Education and The Myth of Equal Opportunity in Jamaica and The United States

Education and the Myth of Equal Opportunity in Jamaica
and the United States
Andrew Lindsay
Research Intern for the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute
Amherst College ‘16
Research Project for the

Charles Hamilton Houston Institute at Harvard Law School
1
Abstract
In this study I contend that formal equality of opportunity is a political myth
that drives underrepresented groups into acquiescence and passivity. To do this I
will compare Jamaica and the United States, two countries steeped in a similar
history of chattel slavery and common patterns of framing educational opportunity.
I posit that a common history of symbolic manipulation though affirmations of
formal equality of opportunity served to promote inertia in the hearts and minds of
poor Afro-Jamaicans and Afro-Americans. Educational policy is the primary lens
through which I will attempt to assess the impact of formal equality on the actual
opportunities afforded to Black people in Jamaica and the US. Despite the so-called
gains of ‘equality under the law’, educational disparities are in many ways just as, or
even more salient than in the Civil Rights era in the US and in pre-Independence in
Jamaica because of the sheer lack of opportunities for these underrepresented
groups. Through systematically assessing the history of educational legislation and
jurisprudence in the US and Jamaica, I will demonstrate the coercive power that
symbols have to manipulate individuals most disadvantaged by them. If Jamaica and
the US have made such inroads to equality why do things remain so eerily similar to
more shameful times in the past? In Jamaica and the United States class and racial
struggles have started to evolve in more subtle ways that repress the
underrepresented and it is the aim of this study to track the when’s, how’s and
why’s of these manifestations of inequity. Only through understanding these
dynamics we can perhaps identify ways of opposing them.
2
Table of Content
Abstract.............................................................................................2
Introduction.....................................................................................3
Literature Review..........................................................................7
Theoretical Framework............................................................11
Historical Context: Education from 1655-1990..........................................................11
Emerging Educational Policy in the present................................................................20
No Child Left Behind............................................................................................................ 23
Increasing Educational Neo-liberalism in Jamaica....................................................27
Legal Attacks on African-American Educational Opportunity...............................34
Case in Conservative Activism: Missouri v. Jenkins....................................................36
Final thoughts on Neoliberalism and its effects on the underrepresented.......38
Critical Analysis............................................................................41
The Myth of Educational Opportunity...........................................................................42
Conclusion......................................................................................50
References......................................................................................53
3
Introduction
William James was of the opinion that the most devious ways of
authoritarian domination are the ones that pretend to explain real life situations
(Lindsay, 1981). This year James’ observation has become even more salient. As
revealed in the Shelby v. Holder and the Fisher v. UT Austin decisions made this
summer by the Supreme Court, there has been a noticeable scaling back of minority
rights in the United States under the premise of ‘legal color-blindness’ 1. These
policies however, implicitly encourage existing and evolving racial domination.
Schools are now more segregated than any time since the 1970’s. The achievement
gap has not conspicuously narrowed despite a noticeable decrease in the wealth gap
among racial groups. The average black or Hispanic child, more often than not, is
enrolled in schools where he or she is racially in the majority, which some suggest
leads to less achievement (Orfield, 2001). Despite the triumphant claims made by
those on both ends of the political divide that things are getting better for
underrepresented minorities in the United States, the reality is that things are worse
than they have ever been since the end of Jim Crow for communities of color
(Lawrence, 2006).
These terrible times however, have not been met with a concurrently
pessimistic tone by the underrepresented. Krysan notes that African-Americans are
increasingly optimistic in regards to the potential for upward social mobility in the
United States. Moreover, she reports that they are increasingly against affirmation
action and more in favor of race-neutral policies. The prevailing view is steadily
becoming that racial discrimination is not as important an issue as it once was
(Krysan, 2011). Substantively this is not the case. I contend that this increasing
1
Daum and Ishiwata note that legal activists have embraced a position of equal rights to argue that
each subject must be treated equally with respect to the law, irrespective of racial historical or
socioeconomic differences. This position was a major premise behind many of the victories made in
the civil rights era. Ironically, this premise is being used in the present as a means of dismantling
these very gains, such as the functional dismantlement of The Voter’s Rights Act and Affirmative
action.
4
ignorance to matters of racial domination by those very individuals affected most by
this dominance is as a result of a myth of formal equality of opportunity and a
resulting myth of educational opportunity that promotes acquiescence and
passivity.
In Louis Lindsay’s seminal work, The Myth of a Civilizing Mission, he argues
that the persistence of colonial domination is intertwined with organized political
manipulation. He asserts that the colonial situation has successfully encouraged
both the colonized and the colonizers to accept visions of themselves and the society
that bears little relations with reality (Lindsay, 1981). Using the above description it
becomes easy to see the parallels between the colonial situation and pervasive racial
domination. Symbolic manipulation through the act of bestowing independence and
equality to promote inertia in the hearts and minds of the formerly colonized is
eerily similar to the phenomenon of privilege in US created by pacifying minority
groups under the guise of formal equality.
Access to educational opportunity is the frame of reference from which I will
explore this premise. I will compare educational opportunities from two
perspectives: from that of a country with weak state power (The US) and that of a
country with strong state power (Jamaica). Kaplan and Lasswell contend that
dependence on the power of a political doctrine is proportional to the power that a
state holds (Kaplan & Lasswell, 1965). Therefore, in the United States, political
doctrine should be adhered to more to promote stability while in Jamaica, a country
with a more powerful executive branch, there should be less need for dependence
on political doctrine. However, it is observed that this is not case. Although the
United States should depend more on political doctrine, the underrepresented in the
United States can be described as having a general awareness of the lack of
substantive equality plaguing the society. Conversely, Jamaica can almost be
described as a state where the ideology of formal educational opportunity is
absolute. Additionally, Jamaica can be labeled as a country closer to total deference
to the power of education as an agent of social mobility. Anderson and Witter note
the prevailing idea in the region as an “almost fanatical belief in the socially uplifting
role of education” (Brissett, 2011).
5
This paper is to be divided into three parts. The first examines the historical
context behind African-American and Jamaican educational development in attempt
to demonstrate the origins of inequity in these two countries. Next I will attempt to
explore emerging policy and jurisprudence from these two countries in regards to
educational opportunity, including an appraisal of the evolving neoliberal framing of
formal equality of opportunity as negative freedom and demonstrate their frailties.
