Unequal Schools, Unequal Chances: The Challenges to Equal Opportunity in the Americas (David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies)

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Summary: Unequal Schools, Unequal Opportunies
Review: A provocative and immensely helpful book, Unequal Schools is also a handbook for participatory practices in fostering social and economic growth in both developing and seemingly developed nations. It is a volume that can be used in undergraduate courses in Latin American history, government, or economics, and a work that could be definitive in graduate education courses. In Unequal Schools, Unequal Chances, Fernando Reimers has added another project to his agenda of participatory solutions to third world problems: here the issue of equity and equal opportunity that education can offer to social and economic development. Reimers offers both a highly original vision and a continuation of the important research agendas begun in the late 1950s and early 60s by Noel McGinn, et al at the Harvard GSOE. As befits a participatory philosophy, Reimers includes multiple perspectives on each country/region, mixing local and outside views of the area and topics. This edited volume includes carefully selected, quantitatively based research from across the Americas. The tables, charts, and graphing are valuable as quantitative descriptions of places and topics not commonly available to students or scholars. Enrollment figures are generally available in Latin America, although they do not always accurately describe what they purport to describe. Here these standard data are coupled with measures of inequality and other social, economic, and academic data. International tests, measures and analytic descriptors of spending, as well as comparative social indicators explain and enhance the work here, informing student and academic alike. These combine with often compelling photos of students and locations to underline the message of the text. Reimers himself describes the theoretical premises and the limits faced by the authors. He is apologetic for being so involved personally in an edited volume: he writes three of the introductory chapters and the conclusion. However, it would be hard for Reimers to step aside in a work that is the most recent culmination of his twenty-year research agenda. In two well-written and interesting chapters he explains the why and what prescribed by educational opportunity in this hemisphere. Reimers knows the interconnection of education, poverty and inequality in the Americas, and he defines these elements in their paradoxical relationship: "In the presence of growing levels of educational opportunity and attainment ... [there are] growing levels of income inequality and very severe, persistent poverty" (page 5). This paradox is the research driven knowledge that development requires an educated population, at least workforce, yet the reality that most of these societies preserve structure that screen people out of the educational system. Unequal Schools describes a basic conflict between educational success and failure often created by the social and economic context of the student. The research shows that poverty leads to lowered opportunity in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States. These countries represent 474 million people and 61% of the population of the Americas. Policy may not represent reality, particularly in describing what happens to poor children in school, but it has often been successful in improving the conditions and schools that these children attend. The opening section of the book also includes chapters by Charles Willie and Donald Winkler, both are old hands in the equity discussion. Willie's emphasis on raising the levels by raising all boats - not the water - is based upon his observation that too many have drowned by the rising tide in the past. Winkler, a scholar of Latin America, discusses the framework for classifying approaches for improving the education of poor children and schools, defining the theoretical landscape. The choice of Argentina underlines the inherent paradox in the book's theme, yet also shows the possibility of expanding opportunity through policy choices. Two chapters on Chile show successes in linking educational goals and public policy. A single chapter on Colombia describes a similar premise. Mexico dominates the middle end of the book. It is evident that Mexico holds an important position as evidence of the success of policy when responding to research! Sylvia Schmelkes details the gap between improving statistics and a continuing growing inequity. Peru is used to study the role of educational finance in fostering educational inequality. The evidence is damning. One of the fascinating elements of this book is the inclusion of the United States. A full chapter, by Gary Orfield, discusses those parts of the US where continuing, even institutionalized poverty mirrors the impact of third world poverty and its equity void. He questions the use of the United States as a world model when so much inequality remains embedded in the system. Orfield offers quantitative evidence the mid-twentieth century of the persistence of inequality and the failure to alleviate those conditions in an economy without real excuses for its failure. Unequal Schools, Unequal Opportunities fulfills its goals. It provides the evidence to define its context. It also examines and describes successful policy. What is most clear is that the problems have always overwhelmed the effort to resolve them, and in all cases it has been the poor who have suffered the consequences. Equity has deprived the poor, but it has deprived the nation of their talents. The bottom line this book offers is that the need to solve the problems of poverty coexists with the problems of staffing, facilities, and curriculum that may characterize poor schools. Equity is a social and economic problem that becomes an educational issue. The schools exist within a specific context, and are effected by--often determined by--its conditions. Unequal Schools offers data and suggestions for a wholistic approach to making education a positive tool for social and economic development. It is not limited to the developing world, or to Latin America, although that is its focus.