Has the Untied States achieved Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of Equality in Education?

Equality in education throughout the years has improved however it still isn't that great. The United States has come a long way with the improvement of minorities getting a proper education and being accepted in schools. As a nation we began with segregation of schools depending on the color of your skin and it was like that for quite some time. Now we live in a place where African-American's and whites can attend the same school however do to other issues most minorities attend predominantly minority heavy schools. And while this is a positive step forward there is still so much more to improve on. Factors such as enrollment, suspension, expulsion, finance, and housing are all things that need to be improved on in order for minorities to succeed in schools.

As far as high school students go, black students are suspended 3 times more than white students. 5%of those who are suspended are white and 16% are black.There is also a disproportionate number of girls of color who get suspended.

As late as the 1960’s most African American, Latino, and Native American students went to completely segregated schools. These schools were funded very poorly as opposed to schools that housed whites and the students attending these schools were excluded completely from higher education institutions. At the end of legal segregation there were efforts made for equal spending since 1970. This has made a substantial difference. ”On every major national test, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gap in minority and white students’ test scores narrowed substantially between 1970 and 1990, especially for elementary school students. On the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), the scores of African-American students climbed 54 points between 1976 and 1994, while those of white students remained stable.” ("Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education," 1998).
The majority of minority students still attend predominantly minority schools. These are often located in central cities.  “Recent analyses of data prepared for school finance cases in Alabama, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, and Texas have found that on every tangible measure—from qualified teachers to curriculum offerings—schools serving greater numbers of students of color had significantly fewer resources than schools serving mostly white students.” ("Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education," 1998)

Typically schools with high amounts of low income and minorities receive fewer teaching materials. This leaves minority students with a more poor curriculum, lower-quality textbooks, computers, and other curriculum materials
“In an analysis of 900 Texas school districts, Harvard economist Ronald Ferguson found that teachers’ expertise—as measured by scores on a licensing examination, master’s degrees, and experience—was the single most important determinant of student achievement, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the measured variance in students’ reading and math achievement gains in grades 1-12. After controlling for socioeconomic status, the large disparities in achievement between black and white students were almost entirely due to differences in the qualifications of their teachers. In combination, differences in teacher expertise and class sizes accounted for as much of the measured variance in achievement as did student and family background” ("Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education," 1998)

Robert Dreeben and some colleagues had conducted some research and found that when black students were given comparable instruction they succeeded at the same rate as White students but he found that the quality of instruction was lower.
“In a comparative study of 300 Chicago first graders, for example, Dreeben found that African-American and white students who had comparable instruction achieved comparable levels of reading skill. But he also found that the quality of instruction given African-American students was, on average, much lower than that given white students, thus creating a racial gap in aggregate achievement at the end of first grade. In fact, the highest-ability group in Dreeben’s sample was in a school in a low-income African-American neighborhood. These children, though, learned less during first grade than their white counterparts because their teacher was unable to provide the challenging instruction they deserved.” ("Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education," 1998)

Short answer, Yes. However there is still a lot of work to be done. The U.S. has come a long way with overcoming segregation among African-Americans and Whites. We, as a nation, have gone from Black students and White students attending different schools, to them attending school together. Now, it isn't perfect and there are plenty of schools that are solely minorities or at least the majority are but there is much more of an acceptance around minorities attending school with whites. I'd like to think that Martin Luther King Jr. would be happy with how far we have come but I think he'd agree that there is still some more work to be done.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. “Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education.” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016, www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/.

“Data: Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Schools Today.” Education Week, Editorial Project in Education, 20 July 2015, www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/data-package-us-schools-racial-ethnic-landscape.html.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rulesforengagement/CRDC%20School%20Discipline%20Snapshot.pdf