Racial and socioeconomic inequities plague the American educational system. From unequal funding and modern-day segregation, to increased policing and surveillance of minority students, disparities in schooling reach far and wide, from preschool through college. Many of these injustices can be traced back to legacies of systemic racism, segregation, and harmful local and state policies. Consider these statistics:

• Black students only represent 18 percent of total preschool enrollment, yet 42 percent of preschool students suspended once and 48 percent of students suspended more than once are Black. (U.S. Department of Education, 2014)
• Sixty-seven years after the Supreme Court outlawed “separate but equal,” schools attended predominately by students of color remain chronically underfunded. (The Atlantic, 2015)
• Black students typically take on more educational loans than their white peers, but Black graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed when compared to white graduates. (The Atlantic, 2015)

Researchers have found that “the persistence of the educational achievement gap imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.” Today’s challenge will help us begin to understand the root causes of these disparities in public education and how we can advocate for racial and socioeconomic equity in our schools.