A systemic injustice present in the United States is education inequality. Education inequality is the unequal distribution of academic resources, including school funding, experienced teachers, books, and technology. Communities affected by education inequality tend to be historically oppressed and disadvantaged. School systems are often segregated by income, and oftentimes by race. According to a recent New York Times article, “More than half of the nation’s schoolchildren are in racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite.” This racial and economic segregation has created educational gaps between rich and poor, and white students and students of color. The same New York Times article also mentions that “School districts that predominantly serve students of color received $23 billion less in funding than mostly white school districts in the United States in 2016, despite serving the same number of students”. This is a systemic injustice mostly due to school district boundaries, where wealthy communities are often in different school districts than lower-income communities. Most funding for school districts comes from local taxes. In cases where the school districts reside in wealthy communities, schools receive more funding from taxes than those in poorer communities resulting in funding disparities in education. Funding at the state level is meant to fill these “gaps” however, in many states, these obligations are not being followed through on. With less funding, schools in poorer communities do not have the same resources, and opportunities, as those in wealthy communities. The solutions to this problem are far from easy and would take a systemic change within the education system across the board. With that being said in the examples below the stories behind the pictures share significant meaning. In the first picture with a FREE EDUCATION sign the students are protesting the unfair tuition fees. Also, the least privileged students are attacked by the tuition terms and the students are fighting this saying that students should be allowed to have further education regardless of their background and their financial stance. In the second picture, it takes place in 1968 where students did a walk out in Chicago due to the fact that students all around America were struggling to receive education that prepared them for college. The article discusses numerous statistical facts saying that minorities in poor locations were unable to receive the right education that was college ready. Due to these problems this resulted in students dropping out and not finishing school because they were denied a future in the first place because their education did not meet the criteria needed to seek further education.
