The Role Of Racism In The American Education System

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Nearly half a century since the civil rights movement and the historic ruling of Brown v Board of Education and the sentiments of institutional racism continue to prevail in the American education system. A system that continues to discourage minority students, particularly Hispanics and African- Americans from succeeding academically .The fact of the matter is that while students in classrooms are no longer segregated they are by no means equal.
Statistics show that the problem begins with how teachers interact and treat different kinds of students (Kuznia). The unintentional racism evidently leads to negative consequences for the Hispanic or Black students. An example of some of the negative consequences that are created due to the disparities in the treatment of minority students is seen in the U.S. Education Department's 2011-2012 Civil Rights Data Collection. A survey which showed that approximately 16% of black
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The blatant racial discrimination that occurs in classrooms causes a majority of Hispanic and Black students to test below average and in some cases causes the students to drop out of school. Another factor that subjectively strengthens the racism in the education system is “positive bias”. Positive Bias is a classic case of cheating someone out of their talent and time. In positive bias teachers grade Hispanic and Black students less critically than their White peers. A process which makes the black and Hispanic students believe that they are meeting the standards when they might in fact below their full potential (Capizzi, Carla. "Are Educators Showing A 'positive bias' To Minority Students?" Science Daily). Evidently this method not only robs the learning opportunity away from the Black and Hispanic students but is also a main contributor to Hispanic and Black students scoring poorly on standardize