Finally, I will examine the role of the myth of educational opportunity to inspire
passivity and conformity, with particular significance placed on its role as a
symbolic manipulator. Using Edelman and Fromm I will attempt to trace why these
myths become necessary and pinpoint a reason for their observed effects.
I assert that true inroads to substantive equality can only come with an acute
understanding of the underlying dynamics from the situation on the ground and a
self-deprivation of the desire to conform to societal norms. It is my aim to promote
meaningful discourse in regards to the flaws of the educational system and promote
a divergence from measly talk of equality to substantive acts, with a focus on social
justice. Equality is not derived from the mere absence of obstacles, but requires a
level playing field for the disadvantaged. Only then does individual faculty play the
significant role that many purport.
6
Literature Review
Attitudes towards education are changing in Jamaica and the United States.
The poor in Jamaica and minorities in the US increasingly view education as an
arbiter of social mobility through (Krysan, 2011). In Jamaica there have been
marginal improvements in the educational system for the poor, while in the United
States the educational system for underrepresented minorities is about as fractured
as it was during Jim Crow. Consequently, the trend from a variety of authors is that
the two systems are progressively getting worse. In the present paper I will examine
the political myth of educational opportunity. It is hypothesized that formal
educational opportunity is an example of symbolic manipulation and promotes
passivity and quiescence in the minds of those most lacking in this opportunity. The
following literature review is arranged thematically and will attempt to
demonstrate the hypothesis.
To properly validate my hypothesis it was necessary to provide a brief
historical context of educational development in the United States and Jamaica. To
do this a variety of historical texts were examined, compared and contrasted. The
main texts used to trace Jamaica’s educational history included: “Critical Analysis of
Jamaica’s Emerging Educational Policy: Discourses in the Age of Globalization” by
Brissett (2011), “The Comprehensive High School in Jamaica” by Audrey Lindsay
(2002) and “Education and Society in Jamaica” by Miller (1971). The scope of the
historical context in the United States was narrowed to encompass educational
development in the African-American community, as this was deemed more
significant to the study. The works decoded included: “The Encyclopedia of African-
American Education” by Lomotey (2010), “The Education of Blacks in the South,
1860-1935” by Anderson (2010), “From New Deal to No Deal: No Child Left Behind
and the Devolution of Responsibility for Equal Opportunity” by Kantor & Lowe
(2006) and “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by
Alexander (2010). When these works are analyzed the inclination appears to be that
the history of educational development in these two countries was steeped in
7
inequality despite the unwavering belief in education as the “great equalizer”. An
ideology of racial dominance was so entrenched that a caste system developed
where educational prospects were firmly tied to skin color.
Contemporary educational policy also had to be tackled to further validate
my hypothesis. This was approached from a legislative and jurisprudential
perspective. Again, policies from both countries had to be assessed, compared and
contrasted. Brissett’s work, “Critical Analysis of Jamaica’s Emerging Educational
Policy: Discourses in the Age of Globalization”, Kantor & Lowe’s work, “From New
Deal to No Deal: No Child Left Behind and the Devolution of Responsibility for Equal
Opportunity” and “Exacerbating inequality: the failed promise of the No Child Left
Behind Act” by Hursh (2007) were the main texts used to assess emerging
legislative educational discourse. “Substantive Equality and Equal Opportunity: A
Jurisprudential Appraisal” by Michel Rosenfeld and “From the Myth of Formal
Equality to the Politics of Social Justice: Race and the Legal Attack on Native
Entitlements” by Daum and Ishiwata (2010) were the major works used to assess
educational discourse from a judicial perspective. The Supreme Court Case Missouri
v. Jenkins was also analyzed as a specific example of conservative judicial activism in
the United States. Neoliberalism was observed to play a major role in the evolution
of educational framing. Brissett, Hursh, Kantor and Lowe explore the ways in which
this neoliberal framing of education, through No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and
Jamaica’s emerging educational policies, negatively impact educational opportunity
for the individuals that these policies purport to help. Rosenfeld, Daum and
Ishiwata highlight the phenomenon of conservative legal activism under a new
interpretation of equality that threatens the rights affirmed during the civil rights
era in the United States.
The final evaluation of my hypothesis involved an analysis of the theory
behind the concept of political myth, drawing upon work in the field of political
psychology. “The Fear of Freedom” by Fromm (1942), “The Politics of
Misinformation” by Edelman (2001), “Power and Society: A Framework for Political
Inquiry” by Kaplan & Lasswell (1965) and “The Myth of a Civilizing Mission: British
Colonialism and the Politics of Symbolic Manipulation” by Louis Lindsay (1981)
8
were the main works used to analyze political myth. Fromm’s work, “The Fear of
Freedom” was an attempt to understand the psychological processes that shape an
individual and their interactions in society. Fromm contended that fear of adverse
changes in comfort and potential isolation drives people to conform to the
expectations of others, causing a loss of identity. In Edelman’s book, “The Politics of
Misinformation”, the position that rationality is seldom the reason for political
behavior was explored. Edelman argued that established institutions often maintain
stagnancy, and the change they produce, if any, makes very little substantive
difference in people’s lives. Despite this stagnancy, there is near pervasive
confidence in progress and improvement despite evidence to the contrary. This
confidence, Edelman affirmed, serves to counter discontent in the prevailing
conditions. Lindsay asserted that domination is inseparable from the methods used
by oppressors to encourage the oppressed to accept views of “themselves and their
societies which bear little or no relationship” to the realities in which they live. He
acknowledged the strength of political myths as devices that disguise social
inequalities and injustices through an analysis of British Imperialism.
