{"id":179266,"date":"2016-02-15T17:30:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T22:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webadmin.news-harvard.go-vip.net\/gazette\/gazette\/?p=179266"},"modified":"2019-04-01T15:29:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T19:29:13","slug":"the-costs-of-inequality-educations-the-one-key-that-rules-them-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2016\/02\/the-costs-of-inequality-educations-the-one-key-that-rules-them-all\/","title":{"rendered":"The costs of inequality: Education\u2019s the one key that rules them all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tNation & World\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tThe costs of inequality: Education\u2019s the one key that rules them all\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tWhen there\u2019s inequity in learning, it\u2019s usually baked into life, Harvard analysts say\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\n\t

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\n\t\tCorydon Ireland\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Correspondent\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

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Third in a series <\/a>on what Harvard scholars are doing to identify and understand inequality, in seeking solutions to one of America\u2019s most vexing problems. <\/em><\/p>\n

Before Deval Patrick \u201978, J.D. \u201982, was the popular and successful two-term governor of Massachusetts, before he was managing director of high-flying Bain Capital, and long before he was Harvard\u2019s most recent Commencement speaker<\/a>, he was a poor black schoolchild in the battered housing projects of Chicago\u2019s South Side.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t

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Former Gov. Deval Patrick \u201978, J.D. \u201982. Photo by Kiera Blessing\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n

The odds of his escaping a poverty-ridden lifestyle, despite innate intelligence and drive, were long. So how did he help mold his own narrative and triumph over baked-in societal inequality<\/a>? Through education.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation has been the path to better opportunity for generations of American strivers, no less for me,\u201d Patrick said in an email when asked how getting a solid education, in his case at Milton Academy and at Harvard, changed his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat great teachers gave me was not just the skills to take advantage of new opportunities, but the ability to imagine what those opportunities could be.\u00a0For a kid from the South Side of Chicago, that\u2019s huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

If inequality starts anywhere, many scholars agree, it\u2019s with faulty education. Conversely, a strong education can act as the bejeweled key that opens gates through every other aspect of inequality<\/a>, whether political, economic<\/a>, racial, judicial, gender- or health-based.<\/p>\n

Simply put, a top-flight education usually changes lives for the better. And yet, in the world\u2019s most prosperous major nation, it remains an elusive goal for millions of children and teenagers.<\/p>\n

Plateau on educational gains<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The revolutionary concept of free, nonsectarian public schools spread across America in the 19th century. By 1970, America had the world\u2019s leading educational system, and until 1990 the gap between minority and white students, while clear, was narrowing.<\/p>\n

But educational gains in this country have plateaued since then, and the gap between white and minority students has proven stubbornly difficult to close, says Ronald Ferguson, adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and faculty director of Harvard\u2019s Achievement Gap Initiative.<\/a> That gap extends along class lines as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat great teachers gave me was not just the skills to take advantage of new opportunities, but the ability to imagine what those opportunities could be.\u00a0For a kid from the South Side of Chicago, that\u2019s huge.\u201d
\n\u2014 Deval Patrick<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In recent years, scholars such as Ferguson, who is an economist, have puzzled over the ongoing achievement gap and what to do about it, even as other nations\u2019 school systems at first matched and then surpassed their U.S. peers. Among the 34 market-based, democracy-leaning countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States ranks around 20th annually, earning average or below-average grades in reading, science, and mathematics.<\/p>\n

By eighth grade, Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr.<\/a> noted last year, only 44 percent of American students are proficient in reading and math. The proficiency of African-American students, many of them in underperforming schools, is even lower.<\/p>\n\r\n\n

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