7 Education
The Federal Dollars
The federal government spent over $60 billion to improve elementary and secondary education for disadvantaged students and more than $25 billion on grants and loans for college students between 1965 and 1980. This was a big increase in funding since very little was spent before 1965. The focus will be on how well poor and disadvantaged children, especially black children, were educated by looking at both the amount of education they received and its quality.
Quantity I: Enrollment in High School
From 1950 to 1980, enrollment rates for black high school students improved significantly, with the percentage of enrolled students rising from 76% to 94%. By 1965, the enrollment rates for black and white students were nearly equal, achieving essential parity. However, prior to the 1950s, black students attended segregated schools with fewer resources and shorter school years. While improvements were made, the actual quantity of education received by black students may have declined due to issues in reporting. In some school systems, students who officially dropped out were still counted as enrolled, inflating attendance numbers. Additionally, many students in inner-city schools missed classes without consequences, leading to a discrepancy between reported figures and actual attendance.
Quantity II: College and Beyond
In the 1960s, college enrollment among black students rose significantly. In 1960, only 7 percent of black students aged 20-24 attended college, but by 1970, that number increased to 16 percent. The growth was largely due to federal financial aid programs starting in 1965, which boosted enrollment from 10 to 15 percent in 1967. By 1977, 24 percent of black students in that age group were enrolled, surpassing the 23 percent of white students. However, after 1977, black enrollment began to decline yearly through 1980.
Quality: What Has Been Learned?
There isn't a clear way to measure the quality of education in the U.S., making it hard to know how well students are doing. Reports from the early 1980s revealed serious problems in public schools, confirming concerns about high school graduates struggling with reading and math skills. Many students couldn't understand simple written information or solve math problems. The school curriculum had become so watered down that a lot of students were entering remedial courses in colleges. Standards for student performance had dropped, with grades rising even as student achievement declined. While education for disadvantaged students seemed to improve in the 1950s and 1960s, it got worse after that, despite a large amount of federal funding.
Looking Up: Progress Until the Mid-1960s
In the mid-20th century, significant progress was made in the education and income of black individuals in the United States. During the 1940s to the 1960s, the income gained from education for black individuals increased much more compared to that of white individuals. By 1963-65, the wage increase per year of education for blacks was 58% greater than for whites, a notable shift that occurred before major civil rights laws were enacted. According to Finis Welch, this improvement in returns from education was largely due to the enhanced quality of schooling available to black students over the years. Statistics showed that the differences in enrollment and funding for black versus white schools had decreased significantly by the time of the Brown decision.
Test data further supported this claim, revealing that reading scores for predominantly black schools improved markedly from 1957 to 1965. National assessments in 1960 and 1965 showed that the performance gap between black and white students was narrowing, with black students improving from scoring 68% to 79% of their white peers' scores. Overall, the evidence indicated that the quality of education for black students was improving, leading to better economic outcomes for them.
The State of Black Education by 1980
By 1980, there was a very large gap in educational achievement between black and white students, which made it hard to improve the economic differences between the two groups. This situation raises doubts about how reliable the available data is. The discussion highlights serious problems in education, especially for black students who wanted to go to college, showing that these gaps were making it difficult to achieve economic equality.
Educational Achievement: The Average High School Graduate
Since World War II, the Department of Defense has given a basic test of skills to people joining the military. However, these results were not able to show trends in the general youth population because the recruits change over time. In 1980, the Department looked at how these test scores compared to young people in general by using the Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery and the National Longitudinal Survey. They found that white test-takers scored, on average, more than twice as high as black test-takers, with white individuals reading at nearly a ninth-grade level and black individuals at a seventh-grade level, showing a big educational gap.
Educational Achievement: The College-Bound
The College Board, which runs the SAT, started collecting information about test-takers in the early 1970s and publicly shared racial scores for the first time in 1981. This was after a debate about whether sharing these scores would help or harm minority students. By 1980, black students scored much lower on the SAT compared to white students, with an average difference of over 100 points. For instance, a quarter of black test-takers scored below 300, indicating serious skill gaps, especially in math.
Although more black students were enrolling in colleges during the 1970s, many others were not performing well in school. A large number of black students scored below 400 in both the verbal and math sections of the SAT. Such low scores showed they were not ready for college-level work. This situation highlighted a troubling trend where efforts to stop racial bias in grading sometimes led to a double standard, which could hurt students’ chances of succeeding academically.
Historically, the federal government did not play a big role in education until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended segregated schools. However, real change took a long time. The government began to get more involved in education after the launch of the satellite Sputnik in 1957. This prompted the National Defense Education Act to help improve education in the U.S. to compete with the Soviet Union.
In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was established to provide help based on student poverty rather than only focusing on segregation. ESEA aimed to support disadvantaged students and to remove biases in education. Title I of ESEA gave funds to states depending on how many low-income children they had, which led to a significant increase in education funding.
For higher education, federal programs were created to assist disadvantaged students with the cost of attending school. These programs increased the amount of financial support available by 1980. This support helped many college students, including many black students from low-income families, access education. Overall, while the federal government’s role in education grew, challenges and gaps in educational achievement remained, particularly for black students.
