Unequal access to education in the United States results in unequal outcomes for students. Disparities in academic access among students in the United States are the result of multiple factors including government policies, district funding, school choice, family wealth, parenting style, implicit bias towards students' race or ethnicity, and the resources available to students and their schools. Educational inequality contributes to a number of broader problems in the United States, including income inequality and increasing prison populations. Educational inequalities in the United States are wide-ranging, and many potential solutions have been proposed to mitigate their impacts on students.

History Colonial era The earliest forms of education in the U.S. were primarily religious. Education in the 17th and 18th centuries aimed to teach the children of white colonists how to read the Bible and abide by Puritan values. For Indigenous children, the formal education was generally a means to forcibly assimilate them into white Puritan society and convert them to Christianity.Yeboah, Alberta. "Education among Native Americans in the periods before and after contact with Europeans: An overview." In Annual National Association of Native American Studies Conference. Houston Texas. 2005. Through this process of assimilation, which continued even after the colonial period, white settlers compelled Indigenous populations to give up cultural traditions, including their native languages. In the early 20th century, Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and enrolled in boarding schools.Marr, Carolyn. 2000. Assimilation through education: Indian boarding schools in the Pacific Northwest. [Seattle]: University of Washington Libraries. http://content.lib.washington.edu/aipnw/marr.html. The purpose of this was to "civilize" and assimilate Indigenous communities into American society.

Historically, African Americans in the United States experienced trouble accessing quality education. In colonial times, many white people felt that if Black people, particularly enslaved Black people, were to become educated, they would start to challenge the systems of power that kept them oppressed.Virginia Historical Society, "Beginnings of Black Education", Virginia Historical Society, http://www.vahistorical.org/civilrights/education.htm (accessed October 20, 2020). Southern states feared slaves would begin to act out against their slave owners or escape to northern states if they were educated. As a result, several states enacted laws that prohibited slaves from learning to read or write—commonly referred to as anti-literacy statutes. Although punishment varied from state to state, several southern states (Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia) would criminally prosecute any slave who attempted to learn to read or write.Davis, Edward M. 1845. Extracts from the American slave code. Philadelphia: s.n. https://archive.org/details/extractsfromamer00davi. In some cases, white people could also be punished for attempting to educate slaves. When some religious groups attempted to establish schools for African Americans, this was often met with severe opposition from white community members.

Civil War and Reconstruction era

The Civil War and the emancipation of slaves led to a push for more education opportunities for African Americans. Most Black people did not have access to education until the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, when public schools started to become more common.

Newly freed African Americans prioritized education, and many considered education an effective way to empower their communities. In southern states, Black residents engaged in collective action and collaborated with the Freedmen's Bureau, northern philanthropic organizations, and other white groups to ensure their access to public education. During the Reconstruction era, the enrollment of Black students began to expand because of the increased population of freed blacks.

Although Black students' enrollment rate continued increasing, there still evidence today of unequal achievement between white students and students from non-white racial identities, as well as between students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

Jim Crow era

Under Jim Crow, schools were still segregated, which often resulted in Black schools receiving less public funding. This meant Black students were educated in worse facilities, with fewer resources, and with lower-paid teachers than their white counterparts. Furthermore, under Jim Crow, segregation had many negative effects that are still seen today. For example, because segregated schools had fewer resources, less experienced teachers, and overall less funding, there were lower expectations for student academic achievement. This academic achievement gap is something that is still seen in the 21st century (1).

Due to the nature of this academic environment, dropout rates for black students in segregated schools increased. This limited students' future employment opportunities and perpetuated a cycle of poverty and inequity. Additionally, fewer African-American students enrolled in school relative to their white counterparts, and fewer public schools were available to them. The majority of Black students did not continue their education past an elementary school level.

