Of The Article 'Unequal Opportunity' By Professor Linda Darling-Hammond

The article “Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education” was written by Professor Linda Darling-Hammond who holds an Ed. D., in urban education. Throughout the reading of the article, it is clear that the main point is on inequality within educational systems. Darling-Hammond opens the article with a reference to W.E.B. DuBois that quickly shapes into her main focus of how race and education interact. Darling-Hammond mainly states her points through historical evidence and looking at the root of the problem of education inequality. While reading the article, it is easy to see how the author establishes main points about race playing a key role in inadequate funding and opportunities for certain school systems. Darling- Hammond emphasizes that

Darling-Hammond broke the article into different sections which made the flow of the paper easier to read and understand when a new topic was introduced. By separating the sections of the article, she allowed a new discussion to occur underneath the overall topic of unequal opportunity with education. The author also used factual information to further back the observations being made. An example of this would be when she started the discussion about the end of legal segregation within the school systems and noted the scores of African-American students Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to climb 54 points between 1976 and 1994, while the white students remained the same (Darling-Hammond,. 1998). Darling-Hammond brings this statistic into the article because it strengthens her argument that equal opportunity for education causes students to achieve better overall grades and test scores due to the availability of resources. By introducing statistics such as this one, Darling-Hammond strengthens her argument within her article that a major gap in education funding causes students to achieve at different

Darling-Hammond explained the cause of inequality from the roots of slavery to segregation up until inadequate funding and lack of passing bills. The article was separated into sections which allowed the reader to easily transition from section to section without being confused about why a new topic was starting. Darling-Hammond offered a simple starting point, no special programs, just equal education opportunity (Darling-Hammond, 1998). The author also offered many solutions, although being a bit outdated, from overhauling new bills to increasing funding that would allow the hiring of qualified teachers. I would like to see what information this article would hold if Darling-Hammond wrote it in the present day due to increased problems with race and inadequate school district funding. The only major problem with the article is being outdated but most of the information and findings are relevant