The main data collection method used to complete this analysis was a
decoding of texts and other policy documents. I used various databanks to obtain
educational statistics from Jamaica. The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN)
through the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC), the Economic and Social
Survey Jamaica (ESSJ), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Policy
Documents from the Jamaica’s Ministry of Education were key sources of Jamaican
educational statistics. The FrameWorks Institute and The National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) were the main databanks used to obtain US
educational statistics. The data from the two sets of sources illustrate gradual
improvement in educational achievement for Jamaica’s working class, while in the
US there is little change in the achievement gap between African-Americans, Latinos
and whites in the last decade. Some of the texts used to obtain statistics on
segregation US were from “Choosing Segregation: Racial Imbalance in American
Public Schools” by Logan (2002) and “Segregated Schools and Student Achievement:
The Relationship Between Same Culture Schools and Achievement of American and
9
Latino Students” by Lawrence (2006). The data suggests that segregation has
increased to levels similar to those in the early 1970’s. Data on changing racial
attitudes in US society was obtained through decoding results from an updated
survey used in Schuman’s seminal work, “Racial Attitudes: Trends and
Interpretations”. These statistics indicate decreasing favorability to racial
preferences by both African-Americans and Whites.
Future research should be done in Jamaica to directly illustrate, the
correlation between socio-economic status and educational achievement. Rather,
gender in many instances, was the only highlighted subgroup of interest despite the
massive economic disparity present between the best schools and the worst schools
in the island. This research should be predicated in a similar way to the US division
of educational statistics into subgroups such as race, gender and school district by
the NAEP. Future research should also be done on people’s perceptions of Jamaica’s
education system. When this review of the literature is viewed holistically, it can be
inferred that there is a link between dominant racial attitudes and the presence or
absence of substantive rights. Views that one would assume to be based on reason
may or may not be based on it and could be based on subtle attempts to dominate.
Substantive opportunity is few and far in between in these two educational systems
that claim to revel in it.
10
Theoretical Framework
Historical Context: Education from 1655-1990
To validate my hypothesis I will demonstrate the influence that race and
socio-economic class has on educational opportunity in the United States and
Jamaica. I assert that the relationship between marginalized groups and educational
institutions is one defined by subversion of the poor and elevation of the elite. This
is despite the misguided confidence of both majorities and minorities alike, that
these public institutions are moving to become more progressive, innovative and
inclusive. A proper exploration of this hypothesis requires a historical assessment,
one that does not solely view the effects of colonialism or racial prejudice as
confined to the periods of British Imperialism or Jim Crow, but assesses the impact
of these various institutions as pervasive and cross-generational. The purpose of
this section is to illustrate the origins of educational policy in the two countries and
to identify the roots of the structural inequalities present.
Brissett (2011) describes postcolonial theory in part as critical analysis that
“primarily interrogates the colonial experience of the past but also its continuing
contemporary effect” (pp. xvii). This approach will also be taken to evaluate the
continuing impact of race on the US educational system. Ladson-Billings & Tate
(1995) argue that a discussion of Critical Race Theory in Education should include
the persistent significance of race as a determinate of inequity; the importance of
property rights in the US and the “intersection of race [that] creates an analytic tool
through which we can understand social (and consequently, school) inequity” (pp.
47).
Although the developments of the two educational systems differ, the
framework that links them is the promotion of quiescence and passivity in
underrepresent groups through continuing symbolic manipulation. Lindsay (2013)
defines passivity as acceptance or tolerance of prevailing views that support the
status quo with very little (or no) critical thought (Telephone interview). In other
11
words, passivity can manifest itself in one of two ways; as apathy and resignation to
one’s station in life through a belief that the forces at be in society are too strong to
oppose, or as the endorsement of prevailing societal norms that may be contrary to
one’s interest. In tracing this phenomenon’s origins in both societies, slavery
appears to be a suitable point of convergence.
After the overthrow of the Spanish in 1655, Britain became the rulers of the
Jamaica. However, during their time on the island, the Spanish successfully enslaved
and subsequently exterminated the indigenous Indian population. The Taino
through overwork, exposure to smallpox, mass suicide and infanticide were
completely eradicated. The Spanish later imported European indentured laborers
and indentured and enslaved Africans. These groups were treated terribly, under
very similar conditions. The Taino genocide increased necessity for a cheap labor
force. This prompted reduced importation of English indentured servants in
preference of African chattel slaves. To maintain control the Spanish deliberately
limited expression of any African cultural or social conventions in the island.
Because this total repression by the slave masters, all institutions on the island
became based on Spanish and subsequently British models. This set the foundations
for the plantation system which was successfully integrated by the British upon
their arrival.
The plantation system became one of the most perverse examples of British
rule. Human beings owned others with the sole rationalization that skin shade was
representative of inherent superiority or inferiority. Increasing amounts of children
of lighter shades were born as a result of rapes by White slave masters and soon
skin complexion became an “arbiter of social status and roles on the plantation”
(Brissett, 2011). A social hierarchy based on skin color, a pigmentocracy was born.
Mlller (1971) notes Smith (1961) describing “the Jamaican society as plural, having
three distinct social sections: White, Brown [mixed race] and Black”. Brissett (2011)
and Lindsay (2002) trace the origins of Jamaica’s educational development to this
plantation system.
Education for African-Americans can be traced to a similar racial caste
system. The development of the racial caste system in the United States had similar
12
origins through chattel slavery and the extermination of an indigenous Indian
population. During the colonial period many whites and blacks were indentured and
treated dreadfully by bondsmen (Alexander, 2010, pp.). There was an increasing
amount of enslaved Africans within this period. As American Indians decreased in
number, available land and the demand for labor on plantations increased.
Plantation owners began to view the relatively powerless and isolated Africans as
ideal slaves, especially after Bacon’s rebellion in 1675 (Alexander, 2010, pp.) 2.
“In an effort to protect their superior status and economic position, the planters
shifted their strategy for maintaining dominance. They abandoned their heavy
reliance on indentured servants in favor of the importation of more black slaves.
Instead of importing English-speaking slaves from the West Indies, who were more
likely to be familiar with European language and culture, many more slaves were
shipped directly from Africa. These slaves would be far easier to control and far less
likely to form alliances with poor whites.” (Alexander, 2010, pp. 3)
By the 1770’s, the racial caste system was born, justified and protected by a
colorblind constitution “based on the ideals of equality, liberty and justice for all”
(Alexander, 2010).
