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Sonia Ramirez
Professor Bieber
English 113B
16 April 2015
We Have Come A Long Way
Have you ever felt as if you didnt belong in your high school? What factors contributed
to the feeling of being out of place, was it the color of your skin, the way your hair looked, the
color of your eyes or the way you talked? I have felt out of place when Im around Caucasians
because I cant relate to them in any way, I cant speak my Hispanic language and my skin color
is no where near theres. Its not a bad thing to be different especially being a woman of color I
understand the feeling of not belonging somewhere. In todays society we see racial
discrimination still taking place in public schools worldwide and we begin to see some public
schools becoming resegregated. Many students are dropping out of their high schools and
teachers are basing their academics on their students social background instead of their abilities
to teach students how to do better in school. The zero-discipline rule has a major role in keeping
students out of trouble but has seem to put many in trouble. In order to help bring awareness to
this issue we must start pushing our way up and not letting students be profiled by the way they
look because we are all the same and we learn from our peers. We must acknowledge the fact
that we have a voice that we should conduct schools or programs to help those who are high
school dropouts to succeed.
Racial discrimination goes on unnoticed because we arent asking questions to why our
kids are being kicked out of schools, suspended longer than others or why they dont take
education seriously? There are less expectancys for blacks and Hispanics to graduate from high

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school or get a degree. In the article Dropout Rates: Are new policies needed to keep more teens
in school? Robert Kiener cites Anne Duncan, Secretary of Education; the percent of graduation
rate of high school students is 80 percent which translates into one in five students dropping out
-718,000 high school students a year(Kiener 507). Dropping out of high school is seen most
common in families who are poor, disabled or still learning English and due to these factors
the students who drop out young have become a burden to society both economically and
socially (507). Kiener states Black students graduated at a 69 percent rate and Hispanics at 73
percent, compared with whites at 86 percent and Asian-Americans at 88 percent(508). Kiener
notes that the life expectancy for high school dropouts is six-nine years compared to those who
do graduate and many of the high school dropouts are affected by heart disease, diabetes and
obesity; 80 percent of dropouts depend on government for health care assistance(508). This has
become a word wide crisis and students are not given much of the attention that they need to
survive and prosper in giving hope for there future because they are only hurting themselves by
not trying. The lack of support from the government has led to resegregation in some public
schools and we should not be content with the movement but try to keep our schools a place for
balance through diversity.
In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education stated, separate schools for black and white
students are inherently unequal and in todays society that is true. Many public school districts
had desegregation plans but due to courts limiting the impact of desegregation, schools are
becoming resegregated which limits opportunities to many students of color. In the article Race
and Education: Are U.S. schools becoming resegregated? Reed Karaim cites Gary Orfield, codirector of the UCLA Civil Rights Project, Theres no doubt segregation is increasing in terms of
declining contact between African-American and Latino students and white students (Karaim

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724). There have been many statements arising from the question if we are going back in time to
segregation but Sean Reardon, an education professor specializing in poverty and inequality of
education at Californias Stanford University, says Youre not moving back to pre-Brown levels
where white kids and black kids arent allowed to go to the same schools, youre moving back to
something in between meaning we arent completely in loss here but we are still being
overruled (724). Orfield suggests You can understand each other better. You understand your
society better. You understand how to think in a more complex way because youre more
exposed to alternative views and all of these ways of thinking are related to diversity (725).
Another contributing factor to having a racial discrimination in schools are because of teachers
as stated by Felix Schein, a spokesperson for Students Matter, says if youre a poor AfricanAmerican or Latino, youre much more likely to get a chronically underperforming teacher
(728). The worst teachers are placed with impoverished families where as predominately white
public schools are placed with teachers who are well educated and contribute time to increase
their students skills of developing critical thinking.

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Works Cited
Reed Karaim. Race and Education: Are U.S. schools becoming resegregated? CQ Researcher
24.31 (2014): 721-744. Print.
Robert Kiener. Dropout Rate: Are new policies needed to keep more teens in school? CQ
Researcher 24.22 (2014): 505-528. Print.
Anne Farris Rosen. School Discipline: Should zero-tolerance policies be revised? CQ
Researcher 24.18 (2014): 409-432. Print.
Reed Karaim. Race and Education: Are U.S. schools becoming resegregated? CQ Researcher
24.31 (2014): 721-744. Print.