In addition to the institutional racism prevalent in the criminal justice system, education institutions like the school board and test-maker organizations also establish racist policies that perpetuate poverty in society. Through modes of cultural and linguistic ignorance, institutions pay inadequate attention to the respective needs of minorities in the education system. This mode continues from basic to college education, as institutions continue to tailor their best educational resources and opportunities to those of the white middle class. In “Institutionalized Racism and the Education of Blacks,” Spears discusses the educational performance of black students. He argues that the poor academic achievement by black students is partially due to educational systems’ ignorance of their various linguistic and cultural differences (Spears 128). Spears states that the same criteria and practices applied to white students cannot simply be applied to black students. For each individual, one must take into consideration the background and manner in which they are best suited to learn and grasp material. The decision makers of school curriculums in the inner city do not understand the ways in which discrimination and deprivation alter how students learn and mature. Black students are victimized by the institutions that disregard their educational needs, and comparing their performance to white students who lack this victimization by institutionalized racism is a false evaluation. Specifically in regard to African Americans, this racism denies the same opportunities and services by which they can achieve a good life.
Test-maker organizations also perpetuate racism by ignoring the cultural differences of low-income and minority students. These organizations create tests that do not take into consideration the cultural, linguistic, geographic, social, and economic differences of black students, for example. The inferior education provided in these inner city schools creates difficulties in passing written or standardized tests for minority students (Knowles and Prewitt 61). In continuing education, university admission offices provide entrance to students who score high on a test that is geared towards white middle class high schools, not the inner city schools in which minority population is high (5). Even if these universities do not purposely implement racist practices, they unwittingly grant the white, middle, and affluent classes a higher education and a more financially secure future. The structures of education fail to prepare all students through methods of racial and class segregation, and minorities themselves lack the power to make these structural changes.
In the education system, school boards also exhibit forms of institutional racism by placing students in academic tracks based on ability. In “Tracking: From Theory to Practice,” Maureen T. Hallinan discusses the negative effects of placing children in these different tracks. She argues that this process fosters segregation, and the schools and school boards fail to take action to instate measures that prevent this segregation based on race, social status, and class (Hallinan 84). The racism prevalent in these tracking systems is evident through the overrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos in the lower tracks. Many schools in predominantly poor and minority neighborhoods offer a fewer percentage of higher track classes, in comparison to those in affluent white and Asian populated areas (Oakes 229). In addition, higher tracks vary across racial and economic lines. In schools with more minority and lower-income populations, evidence shows a disparity in the quality of resources and opportunities offered. For example, an Algebra 2 class in a minority-rich neighborhood might be taught by a less qualified teacher with a less rigorous curriculum than the same class in a predominantly white, prosperous neighborhood (229). Teachers themselves gravitate towards the white, affluent communities that offer higher pay and esteem, leaving the less wealthy communities with less-qualified teachers. Furthermore, high competition in the wealthier schools results in minority students having greater chances of college-track enrollment at all-minority schools. As a consequence, minority students receive an inferior quality of education in comparison, hindering the acquisition of human capital with which to compete in the labor market.
Repeatedly, spatial and geographic orientation is seen to either harm or foster a good quality of life, whether it concerns prisons and their peripheral location, or the inferior education prevalent in the inner city schools. Institutions within the urban planning sector, such as the city government, also influence the geographic location of individuals, defining zones and setting ordinances. Proximity to certain areas impacts one’s capability to obtain a job and remain in healthy living and working conditions. Primarily, the lack of consideration and recognition of the effects of zoning and urban planning reflects in the continuing poverty of minorities. The polarization of jobs and housing, for example, negatively affects the minorities who live in the metropolitan centers. According to Knowles and Prewitt in Institutional Racism in America, the “ghetto resident is left without the means to reach most jobs,” as city governments fail to provide low-cost, adequate transportation to the outlying areas where income potential is higher (Knowles and Prewitt 21). The majority of well-paying jobs follow the white middle class into the areas in which they live. This geographic mismatch leaves them outside the “major web of recruitment,” which occurs in the suburban spheres of economic development (Feagin and Feagin 47). As a result, those in the inner city are left with the low paying jobs that cannot suffice for a good quality of life.