Educating the black population was not on the agenda for the white majority
in much of the country. The south especially, where educating even free African-
Americans was made illegal in order to the preserve the status quo. Numerous slave
codes in the 1820’s and 1830’s forbade teaching enslaved Africans to read and write
(Lomotey, 2009). Despite these obstacles, many religious-based organizations were
among the first to provide education to free African-Americans and the enslaved
2
“Nathaniel Bacon was a white property owner in Jamestown, Virginia, who managed to unite slaves,
indentured servants, and poor whites in a revolutionary effort to overthrow the planter elite.
Although slaves clearly occupied the lowest position in the social hierarchy and suffered the most
under the plantation system, the condition of indentured whites was barely better, and the majority
of free whites lived in extreme poverty…Varying accounts of Bacon's rebellion abound, but the basic
facts are these: Bacon developed plans in 1675 to seize Native American lands in order to acquire
more property for himself and others and nullify the threat of Indian raids. When the planter elite in
Virginia refused to provide militia support for his scheme, Bacon retaliated, leading an attack on the
elite, their homes, and their property. He openly condemned the rich for their oppression of the poor
and inspired an alliance of white and black bond laborers, as well as slaves, who demanded an end to
their servitude. Word of Bacon's Rebellion spread far and wide, and several more uprisings of a
similar type followed. In an effort to protect their superior status and economic position, the planters
shifted their strategy for maintaining dominance. They abandoned their heavy reliance on
indentured servants in favor of the importation of more black slaves. Instead of importing English-
speaking slaves from the West Indies, who were more likely to be familiar with European language
and culture, many more slaves were shipped directly from Africa. These slaves would be far easier to
control and far less likely to form alliances with poor whites.” (Alexander, 2010, pp. 14)
13
alike. Sabbath schools, black theological seminaries, the American Baptist Home
Mission Society, Independent Baptist Schools, Methodist Episcopal Churches and the
Quakers, were some such religious organizations that attempted to help African-
Americans gain an education (Lomotey, 2009). After the Civil War, African-
American churches were usually the first meaningful chance African Americans had
of obtaining tertiary education. Morehouse, Spelman College and other colleges
sprung from these sites. Northern churches and philanthropists aided the newly
free by sending missionaries and teachers. The American Baptist Home Mission
Society’s missionaries played a crucial role, increasing African American Literacy
from 10% in 1865 to 70% by 1910. For many white altruists however, involvement
was a mixture of genuine “brotherhood-sisterhood, guilt, and paternalistic-
materialistic White supremacist racism” (Lomotey, 2009)
Religious groups played a similarly significant role in the education of Afro-
Jamaicans within the colonial system. Poor white overseers who could not afford to
educate their children in England established schools in Jamaica. However, the
enslaved only began to receive education after the arrival of various missionary
groups on the island, who in attempts to convert them to Christianity came to the
realization that the task would be made difficult without providing some education.
Slave owning elites warmed up to Christian education after recognizing the
inefficiency of physical restraint and punishment in creating a docile slave
population (Brissett, 2011), (Lindsay, 2002).
The Negro Educational Fund created by the British Government in 1835
finally extended formal education to non-whites in the island. This was a
momentous undertaking, meant to increase the efficacy of the newly freed after the
Abolition of Slavery Act in 1834 (Brissett, 2011). However, after secondary
education was introduced, it was only made accessible to a very small White and
Brown population who could not afford to send their children to England. These
groups, upon completion of their secondary education, became administrators in
the civil service while graduates of elementary education worked in unskilled
capacities (Brissett, 2011), (Lindsay, 2002). Jamaica, as was the case with many non-
Hispanic Caribbean countries, developed a three-tier variant of race relations
14
(white, brown, black) as opposed to the two-tier model demonstrated in North
America and most Spanish colonies (Hoetnik, 1967). These patterns reinforced class
divisions that existed since slavery (Lindsay, 2002, pp. 283). In Jamaica this was
used as a means to justify pervasive and institutionalized inequality.
The educational system became a means of perpetuating class reproduction
in the island. In the Crown Colony Period (1865-1944) mainly elementary,
vocational and agricultural education was provided free for blacks in Jamaica
(Lindsay, 2002, pp. 283). Lindsay (2002) notes that during this period, affluent
Whites, Jews and Browns attended fee-paying preparatory schools. This led them on
a career track with the promise of professional careers. After the Crown Colony
period ended these classes did their utmost to maintain the system of inequality.
Strategies such as unfair resource allocation by the Ministry of Finance and
paperwork inefficiency by civil servants preserved the status quo. The rising brown
and black middle class also desired “exclusive education” so their children could
achieve upward social mobility. These parents and their children eventually joined
the elite in voicing dissent at the notion of a more equitable schooling system in
Jamaica (Lindsay, 2002, pp. 294). Here one observes some of the first seeds of
passivity sown in Jamaica’s educational system.
Anderson (2010) highlights the “deep-seated desire” that African-Americans
had to regulate and maintain schools for themselves and their children immediately
after emancipation (pp. 5). He contends that African-American ex-slaves had a
“strong-belief in the desirability of learning to read and write”. They expressed this
belief in the value of education through demands for universal education. Anderson
notes W. E. B. DuBois as remarking: “Public education for all at public expense was,
in the South, a Negro idea.” Although historical evidence frames early African-
American education to “Yankee benevolence or federal largess” (pp. 9), many black
schools in the early 1860’s were established and supported largely through the
efforts of African-Americans. The prevailing opinion at the time by the newly freed
was that “literacy and formal education [was a] means to liberation and freedom”
(Anderson, 2010).
15
Jim Crow in the United States started to rear its ugly head during
reconstruction with legal enforcement beginning in the late 19 th century. It made
legal racial ostracism which Lomotey (2010) notes, “extended to churches, schools,
housing, jobs and eating and drinking establishments”. This culminated with the
1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which crafted the separate but
equal doctrine justifying racially segregated education facilities among others.
States in the South authorized segregated education for African-Americans. In the
“Separate but equal” doctrine, the separate was emphasized more than the equal.
African-Americans were denied equal opportunities in elementary, secondary and
higher education institutions. These schools also received much less funding and
attention by states.
“African American children were subjected to overcrowded classrooms, inadequate
facilities, shorter school hours and calendars, unequal curricular resources, and
poor physical recreational facilities. Moreover, African Americans were required to
support public schools with their taxes while their children received less than their
share of tax revenue collected for the education of all children. This practice often
resulted in the double taxation of African Americans, who raised additional funds to
establish and support educational systems for their children.” (Lomotey, 2010, pp.
