Policies of Edu Inequality

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Uncovering Policies Behind Educational Inequality. The US education system is plagued by devastating gaps in opportunities and outcomes, that are based on race, income and other factors. For example, in Washington DC, public schools teach some of the highest performing White students in the country and some of the lowest performing Black students in the country, all learning in the same city and school system. Across the country, students in high-poverty schools and students of color are less likely to have access to experienced teachers, sufficient resources, advanced courses, and technology compared to their peers in more affluent schools. While the study of how to close gaps, or “what works” for educational equity represents an important contribution to the field, the question of how discriminatory policies create gaps in the first place, deserves more significant attention. The course will cover drivers of educational inequality that are rooted in contemporary educational policies and attempt to answer the question of how and why our school systems continue to manufacture gaps between different groups of students. Topics will include segregation, resource distribution, access to good teachers, school choice and others. In addition, using the topic of educational inequality, we will discuss innovative research approaches and methodologies that are useful for uncovering policies of inequality in general. This includes greater attention to mixed research methods and using a combination of qualitative and quantitative tools to understand complex relationships and recipes for creating and exacerbating inequality in public policy. The course will equip students with tools to understand structured discrimination in educational policy, as a foundation for developing tools to close opportunity gaps.