Is achieving equitable education possible?
Yahoo Finance’s Reggie Wade joins Kristin Myers, Sibile Marcellus, and Jen Rogers to discuss equality in the education and the difficulties the system faces not withstanding the coronavirus.
Video Transcript
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KRISTIN MYERS: Welcome back to A Time for Change. We've been listening to Harlem Children's Zone president Geoffrey Canada and Howard School of Education Dean Emeritus Lesley Fenwick.
But I want to get the perspective, as Sibile had mentioned, our Yahoo Finance colleague, Reggie Wade, who worked as a teacher himself. Reggie, what were your thoughts when you were listening to some of those conversations? And what perspective do you have on it, given your work as a history teacher? We have the photos to prove it. You were a history teacher.
REGGIE WADE: [LAUGHS]
KRISTIN MYERS: There he is.
REGGIE WADE: Oh, that is a blast from the past. You know, I was talking to one of my former teacher friends the other night, and I said teaching was hard enough during normal circumstances. So I can't even imagine what it is during a pandemic here. Like, teachers, they're afraid for their lives and rightfully so. We have numbers in some areas that continue to go up.
But Dr. Fenwick brought up something very important, talking about "Brown versus the Board of Education" and how important it is to live up to the principles of equality. Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Congressman Mondaire Jones of the 17th district of New York. And he's cosponsoring something called the Strength in Diversity Act.
And he actually told me that Earl Warren, Chief Justice Warren, in the "Brown versus Board of Education" decision, wrote, "In the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." And Jones himself represents one of the most segregated school districts in the country, the East Ramapo Central School District, where it's about 97% Black or Hispanic.
And he told me that Ed Bill did a study, and they showed that in 2016, schools with predominantly-- that have predominantly children of color received $23 billion less than schools with predominantly white students. So what he wants to do with the Strength in Diversity Act is present grant programs to help these schools get on a level playing field. And he thinks that's one of the most important issues right now in modern day education.
SIBILE MARCELLUS: And Reggie, I didn't actually get a chance to ask this to one of our guests. But in your view, when you talk about segregation in schools, do you feel like we've made progress over the past 60 years with "Brown versus Board of Ed," or are we regressing?
REGGIE WADE: You know what? I think it depends what part of the country you're in. You see some parts of the country that have extremely diverse school districts, and some of them are in major cities. But then you have some more rural districts where they are segregated. So I think there's still a long way to go.
I remember back when I was a kid, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. And as I progressed and got older, the schools actually got less diverse. My elementary school was very diverse. And my middle school was diverse, but a little less. By the time I went to high school, it wasn't that diverse at all. I was one of only about eight Black students in that graduating class. So I think that we have to do a better job when it comes to making sure that these schools are integrated and really coming through on the principles of "Brown versus the Board of Education."
JEN ROGERS: Reggie, I want to talk to you, but I'm going to have to do it on Slack, because we're out of time.
REGGIE WADE: Thank you, guys, for having me.
KRISTIN MYERS: There's so much that we wanted to chat about in this half hour, but I honestly think we could probably talk about it for 30 hours, instead of just 30 minutes. Thank you so much, Yahoo Finance's Reggie Wade, for giving us your perspective on that. That is our show for now. Thank you all for watching on this very important topic of education.