366)
Post reconstruction, many educators such as G. M. Elliot and observers such as

Richard R. Wright noted that the lives of African-Americans could not be fought for
or protected by the government. Lomotey (2010) states that Wright’s opinion at the
time was that African-American civil rights could only be safeguarded through
education.
By the 1940’s it appeared that the welfare policies commonly practiced in
Western Europe would finally be implemented in the United States, marking a
much-needed upswing in the opportunities provided to African Americans. This
focus all but disappeared, to be replaced by increased emphasis on education. The
expectation was that these policies would build human capital through job training.
Instead of direct government intervention in the lives of the disadvantaged, the idea
was that the underrepresented would be able to directly participate in the market
without obstacles (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 476). The problem with this
expectation was that it was completely divorced from the realities on the ground.
Due to the inferior public education system for African-Americans, discrimination
16
on the part of potential employers and pervasive poverty among the vast majority of
the African-American community (at some estimates over 80% in 1940) made the
prospects for success through education slim at best. This refocusing of domestic
policy-making on education rather than directly tackling matters of inequity
climaxed in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which declared
segregation as unconstitutional (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 477).
Kantor & Lowe assert that the belief in education as the means of remedying
inequities was a very old one in the United States yet education only played a minor
role in addressing structural inequalities. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 and the 1964 Civil Rights Act attempted to remedy
the inequalities present in education by providing financial assistance to schools
that “served low income children”. Unfortunately, this model was quite compatible
with segregated institutions. As Title I’s ties to federal education weakened, popular
opinion changed to Title I substituting rather than complementing desegregation
(Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 479).
Ironically, efforts to improve educational opportunity replaced civil rights
social welfare efforts at the end of the civil rights era. Post Missouri v. Jenkins3, white
flight and suburbanization functionally resegregated most big-city school systems
and led to the current problems with racial diversity present in many urban schools
in America.
“Since White flight and suburbanization left so few White students in most big-city
school systems, this decision effectively ended the prospect for comprehensive
urban desegregation. Urban desegregation plans subsequently focused instead on
voluntary urban-suburban transfers and magnet programs designed to hold White
students in the city or attract them from the suburbs…In addition, in a series of
decisions in the early 1990s, the Court began to release formerly segregated
districts from legal supervision, permitting them to return to neighborhood
configurations. One result is that schools now are as racially segregated as they have
been at any time since 1972” (Kantor & Lowe, pp. 481)
Jamaican educational institutions unfortunately became framed as a great

equalizer as well. In Jamaica, colonial education was structured in a way that served
the metropole through widening already large social disparities based on race and
3
Missouri v. Jenkins (1990) is one of the Supreme Court decisions in the 1990’s that functionally
allowed resegregation. The premise was that the vestiges of legal segregation had ended 36 years
post-Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
17
socio-economic class. As such, one of the aims of independent Jamaica after 1962
was to realign the social imbalances created as a result of the colonial system.
Educational access was one of the main ways the government sought to remedy past
inequalities in the former colony. The nation-state was instrumental in achieving
this goal and achieved great successes. Nevertheless, the vestiges of elitism and
colorism obstructed the black working class from achieving success.
“In the first 15 years of independence, universal access to primary education was
achieved; more than 80% of children were enrolled at lower secondary level and
almost 60% at the upper level. It is also significant that the government absorbed
the operating costs of almost all high schools, which allowed children of the working
class, who could pass the secondary screening exam (called common entrance), to
have access to traditionally elite high schools. It should be kept in mind, however,
that this common entrance exam, though designed to facilitate opportunities for the
poor, often served as a kind of gatekeeper for elitism since success in it was often a
function of pre-existing privilege… Students who “failed” and did not sit for the
common entrance exam flowed into these “second class” schools. This of course was
itself a reflection of the multiple track educational system which had its origins in
colonialism and continued by local policy elites. So even though there were strides
made in educational policy in postcolonial Jamaica, the education policy change still
reflected some colonial approaches.” (Brissett, 2011, pp. 24-25)
Lindsay (2002) notes that the Kendel Report of 1943 proposed extending secondary
access for all, by placing all students in suitable secondary schools but Government
policies, in particular the common entrance exam, served to elevate only high-
scoring students in the traditional secondary institutions 4.
Educational diversification increased into the 1960’s and 1970’s and many
specialized schools were created including: technical colleges, nursing schools,
agricultural colleges, schools of visual and performing art and a free tertiary
educational institution (Brissett, 2011). However, the significant inroads made by
the government became obstructed by forced austerity because of the International
Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment Policies. During the late 1970’s and 1980’s
the government tightened educational budgets causing a concurrent decrease in
education quality. “Second Class” All-Age, Junior Secondary or Upgraded Secondary
4
These are the top secondary schools in Jamaica, many of which were established around the
introduction of secondary schools on the island. Some such schools are Jamaica College, Munro and
Wolmers to name a few. For the purposes of this study Non-traditional schools that were preparatory
secondary schools pre-independence such as Campion College and Immaculate Conception High
School will be noted as traditional high schools. These schools all offered the classic education typical
of the British Grammar School.
18
Schools were created in an attempt to accommodate the increasing numbers of
students of secondary school age (Brissett, 2011, pp. 26). In the 1990’s the
government in an attempt to remedy the shortfalls in the system abolished the
common entrance examination and upgraded these “second class schools”.
The educational system was still a system of exclusion, “divided along class
lines, with middle and upper class students leaving grade 6 of the preparatory
schools for the academic high schools, while the majority from the primary schools
completed their education in All-Age, Junior Secondary or New Secondary Schools”
(Lindsay, 2002, pp. 285). Brissett cites Hicking-Hudson’s (2004) observation that
although there were ‘impulses’ towards substantive change in the educational
system during the era of decolonization the process only “modified rather than
erased embedded patterns of disadvantage” (pp. 27).
Similarly to African-Americans post-emancipation, a good education in
Jamaica became universally accepted as an absolute way of gaining social mobility.
This was despite the fact that the system only set up a small few with the
opportunity to obtain such an education. In fact, observed by Brissett (2011),
education is seen as “one of the most important agencies of cultural assimilation and
social mobility that came under local control at independence”.
