until recently in New York City “a complaint by the city’s powerful teachers union, the Bloomberg administration has ordered an end to the makeshift practice.”(Hu) The reason for this decision was because they are not employees of the Department of Education and also security concerns because teaching assistance doesn’t have to go through the city’s screening process.
In poor neighborhoods they don’t have the privilege of this luxury. The children parents don’t have the extra money available to be put back into their children’s education. This is not just for hiring of teaching assistance but also school related materials such as computers, textbooks, and after school activities. While middle class families staying in urban schools will most likely have the funds available to support this fund. They do this because most of the states aid from pervious years have been used to “reduce class seizes went to schools serving low income students.” (Hu) Unfortunately middle class children’s education is being hurt without acknowledgement from the educational system. “The suggested donation to a teaching assistant fund is $700 a year per child, and half of the school’s families contribute something, for a total of about $200,000 a year.”(Hu) Instead of the government developing a plan to help out these urban schools it is left up to the parents to take control of the type of education their children is receiving even with this economy parents are willing to help pay, but that can go only as far. This is similar to what Fanon Franz says in his piece “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness” of our the Unites Staes bourgeoisie that their isn’t a such things as middle class, but rather as puppets towards the upper class and the United States government.
Works cited
Althusser, Louis. “On the Reproduction of the Conditions of Production.” Lenin and Philosophy
and Other Essays Monthly Review Press 1971
Dillon, Sam. "Racial Gap in Testing Sees Shift by Region." The New York Times 14 July
2009, Education sec.
Fanon, Frantz “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness.”
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=92&page=transcript
Fazio, Russell H. Ohio State University Psychology Professor "Interracial Roommates
Can Reduce Prejudice." The New York Times 7 July 2009, Education sec.
Hu, Winne. "Parent-Paid Aides Ordered Out of New York City Schools." The New York
Times 19 July 2009, Education sec.
Lewin, Tamra. "Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice." The New York Times
7 July 2009, Education sec.