The Federal Dollars
The federal government spent over $60 billion to improve elementary and secondary education for disadvantaged students and more than $25 billion on grants and loans for college students between 1965 and 1980. This was a big increase in funding since very little was spent before 1965. The focus will be on how well poor and disadvantaged children, especially black children, were educated by looking at both the amount of education they received and its quality.
Quantity I: Enrollment in High School
From 1950 to 1980, enrollment rates for black high school students improved significantly, with the percentage of enrolled students rising from 76% to 94%. By 1965, the enrollment rates for black and white students were nearly equal, achieving essential parity. However, prior to the 1950s, black students attended segregated schools with fewer resources and shorter school years. While improvements were made, the actual quantity of education received by black students may have declined due to issues in reporting. In some school systems, students who officially dropped out were still counted as enrolled, inflating attendance numbers. Additionally, many students in inner-city schools missed classes without consequences, leading to a discrepancy between reported figures and actual attendance.
Quantity II: College and Beyond
In the 1960s, college enrollment among black students rose significantly. In 1960, only 7 percent of black students aged 20-24 attended college, but by 1970, that number increased to 16 percent. The growth was largely due to federal financial aid programs starting in 1965, which boosted enrollment from 10 to 15 percent in 1967. By 1977, 24 percent of black students in that age group were enrolled, surpassing the 23 percent of white students. However, after 1977, black enrollment began to decline yearly through 1980.
Quality: What Has Been Learned?
There isn't a clear way to measure the quality of education in the U.S., making it hard to know how well students are doing. Reports from the early 1980s revealed serious problems in public schools, confirming concerns about high school graduates struggling with reading and math skills. Many students couldn't understand simple written information or solve math problems. The school curriculum had become so watered down that a lot of students were entering remedial courses in colleges. Standards for student performance had dropped, with grades rising even as student achievement declined. While education for disadvantaged students seemed to improve in the 1950s and 1960s, it got worse after that, despite a large amount of federal funding.
Looking Up: Progress Until the Mid-1960s
In the mid-20th century, significant progress was made in the education and income of black individuals in the United States. During the 1940s to the 1960s, the income gained from education for black individuals increased much more compared to that of white individuals. By 1963-65, the wage increase per year of education for blacks was 58% greater than for whites, a notable shift that occurred before major civil rights laws were enacted. According to Finis Welch, this improvement in returns from education was largely due to the enhanced quality of schooling available to black students over the years. Statistics showed that the differences in enrollment and funding for black versus white schools had decreased significantly by the time of the Brown decision.
Test data further supported this claim, revealing that reading scores for predominantly black schools improved markedly from 1957 to 1965. National assessments in 1960 and 1965 showed that the performance gap between black and white students was narrowing, with black students improving from scoring 68% to 79% of their white peers' scores. Overall, the evidence indicated that the quality of education for black students was improving, leading to better economic outcomes for them.
The State of Black Education by 1980
By 1980, there was a very large gap in educational achievement between black and white students, which made it hard to improve the economic differences between the two groups. This situation raises doubts about how reliable the available data is. The discussion highlights serious problems in education, especially for black students who wanted to go to college, showing that these gaps were making it difficult to achieve economic equality.
Educational Achievement: The Average High School Graduate
Since World War II, the Department of Defense has given a basic test of skills to people joining the military. However, these results were not able to show trends in the general youth population because the recruits change over time. In 1980, the Department looked at how these test scores compared to young people in general by using the Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery and the National Longitudinal Survey. They found that white test-takers scored, on average, more than twice as high as black test-takers, with white individuals reading at nearly a ninth-grade level and black individuals at a seventh-grade level, showing a big educational gap.
Educational Achievement: The College-Bound
The College Board, which runs the SAT, started collecting information about test-takers in the early 1970s and publicly shared racial scores for the first time in 1981. This was after a debate about whether sharing these scores would help or harm minority students. By 1980, black students scored much lower on the SAT compared to white students, with an average difference of over 100 points. For instance, a quarter of black test-takers scored below 300, indicating serious skill gaps, especially in math.
Although more black students were enrolling in colleges during the 1970s, many others were not performing well in school. A large number of black students scored below 400 in both the verbal and math sections of the SAT. Such low scores showed they were not ready for college-level work. This situation highlighted a troubling trend where efforts to stop racial bias in grading sometimes led to a double standard, which could hurt students’ chances of succeeding academically.
Historically, the federal government did not play a big role in education until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended segregated schools. However, real change took a long time. The government began to get more involved in education after the launch of the satellite Sputnik in 1957. This prompted the National Defense Education Act to help improve education in the U.S. to compete with the Soviet Union.
In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was established to provide help based on student poverty rather than only focusing on segregation. ESEA aimed to support disadvantaged students and to remove biases in education. Title I of ESEA gave funds to states depending on how many low-income children they had, which led to a significant increase in education funding.
For higher education, federal programs were created to assist disadvantaged students with the cost of attending school. These programs increased the amount of financial support available by 1980. This support helped many college students, including many black students from low-income families, access education. Overall, while the federal government’s role in education grew, challenges and gaps in educational achievement remained, particularly for black students.