“The importance of education can be seen in the fact that it was legitimately
accepted by others of lower status as a form of authority and power even when
other “values,” such as color, were being questioned and challenged in the
Caribbean. In response to the clamor for education as a potential social equalizer,
Jamaica, since its independence in 1960s, has expanded educational provision,
raising primary school enrollment from 72% in 1943 to 98% in 1987 (Brissett,
2011, pp. 46).”
Even when faced with the shortfalls of reinforcing pre-existing privilege, education
in the island was generally framed as a public good. Educational access therefore
was not limited to one’s ability to pay, which Brissett (2011) notes, was a least
better than most institutions marked by economic discrimination (pp. 28-29).
Comparatively, Jamaica and the United States have an incredibly similar past
built on the genocide of indigenous Indians and enslavement of Africans. A racial
caste system developed as a vestige of the plantation system in both countries. The
US had a two-tier model, while Jamaica had a three-tier model, with mixed race
19
individuals occupying the middle spot. This can be interpreted as a modification of
the US model out of necessity. The Jamaican white population was too small to
dominate the vastly larger Afro-Jamaican population so it became vital to assimilate
the “brown” mixed race population into a similar gatekeeping role.
Educational policy in these extremely racial societies has evolved to preserve
existing power structures. Educational institutions were not developed to fully
integrate Afro-Jamaicans and African-Americans. The ideology of racial superiority
was too deeply entrenched within the dominant groups in society to allow
meaningful equality of opportunity to be extended. Over time however, education
became accessible to Afro-Jamaicans and African-Americans but mostly as a
substitute for directly tackling present socio-economic disparities. Education for
both African-Americans and Afro-Jamaicans became viewed as an absolute means of
attaining upward social mobility. Unfortunately, in many cases education functioned
to reinforce existing privilege.
Emerging Educational Policy in the present

The present context of education in Jamaica and the United States is
markedly different than in the past. Jamaica has begun to ideologically frame
education as an extension of neo-liberalism. While in US, although No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) promises increased educational opportunity as a stand-in for Title I
of the ESEA, it regrettably also promotes practices that reduce the educational
attainment of African-American children. It currently is the only the “federal policy
meant to address wider social inequities” (Kantor & Lowe, 2010 pp. 475), except
perhaps the Affordable Care Act. Conservative legal activists in an attempt to scale
back substantive educational opportunity for minorities are currently using
evolving doctrines of equality under neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has slowly crept
into the framing of educational policy in Jamaica and has completely engulfed it in
the United States.
20
Brissett (2011) defines framing as “a process whereby views of reality are
imposed on others sometimes through debate and persuasion, but also through
manipulation and the exercise of power” (pp. 54). I contend that this emergent
framing of education only serves to deepen socio-economic and racial inequality and
is another example of how the assurance of educational opportunity is fed as
political myth to the subjugated. The promises of educational opportunity have
fallen on deaf ears, not because these citizens are unwilling to take up the chances
afforded to them, but because many have not been provided with the socio-
economic clout to do so. Meaningful educational opportunity continues to be a
function of preexisting privilege. To demonstrate this, I will explore the current
ideological framing of educational policy and jurisprudence in the US and Jamaica.
The manner taken to write this portion of the paper is in many ways inspired
by “A critical analysis of Jamaica’s emerging educational policy in the age of
Globalization” by Brissett (2011). I drew significantly from the way in which the
work was organized thematically. He used this approach to argue that as Jamaica’s
approach to education changes from that of a welfare state to neoliberalism, the
social disparities present in the system become exacerbated. He noted that the
educational frame has now changed to welcome notions of decentralized
government and education as investment rather than centralized government and
education as a social good. Brissett explained that decentralized government serves
perpetuate disempowerment by creating a lack of accountability. Education as
investment on the other hand, he continued, predicates educational opportunity by
one’s ability to pay, encouraging society to judge individual worth by material
wealth.
The key feature of Brissett’s work is its postcolonial approach. He noted that
the impacts of colonialism are often viewed as confined to a single moment in time,
but postcolonialism attempts to widen the narrative from this Eurocentric
perspective, to one where the impacts are viewed as temporal rather than isolated.
In this study I will draw upon this discussion, using Postcolonial theory to analyze
the history behind the current educational patterns in Jamaica. Similarly, I will use
21
Critical Race Theory to present a contemporary argument for racial correlations
with educational opportunity in the United States.
The main work used is “From New Deal to No Deal” by Kantor and Lowe
(2010). In this article, Kantor and Lowe mapped the evolution of education policy
reform since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to George W. Bush’s No Child Left
Behind (NCLB). The article highlighted the changes made in federal government
investment in education as a public good and how NCLB’s potential to deliver on
promises of improved academic achievement is hindered by a of lack the social and
economic forces that support success. They concluded that although NCLB increases
the relevance of education by the federal government, it erodes political support for
an extensive view of public social provision.
Building from this approach to explain real situations are two works that
attempt to refute the significance of formal equality of opportunity in providing
increasing prospects; “Substantive Equality and Equal Opportunity: A
Jurisprudential Appraisal” by Michel Rosenfeld (1986) and “From the Myth of
Formal Equality to the Politics of Social Justice: Race and the Legal Attack on Native
Entitlements” by Daum & Ishiwata. In the former article, Rosenfeld asserted that the
concept of equality of opportunity must rely on a theory of substantive equality. To
do this, Rosenfeld (1986) critiqued the concept of formal equality of opportunity as
‘negative freedom’. In the latter article Daum and Ishiwata (2010) suggested that
there should be a questioning of increasing legal activism “predicated on appeals for
equal rights”. They argued that this might be the only solution to the problems that
Native Americans face in the United States as they are increasingly under attacks
from conservative activists. The article assessed the logic behind this new legal
doctrine but in the context of Native American Substantive Equality. Daum and
Ishiwata (2010) explained that under the guise of “an alternate conception of
equality that emphasizes neutrality and prohibits the consideration of race in public
policy”, these conservative activists justified the legal dismantlement of rights
affirmed during the civil rights era.
