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Myself (on the right) and some friends during a President's Honor Roll celebration. 

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During elementary school, I was placed on a trajectory to success due to my classifications as "gifted" and "honors". I quickly realized that this set me apart from other students who did not have these labels, including different teachers and opportunities such as being a Safety Patrol for my school.

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Myself (on the left) winning 3rd place in a robotic arm competition at Miami-Dade College.

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As I progressed towards middle school, I joined the IB Middle-Years program which provided me further opportunities to expand my knowledge across a variety of different fields like STEM. I noticed that surrounding classrooms that were not IB had the "worse" teachers and more disciplinary issues looking from the outside in. Clearly there was a distinction between IB student and non-IB students.

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Me in my graduation gown and stole, adorned with several chords and a medal given to me by a local school board member. 

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During high school I continued on in the IB program, and was offered a plethora of Advanced Placement (AP) classes to take. These experiences ultimately allowed me to have a competitive enough resume to be accepted to the University of Florida.

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As I reflect on my academic journey, I acknowledge that I had many privileges in my public schooling that many students did not due to norms in our education system that serve as barriers to access to opportunities such as the ones I had. 

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As I reflect on my academic journey, I acknowledge that I had many privileges in my public schooling that many students did not due to norms in our education system that serve as barriers to access to opportunities such as the ones I had. 

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As a first-generation college student, it was only when I began the process of seeking higher education where I found myself running into challenges such as wealth disparities. My Cuban immigrant parents could not afford the fancy SAT and ACT tutors that some of my wealthier peers could. I had to navigate the process all by myself. My school did not even have a college advisor. Moreover, when I arrived at UF I felt in a way isolated--seeing as many of the students I saw around me were visibly more affluent or accepted due to legacy. They were born to attend university, and raised by their parents to see higher education as an obvious "next step". This made me feel in many ways like an outsider.

Reflecting on the experiences of marginalized students and the systematic injustices they face in the public school system, I can imagine they face similar feelings at a larger scale. The barriers are far greater, and there is plenty of research to support the negative impact some educational norms have had on upholding them.

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The tall, gated entrance to Abraham Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, California. 

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1- Discriminatory Surveillance and Disciplinary Practices

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1- Discriminatory Surveillance and Disciplinary Practices

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There is no doubt that Black and Brown students disproportionally receive more disciplinary action than their White classmates. Racism and the systematic oppression of students of color within schools is what guides such punishments such as indoor and outdoor suspension. These practices are reflected in the United State's mass incarcerations too and it is not a coincidence. Here in Alachua County, Black students have had higher rates of out-of-school suspension since before 2017. This has contributed to a significant achievement gap between Black and White Students in literacy rates, and other metrics most likely due to the countless hours of class time missed as a result. Low literacy rates are also directly related to the school-to-prison pipeline. Not only that, but socioeconomic status has also been proven to have an impact on educational success and opportunities.

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Today, education is seen as a form of social mobility that everyone has the opportunity to achieve. However, this is not entirely true as education has become almost like a luxury product only the wealthy can afford to buy. Making one's way to the top of the caste system of American society is only feasible for those who have the privilege to invest in their education whether it be attending "better" more well resourced schools, tutoring, extracurricular activities, college success coaching, taking college entrance exams, paying thousands of dollars in college tuition, and the list goes on. Public school education has veered away from being a right each child deserves to something that can be used to buy your way to the "top", a private hot commodity. This educational norm is dangerous because it makes it difficult for schooling to be equitable and accessible to students in marginalized communities or underfunded schools.

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Attributing Black children to being the way they are due to the "culture of poverty" in which they were raised helps to advance this notion that psychologically they are more inclined to participate in delinquent behavior which is entirely false. Erasure of Black history and that of other marginalized groups. Black children are more likely to be seen as "negative influences" on white children which is why many decide to follow their biases, implicit or not, and send their children to other schools private, charter, magnet, or unreasonably far away. This also contributes to what keeps schools segregated in the modern-day.

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Teachers as "dictators" in the classroom, or authoritarian figures instead of facilitators of collaboration. Students are expected to obey direct orders from the teacher instead of engage with the content (engaged pedagogy).

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In response to the move for integration, the school board in Farmville, VA decided to close its school for 5 years. The well-off white student population enrolled at a private school set up by segregationists. Meanwhile, 1,700 poor black and white students were forced to find another school or stay home and wait.

