Reflection on Research on Educational Equity

According to the research of Gloria Ladson-Billings (2006), educational debt is more

significant than the achievement gap. She contends that this debt is difficult to
calculate and pertains to groups more so than individuals. Additionally, Ladson-Billings
points out that de facto segregation still takes place in American schools, and is a harsh
reality despite the outlawing of de jure segregation in the 1950s with the Brown v. Board
of Education decision. The school I teach at contains a Hispanic population of over 90%,
and this made me think about de facto segregation and school choice (it is a private
school). She stipulates that the money spent per pupil is indicative of neighborhood
income levels, as suburbs tend to spend more on education than urban areas (she uses
Chicago inner-cities and surrounding suburbs as an example). Ladson-Billings asserts
that [w]e have no trouble recognizing that we have a moral debt to Rosa Parks, Martin
Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Elie Wiesel, or Mahatma Gandhi. But how do we recognize
the moral debt that we owe entire groups of people? Fred Korematsu and the
internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II is used as an example, and
I thought of an assignment I give my government classes where I have them research
the background, ruling, and significance of the Korematsu and Plessy v. Ferguson
Supreme Court cases to realize how the context of a time period can affect the judicial
branch (which does not always rule in a just fashion).