22
No Child Left Behind
No Child Left Behind was originally a divisive undertaking but soon achieved
near unanimous support from both political parties and most school
superintendents (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 474). Unfortunately the legislation had
massive flaws in its organizational structure. These included most notably, the
stigmatization of schools attended by the poor. Kantor and Lowe (2010) identify
neoliberal principles for this phenomenon, such as absence of the need for public
responsibility and anti-statism. Which they conclude, will produce greater
incentives for “public disinvestment in education of the poor and for privatizing
schools in Urban America” (pp. 475).
Dee & Jacob (2011) note that NCLB was actually legislated as a
reauthorization of the historic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 5.
NCLB increased the scale of the federal governments role in education by mandating
the school accountability systems that were appropriate to all state public schools.
NCLB requires testing of the public school cohort in grades 3 through 8 in reading
and mathematics with an additional test in the period between 10 th and 12th grade.
NCLB dismisses the notion that poverty or race produces culture deficits that
put African-Americans and Latinos at a disadvantage. As a result, responsibility is
disproportionately placed on schools. Although this seems to encourage school
improvement by holding all schools to the same standards, some argue that
performance requirements that penalize underperforming schools are “likely to
exacerbate educational inequality by narrowing the scope of the curriculum in low-
income schools with large concentrations of students of color” (Kantor & Lowe,
2010, pp. 483). Indeed many examples of successes through narrow instruction are
misconceptions and often scripted (Hursh, 2007). The strict adherence to testing
requirements many argue, have led schools to narrow their curriculum and due to
5
“The ESEA, which was first enacted in 1965 along with other “Great Society” initiatives and previously
reauthorized in 1994, introduced Title I, the Federal government’s signature program for targeting financial
assistance to schools and districts serving high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students.
NCLB dramatically expanded the scope and scale of this Federal legislation by requiring that states
introduce school-accountability systems that applied to all public schools and students in the state” (Dee &
Jacob, 2011).
23
high stakes accountability, has increased focus on narrow instructional goals
(Kantor & Lowe, 2010), (Dee & Jacob, 2011), (Hursh, 2007), (Darling-Hammond,
2007).
“More than 70 percent of the nation’s school districts have responded to the testing
requirements of NCLB by reducing instructional time in history, music, and the arts
in order to open up more time for instruction in reading and math, with the greatest
reductions occurring in high-poverty districts….Narrow instructional goals and
targeting those nearest the threshold in an effort to get off probation, while high
performing schools worked to balance instruction and to improve the learning
environment for all students. Such divergent responses are, in turn, likely to
reproduce the unequal distribution of qualified teachers, since pinched curricula
and pedagogy tend to drive out the strongest, most creative teachers — exactly the
opposite result of what NCLB purports to do in calling for a “highly qualified
teacher” in every classroom." (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 484)
Some scholars also suggest that such deference to high stakes testing, in some very
extreme cases, encourages educators to intentionally manipulate test scores (Dee &
Jacob, 2011).
Furthermore, the NCLB classification of students by race, gender, economic
disadvantage, etc. increases the likelihood that improving schools with many
minorities will be stigmatized since each subgroup is required to meet the same test
score standard (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 485). Darling-Hammond (2007) notes
that these problems get worse the more diverse the school. She presents the
findings of Packer (2004) that suggests that in diverse schools there can be more
than 30 different targets plus ‘catch 22’ laws for English language learners. As a
result, 99% of California schools are expected to fail by preexisting standards.
Unfortunately this creates a domino effect where one could imagine that a school
would avoid facilitating minority students in fear of being labeled as failing. This is
the becoming the norm as schools meeting NCLB requirements are less likely to
enroll students from “failing” schools, in fear that their test score aggregates will
also decrease (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 486).
NCLB’s effects on minority students do not end there. Hursh (2007) notes
that rather than encouraging more students to do well, NCLB pressures schools to
coerce academically weaker students out of school before taking the required
examinations. In 1984 the Texas Legislature changed the state wide testing program
24
to make graduation contingent on passing. In 1994 these changes were fully
implemented under the auspices of then Governor George W. Bush and served as a
precursor for NCLB. Hursh (2007) highlights that urban minority students in Texas
were coincidentally more likely to repeat in ninth grade, the year before the
required Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) exam was given. In Texas the
students who repeat are more likely to drop out (pp. 301).
“Haney (2000), in his study of the Texas education reforms, concludes that for the
year 1996–97, 17.8% of students were being retained in ninth grade (24.2% of
African-American and 25.9% of Hispanic students) and that only 57.57% of African-
American and 52.11% of Hispanic ninth-grade students were in twelfth grade four
years later… Eventually critics claimed that the dropout rate was covered up and
research has revealed the rate to be much higher. Robert Kimball, assistant principal
at one of the Houston high schools, raised questions when his school amazingly
reported no dropouts even though their freshman class of 1000 dwindled to 300
by the senior year. A subsequent state investigation into 16 high schools revealed
that of 5000 students who left school, 2999 students should have been reported as
dropouts and were not (Winerip, 2003b). Significantly, Kimball adds, ‘Almost all of
the students that were being pushed out were at-risk students and minorities’”
(Hursh, 2007, pp. 302)
The problem from this legislation is not only linked to the test score gap.
Schools become actively construed as “in need of improvement”, increasing the view
that these schools do not deserve public investment. This reduces the push for
public responsibility in education and other areas of social life (Kantor & Lowe,
2011). Ironically by increasing the pressure on schools to perform at a specific
standard, the same minority students that NCLB was drafted to assist has ended up
failing them. The thirty to forty point test gap in math and reading persists, despite
the promises made by NCLB.
Black and White Student Performance in Reading during 8th Grade
White Black
Year Jurisdiction Average Scale Score Average Scale Score
201 National 231 205
1
9
25
7
5
3
2
0
0
8
8
4
2
Adapted From: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (2013)
Black and White Student Performance in Mathematics during 8 th Grade
White Black
Year Jurisdiction Average Scale Score Average Scale Score

1
9
7
5
3
26
0
0
8
8
4
Adapted From: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (2013)
NCLB isolates educational discussions from a greater social narrative. It

reproduces notions that schools are the solutions to social and economic inequality,
without any exploration into the fact that these inequalities shape and are shaped by
educational policy. It is my view that the only way meaningful educational
opportunity can be provided to African-American children is through targeted
efforts that attempt to attack the specific problems affecting the community in a
holistic way. Schools cannot be looked at as the sole arbiter of educational
attainment – other factors are involved. Likewise, a child’s race, gender or ethnicity
should not be identified as the sole reason for achievement or lack thereof.