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the United States Supreme Court decided that educational facilities were allowed to segregate white students from students of color as long as the educational facilities were considered equal. In practice, separate educational facilities meant fewer resources and access for Black and other minority students. On average, white students received 17–70% more educational expenditures than their Black counterparts.Mago, Robert (1990). Race and Schooling in the South, 1880–1950: An Economic History. University of Chicago Press. pp. 21–22. . The first federal legal challenge of these unequal segregated educational systems occurred in the California case Mendez v. Westminster (1947), followed by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional, with the court issuing this decision on May 17, 1954. The NAACP brought this case to challenge segregation in Kansas, which prohibited African Americans from attending white schools. The court held that segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees all citizens the same protection under the law. It held that segregation perpetuated feelings of inferiority among African-American children and hindered their ability to learn. The court therefore ordered schools to integrate. The Brown decision served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement. (Brown V Board of Ed)

Integration

In the United States, integration is the process of ending race-based segregation within public and private schools, and it is generally referred to in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. Integration has historically been employed as a method for reducing the achievement gap that exists between white students and students of color in the United States. Students in integrated schools also learn to be more accepting of others, which has been shown to reduce race-based prejudice.

Studies conducted in schools across the country have found that racial integration of schools is effective in reducing the achievement gap. In 1964, following the Civil Rights Act, the United States Congress commissioned sociologist James Coleman to direct and conduct a study on school inequality in the U.S. The report, known colloquially as the Coleman Report, was a landmark study in the field of sociology and education. The report detailed the extreme levels of racial segregation in schools that still persisted in the Southern United States despite the ruling of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. Coleman found that Black students benefited greatly from learning in mixed-race schools. Therefore, he argued that busing Black students to white school districts to integrate the schools would be more effective in reducing the Black student's disadvantages compared to increasing in funding, which, according to the report, had little impact on student achievement. These findings would serve as an influential factor in the creation of the practice known as desegregation busing.

Factors contributing to inequalities A meta-analysis by MacCann and others (2019) indicates that at least 73.9% (100% - 26.1%) of variation in academic performance remains to be explained after accounting for intelligence, conscientiousness (i.e. persistent effort and organization), and emotional intelligence. The following are other factors that may explain the remaining variability in academic performance.

Race Race is often a big contributor to educational inequalities, and it can explain the widening achievement and discipline gaps between white students and students of color. Implicit bias and stereotyping perpetuate systemic injustices and lead to unequal opportunities.

Race influences teachers' expectations and, in turn, influences achievement results. A 2016 study showed that non-Black teachers had much lower expectations of Black students than Black teachers who evaluated the same student. White teachers were 12% less likely to think the student would graduate from high school and 30% less likely to think they would graduate from college. Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of teachers' expectations: students whose teachers believe they are capable of high achievement tend to do better (Pygmalion effect). Another study found that white teachers were more likely to give constructive feedback on essays if they believed the student who wrote it was white. Essays perceived to be written by Black or Latino students were given more praise and less guidance on how to improve their writing. One reason for this lack of quality feedback could be that teachers do not want to appear racist so they grade Black students more easily; however, this is detrimental and can lead to lower achievement over time.

One study examined how implicit bias affects students of color, finding that white teachers who gave lessons to Black students had greater anxiety and delivered less clear lectures. They played recordings of these lectures to non-Blacks students who then performed just as badly, showing that achievement was not a result of the students' ability but rather the teachers' implicit bias.

Non-Asian minority students often do not have equal access to high-quality teachers, which can be an indication for how well a student will perform. However, there has been conflicting research on how large the effect truly is. Some claim having a high-quality teacher is the biggest predictor of academic success, while another study states that inequalities are largely caused by other factors.

Moreover, a study from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 showed that two teachers who teach the same students can disagree on the expectations of the student's academic career and, in the case of African-American students, the belief in question was that they will achieve less academically. This study found that African-American teachers have greater expectations for African-American children succeeding academically than non-African-American teachers. Additionally, these disparities were more pronounced in white male teachers of African-American female students.

It is important that more information is gathered about teachers' implicit biases because they can affect the way they teach students. Students of color are affected by these biases, so more research on racial disparities in education will help determine the role of bias in the educational system.