Chapter 3: The Changing Faces of Education for African Americans After Brown: Equity, Excellence, Choice, Vouchers, and Privatization

To understand public education in the United States of America one must first understand the roles of the 50 states and their educational systems. The states must be viewed as 50 separate countries when assessing the status of public education, which is unlike other countries, except for Canada. The U.S. Constitution leaves the role of public education to the individual states and so you have 50 state educational systems with varying degrees of educational services for their citizens. And, within these 50 states, you have varying degrees of educational quality. Children in poor states on average receive poor education, as reflected in their academic test scores, compared to children in wealthy states; and within individual states, residents of rich districts offer superior education for their children compared to children in poorer districts.