History of U.S. Schools: History of Double Standards?

After our Monday class discussion, I was interested in finding published evidence of a two-tiered educational system in the United States.  Certainly,  I didn’t doubt it existed, but I wanted to see if anyone wrote about it.

The journal, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, published an entire issue on White Privilege and Schooling in 2008.  Although I was unable to locate the entire journal on the databases, the introductory article does not skirt the issue of a more elite system of schooling, along with one for those who are not privileged.  Douglas Foley says that the class privileges of Whites puts additional psychological pressure on non-Whites in U.S. schools.  Though Civil Rights has removed the largest chasms in the education system, he refers to lingering achievement gaps and a war between cultures.  Depictions of the minorities and the impoverished “underestimate complex race class and gender articulations…that essentialize historically oppressed nonwhite cultural identity groups” (225). *

Afterwards, out of curiosity I started rooting around for some statistical evidence of a two-tiered education in the U.S.  I thought it might be easier to find a correlation between household income and student attendance at either private or public school than to find evidence of two levels of superior and inferior education in the public schools.

First I tried the U.S. Census.  It had scads of numbers and lots of information about enrollment and age, years of education and race, and many other variables.  However, I couldn’t find a simple correlation of household income and attendance at public or private school.   Rather than numbers about income and school attendance,   I did find information about income and dropout rates.  The information was from 2003 however.  Students from households with an income of $20,000 or under were more than three times more likely to drop out than students coming from homes with an income of $50,000 or more.  The dropout rates were 6.1%, 4.0%, and 1.8% respectively for the following household income groups:   of $20,000 or under, $21,000-$49,00, and    $50,000 or more (p. 8).**

The closest match for my search about household income and private versus public school was a government Factsheet from Australia.  Australia is not America, but they are both English-speaking countries of Anglo origin, so there is perhaps a better relationship than comparing schools in China or Russia.  So taken with a grain of salt, here are the results from Australia.  It’s more likely that middle and lower socioeconomic enroll in the public schools (42%).  Of the poorer students, only 27% enroll in private Catholic schools and  23% in non-Catholic private schools.   Catholics are more likely to enroll in private Catholic schools, which is no surprise.  It’s less likely for wealthier families to enroll in the public schools (21%).  High income families are likely to enroll in private Catholic schools (34%), and even more likely to enroll in non-Catholic private schools (47%).   

So although the school system is overseas, in Australia there is an unofficial dual school system, with the “have’s” predominantly attending private school and the “have not’s” primarily attending public school (p. 1).†

Given more time and without other pressing matters, I’d have liked to pursue this further.  Certainly, it’s evident that there are two tiers between wealthy districts and poor districts.  It would be interesting to see if the double tiered system still exists within districts too.  Are certain types of kids steered in a certain direction.  Common sense says they probably are, but empirical evidence would be needed before the situation could be effectively confronted and rectified.

*Foley, Douglas. "Introduction to Theme Issue: White Privilege and Schooling."
     Anthropology & Education Quarterly 39.3 (2008): 225-226. Education
     Research Complete. Web. 11 July 2011.  <http://0-web.ebscohost.com.library.

 jcu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0f51085f-41fb-4a37-81d7-    39ca3d512c03%40sessionmgr11&vid=15&hid=19>.

**United States. U.S. Census. "Population Characteristics: Dropout Rates."
     School Enrollment—Social and Economic Characteristics of Students:
     October 2003. By Hyon B. Shin. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government, May 2005.
     8. U.S. Census Bureau. Web. 11 July 2011. <http://www.census.gov/prod/
     2005pubs/p20-554.pdf>.

†Byrne, P. "Parents Income and Attendance at Public and Private Schools."
     Austrailian Education Union. Fact Sheet #12 ed. AEU Federal, Apr. 2004.
     Web. 11 July 2011. <http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Publications/Factsheets/
     factsheet12.pdf>.