The Obama administration attempted but failed to address disparities in school suspensions and expulsions for Black students. When analyzing preschool discipline data from the U.S. Department of Education, it shows that Black boys make up 18% of the male preschool enrollment, but 41% of male preschool suspensions, and Black girls make up 19% of female preschool enrollment, but 53% of female suspensions. This trend continues throughout grade school, eventually leading to a significant loss of learning time in over-policed schools. The report found that in some school districts, more than 1 out of every 20 Black middle and high school students were arrested.8 Students who are suspended from school “lose important instructional time, are less likely to graduate on time, and more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school, and become involved in the juvenile justice system.”9 Disapirites in suspensions are exacerbated when disability status is measured with race and ethnicity.21
Though public schools were desegregated in 1954, Black students are still five times as likely as white students to attend schools that are highly segregated by race, with extreme levels of poverty.10 The U.S. Department of Education has produced countless reports that show disparities in education for Black students. These reports demonstrate that Black students are largely in schools with less qualified teachers earning lower salaries, less likely to be enrolled in Advanced Placement (AP) courses, less likely to be kindergarten-ready, less likely to be college-ready, and have the lowest levels of income amongst races regardless of educational attainment.
Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there were over a hundred higher education institutions dedicated to serving Black Americans. These colleges and universities were some of the only post-secondary institutions Black Americans could attend because of legal segregation. The Higher Education Act of 1965 honored these institutions, deeming them Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). HBCUs have many accomplishments that helped shape America today. Over 80% of Black Americans with medicine and dentistry degrees attended HBCUs; three-fourths of all Black Americans with a doctorate, three-fourths of all Black officers in the armed forces, and four-fifths of all Black federal judges attended HBCUs; and most Black students with bachelor degrees in life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering attended HBCUs.11 But in a post-Civil Rights era America, between new collegiate options, a dramatic reduction in federal funding, and philanthropic discrimination, HBCUs today are struggling to remain open. In the 1970s, between 75% and 85% of Black Americans attending college were enrolled at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This rate has decreased dramatically to about 9% today.12
The Duke University study, What We Get Wrong About Closing The Racial Wealth Gap, found that “[a]t every level of educational attainment, the median wealth among black families is substantially lower than white families. White households with a bachelor’s degree or postgraduate education (such as with a Ph.D., MD, and JD) are more than three times as wealthy as black households with the same degree attainment.” The report further reveals that “on average, a black household with a college-educated head has less wealth than a white family whose head did not even obtain a high school diploma.”13 Black students are more likely to have student loan debt and more likely than white students to drop out of college because of financial instability.
In addition to being underserved in general subjects, Black students are also grossly lacking education about themselves. In 2015, the National Museum of African American History and Culture reported that U.S. history classrooms dedicate 8% to 9% of total class time to Black history.14 There are no national history standards, and the suggested national curriculum is largely ignored in favor of state-level standards. About a dozen states do not require teaching the Civil Rights Era, and nearly half of the states do not teach about racial segregation at all.
In 2020–21, students ages 3–21 who received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) were 15% of all public school students. The most common disability was specific learning disabilities at 33%.19 Black students represented the second largest racial group of students with disabilities, at 17%, exceeding their overall percentage of the public school enrollment. Black students have been overrepresented in special education since the U.S. Office of Civil Rights started surveying school districts in 1968.20 Black students are twice as likely to be labeled as emotionally disturbed and three times as likely to be identified with an intellectual disabilities compared to white students.20 Black students placed in special education are also more likely to be taught in separate classrooms compared to white students even though research shows benefits to inclusive learning among peers who are not receiving special education services. White students with disabilities spend more than 80% of their school day in a general classroom while Black students only spend a third of their school day in a general classroom.20
The latest blow to education for Black America is the COVID-19 pandemic. McKinsey & Company reported that, while Black students are most likely to continue remote learning, they are the least likely to have computers, internet access, and live contact with teachers at home. The lack of access to resources to learn from home has led to wider achievement gaps and increases in dropout rates. McKinsey & Company estimates that an additional 2% to 9% of high school students could drop out because of the coronavirus school closures—that equates to 232,000 students in the mildest scenario and as many as 1.1 million in the worst.15