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5- Standardized Testing as a Measure of School Success

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5- Standardized Testing as a Measure of School Success

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School closures due to underperformance on standardized tests and threatened funding. Teaching for a test rather

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Achievement Gap Between Black and White Students in Alachua County

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Achievement Gap Between Black and White Students in Alachua County

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The Homeschool Resource Center endorses Tina Certain for School Board of Alachua County. Alachua County has the largest racial achievement gap and fourth highest out of school suspension rate for B…

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Public Goods, Private Goods (Labaree, 1997)

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Public Goods, Private Goods (Labaree, 1997)

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Literacy Behind Prison Walls (DOE, 1994)

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Literacy Behind Prison Walls (DOE, 1994)

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Sixty-three years after the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the country either remain segregated or have re-segregated.

Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that when it comes to school segregation, separate is never truly equal.

"There's never been a moment in the history of this country where black people who have been isolated from white people have gotten the same resources," Hannah-Jones says. "They often don't have the same level of instruction. They often don't have strong principals. They often don't have the same technology."

Still, when it was time for Hannah-Jones' daughter, Najya, to attend kindergarten, the journalist chose the public school near their home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, even though its students were almost all poor and black or Latino. Hannah-Jones later wrote about that decision in The New York Times Magazine.

For Hannah-Jones, sending Najya to the neighborhood school was a moral issue. "It is important to understand that the inequality we see, school segregation, is both structural, it is systemic, but it's also upheld by individual choices," she says. "As long as individual parents continue to make choices that only benefit their own children ... we're not going to see a change."

Hannah-Jones adds that her daughter is thriving at school. "I know she's learning a lot," she says. "I think it is making her a good citizen. ... It is teaching her that children who have less resources than her are not any less intelligent than her or not any less worthy than her."

Interview highlights
On why she chose to send her young daughter to the public school in her neighborhood

The original mission of public schools ... is this understanding that no matter where you come from, you will go into the doors of a school and every child will receive the same education.

One of the things I've done in my work is kind of show the hypocrisy of progressive people who say they believe in inequality, but when it comes to their individual choices about where they're going to live and where they're going to send their children, they make very different decisions, and I just didn't want to do that. So for me it was a matter of needing to live my values, and not being someone who contributed to the inequality that I write about.
On the importance of having students from different races and income levels in the public schools
The original mission of public schools ... is this understanding that no matter where you come from, you will go into the doors of a school and every child will receive the same education.

And no, my daughter is not going to get an education that she would get if I paid $40,000 a year in private-school tuition, but that's kind of the whole point of public schools.

And I say this - and it always feels weird when I say it as a parent, because a lot of other parents look at you a little like you're maybe not as good of a parent - I don't think she's deserving of more than other kids. I just don't. I think that we can't say "This school is not good enough for my child" and then sustain that system. I think that that's just morally wrong. If it's not good enough for my child, then why are we putting any children in those schools?
On the history of school desegregation since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board happens, and the way that we're taught it or the myth about it is immediately our nation repented and went into an integrated future together. That's not what happened. There was massive resistance, and we don't see real desegregation occurring in this country until 1964, and really most rapidly from 1968 on. ...

Then you see pretty rapid desegregation particularly in the South, but then that changes, and in 1988 we start to go backwards. So we reach kind of the peak of schools integrating, of black students attending majority white schools at the highest rates that they ever have in the country, and then we start to see school districts re-segregating, which means black students are starting to go to schools that are more and more segregated. And school districts that had had a degree of integration are losing that integration. ...
On American resistance to desegregating schools and housing
When I started what I kind of call the segregation beat about five years ago ... I think we had stopped talking about this as a problem. If you look at No Child Left Behind, which comes out of the Bush administration, that was all about giving up on integration in schools and just saying, "We're going to make these poor black and Latino schools equal to white schools by testing and accountability."

So no one was discussing integration anymore. I think it's because ... we never really wanted this. ... It's always had to be forced, and as soon as ... our elected officials and our courts lost the will to force it, most white Americans were just fine with that. ...

One of the things that I really try to do with my work is show how racial segregation and racial inequality was intentionally created with a ton of resources. From the federal government, to the state, to city governments, to private citizens, we put so much effort into creating this segregation and inequality, and we're willing to put almost no effort in fixing it, and that's the problem.

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How The Systemic Segregation Of Schools Is Maintained By 'Individual Choices'

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Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones says school segregation will continue to exist in America "as long as individual parents continue to make choices that only benefit their own children."