With protests around the nation and globe drawing attention to racial disparities and inequalities, conversations regarding those differences are springing up around a variety of topics, including education. According to a recent study from the nonprofit EdBuild, predominately white schools receive $23 billion dollars more funding a year than predominately non-white districts.
Analysts with WalletHub released a report on the Best States for Racial Equality in Education.
“One of the best ways to help reduce educational inequalities is to make that all the school districts within a state receive similar funding,” according to Analyst Jill Gonzalez. “Right now, the districts with high concentrations of minorities are usually the funds that arte underfunded, so that obviously has to change.”
Gonzalez says Georgia ranked in the top half in that list, but there is room for improvement.
“Georgia did okay here, it ranked in the top 15, coming in right at number 15. It really came down to the things that we looked at here, having to do with share of adults with at least a high school or bachelor’s degree, standardized test scores, mean SAT and ACT scores and high school graduation rates. We essentially measure the gap between whites and Blacks in all those different metrics.
But there is room for improvement.
“When it comes to overall high school graduation that’s where we see a big gap between whites and Blacks, so that could be improved.”
Wyoming was the best ranked state, with only a one percent difference between blacks and whites with high school and college degrees. Wisconsin came in at the bottom of the list. For more information, visit WalletHub.com.
