The Supreme Court's much-anticipated ruling last week on
affirmative action in higher education upheld the right of colleges
and universities to consider an applicant's race as an admission
factor, while placing limits on how racial diversity goals can be
achieved. The central question of the affirmative action debate is
whether minority students are entitled to advantages intended to
put them on equal footing with their white peers. Do black children
and white children in America have the same opportunities to
succeed? And if systematic inequalities do exist, is affirmative
action the appropriate way to address them?
Gallup's 2002 social audit of race relations in the United
States* set aside the contentious details of specific affirmative
action programs and asked Americans how they perceived the
educational opportunities of black children and white children.
Responses show that the majority of Americans believe black
children have as good a chance as white children to get a good
education in their communities. But a closer examination of the
results reveals that this question sharply divides the public along
racial lines.
Do Black Children and White Children Have Equal Opportunities
for a Good Education?
Gallup asked, "In general, do you think that black children have
as good a chance as white children in your community to get a good
education, or don't you think they have as good a chance?" More
than three in four Americans (77%) said that black children have as
good a chance for a good education, and 20% said they don't have as
good a chance.
At first glance, this appears to be a strong vote of confidence
in the egalitarianism in community schools. But the data show a
rather large disparity among blacks' and whites' opinions on the
matter -- just half of blacks said that black children have the
same chance as white children in their communities for a good
education, compared to 81% of whites who said the same.
These perceptions are strongly related to one's policy
preferences on affirmative action. Among U.S. adults who think
black children don't have as good a chance at a good education, 44%
think affirmative action programs should be increased, and only 9%
think affirmative action should be decreased. Among people who
think black children do have as good opportunities, 24% want
affirmative action programs to increase and 30% want them
decreased.
Perceptions of Equal Opportunity Moving Downward Among
Blacks
Black Americans are currently as pessimistic about educational
opportunities for black children as they have ever been in over 40
years. When Gallup first asked this question in 1962, 53% of blacks
thought black children had as good an opportunity as white children
to get a good education. By 1995, that percentage had climbed to
64%. But since then, the percentage has moved steadily downward to
its current level of 50%. During the same period, white opinion on
this question has remained consistent, with about 8 in 10 believing
blacks have equal educational opportunities.
According to a former New Jersey Commissioner of Education, Dr.
Saul Cooperman, the escalating concern among black Americans about
educational opportunities for black children is justified.
Cooperman cites several barriers that today's black students face,
the first being their greater likelihood to attend school in urban
-- rather than suburban -- areas. In addition to receiving less
funding per pupil, urban schools have trouble attracting and
retaining good teachers. "Talented teachers go to urban areas,
teach for a year or two, and then go to the suburbs, where there
are fewer problems," Cooperman said.
Bottom Line
The U.S. Supreme Court has now upheld the idea that affirmative
action in higher education has the potential to increase
educational opportunities for minorities and their classmates. But
what can be done at the elementary and high school levels to
reverse the declining optimism among blacks about the chances black
children have to get a good education?
According to Cooperman, responsibility falls on the shoulders of
schools and school districts, parents, and the federal government.
Schools (especially those in poor and urban areas) need to
establish order and create an atmosphere sensitive to learning.
Parents need to realize that education is the key to success, and
become more involved in their children's educations. And the
federal government needs to hold schools accountable for giving
children a quality education -- a process already begun with the
passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. In Cooperman's
opinion, "NCLB is on the right track. It says, ‘We're going
to test kids, and if schools are failing the children . . . we're
going to shut them down.'"
*Gallup conducted 1,044 telephone interviews from Dec. 9, 2002,
through Feb. 11, 2003, with a randomly selected sample of adults in
the continental United States. We interviewed roughly equal numbers
of black and white respondents, permitting more reliable estimates
of black opinion than would be possible in a standard national
sample of a similar size. For our total sample of 1,044, one can
say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error for
percentages is not greater than ±5%. The parallel margins of
sampling error are ±6% for the sample of 505 white
respondents, and ±6% for the sample of 501 black
respondents.
