Balancing the Education Equation

by Pedro Noguera and John H. Jackson

(The Answer Sheet, The Washington Post, May 16, 2012)

If it takes a village to raise a child, the same village must share accountability when many children are educationally abandoned. In New York City, the nation's largest schools system, on average, student outcomes and their opportunity to learn are more determined by the neighborhood where a child lives, than his or her abilities.

A new Schott Foundation for Public Education report, "A Rotting Appple: Education Redlining in New York City," reveals that the communities where most of the city's poor, black and Hispanic students live suffer from New York policies and practices that give their schools the fewest resources and their students the least experienced teachers. In contrast, the best-funded schools with the highest percentage of experienced teachers are most often located in the most economically advantaged neighborhoods.

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