Educational opportunity is both caused by, and a result of many socio-economic
factors. Consequentially, shortsighted policies such as NCLB are only “more likely to
deepen race and class inequalities” reducing educational opportunity for African-
Americans and other at risk minorities (Kantor & Lowe, 2010, pp. 494).
Increasing Educational Neo-liberalism in Jamaica

The conversation surrounding globalization is immersed with neoliberalism
as its central ideology. The predominant notion is that the world should be
organized and governed through a neoliberal framework. Through the Bretton
27
Wood Institutions6, this interpretation of social and economic policy is being forced
among developing countries. Unfortunately, education is among the social policies
gradually framed in this way. Brissett (2011) notes that the educational system is
being framed as being “outdated, inflexible, and inefficient in delivering the
requisite knowledge to participate in a globalized world”. This critique has primarily
justified efforts to coerce educational reform in line with the dominant ideology (pp.
34).
Brissett (2011) presents the Harvey (2005) definition of neoliberalism as “a
theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well being can best
be advanced by liberating individual freedoms and skills within an institutional
framework characterized by strong property rights, free markets, and free trade”
(pp. 31). Neoliberalism advances the claim that socio-economic reform through the
welfare state is “wasteful, inefficient, unaccountable, paternalistic and does not
provide humans with sufficient incentive to self-actualize” (pp. 34). It is the aim of
this portion of the paper to elaborate on the how this ideology has influenced
educational opportunity in the Jamaica. I will use emerging educational framing to
discuss neoliberalism in the country.
Decentralization began in the 1970’s and 1980’s, to spread out the densely
located “hierarchical government structures and bureaucracies”. This became a
major government objective in this period. As a result, efforts to branch off central
government were framed as strengthening local administration by “establishing
field offices of national departments and transferring authority to local staff”
(Brissett, 2011, pp. 86). With the IMF and World Bank gaining leverage on the island
through austerity programs, “forced decentralization… [while] moving towards [a]
greater level of power sharing” became the encouraged alternative to the
6
“The Bretton Woods system is commonly understood to refer to the international monetary regime
that prevailed from the end of World War II until the early 1970s. Taking its name from the site of the
1944 conference that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the Bretton
Woods system was history's first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern
currency relations among sovereign states. In principle, the regime was designed to combine binding
legal obligations with multilateral decision-making conducted through an international organization,
the IMF, endowed with limited supranational authority. In practice the initial scheme, as well as its
subsequent development and ultimate demise, were directly dependent on the preferences and
policies of its most powerful member, the United States.” (Cohen, pp. 95, 2002)
28
centralized models that the government had in its institutions. Brissett suggests that
presently, the government is integrating both approaches – “becoming overseers
rather than providers”, in an attempt to solve problems through privatization and
deregulation.
One argument that the government has used to frame this new ideology is
that centralized policy approaches leads to unaccountability and amateurish
behavior on the part of people operating lower within the structure. Brissett notes
former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson’s comments that centralization has created “an
over-emphasis on input” (pp. 62). But what has changed? The crux of the issue is the
idea that education in Jamaica is considered a public good. This was an idea
explored earlier in this paper. Brissett (2011) notes that education only becomes
seen as a public good when it becomes more expensive to exclude someone from it
or when the intention of the provider is for it to be available to all regardless of
capacity to pay. He notes that this definition implies a degree of entitlement. In this
regard, education of a “reasonable quality” ought to be funded in a way that reifies
this ideology (pp. 70).
“Jamaica has consistently been in the group of countries within Latin America and
the Caribbean, committing more than five per cent of GNP” (Hansard, March 13,
2001, p. 383). He continues: “To give you some comparative figures: in 1980 out of
twenty four (24) countries assessed, Jamaica was at 7.2% and ranked 3 behind Cuba
and Costa Rica. In 1990, at 4% we were 4 out of 27 countries assessed...In 1996
Jamaica headed the list of twenty six countries at 7.5% ahead of Cuba, Costa Rica
and Panama. Figures for the year 98/99 place us at 7.3% of GDP and 99/2000 at
6.7%.” (pp. 71, Brissett, 2011, quoting The Most Honorable P.J. Patterson)
Consequently, the government wants to decrease allocations to education in its

budget. This suggests the underlying reason for wanting to change discourse on
education. Citing Budget discussions in parliament in 2005, Brissett notes the Task
Force Report (2004) that highlighted justifications for decreasing resource
allocation.
“a. Some parents are in a position to fund a significant portion of the cost of their
children’s education. This is evidenced by the level of expenditure on “extra lessons”
(over $7,500 [USD$100] per household based on the Survey of Living Conditions),
and by the fact that Private Preparatory School fees are in excess of $60,000 per
annum... A policy of no fees benefits only the students who are enrolled. For
qualified students who cannot enroll because there are not enough seats to
accommodate them, a no-fees policy is distinctly not student based. A consequence
of having no fees may be that the Government can fund fewer spaces... It is obvious
29
that even by the most conservative estimates, the requirements of the system are
vastly greater than what Government alone can reasonably be expected to fund.”
(Brissett, 2011, pp. 72 citing Task Force 2004)
Undoubtedly, the current IMF agreement has a significant part to play in

government attempts to spend less on education. As highlighted in the IMF Country
Report No. 13/126, the Jamaican Government is attempting to make educational
spending “more efficient”. The Ministry of Education plans to do so by freezing
teaching hires, increasing school autonomy and increasing the role of the private
sector in education investment (pp. 7, pp. 75). As such, framing education in this
way is more digestible to a public accustomed to a strong welfare state.
Jamaica is currently following in a long line of countries with neoliberal
reform approaches that tend to quantify educational benefits. Education is
increasingly seen as an individual good. Unfortunately the costs associated with
meaningful educational opportunity are now being framed as something that should
be incurred only by those groups who benefit (Brissett, 2011, pp. 109). The
government is for the first time, asserting that the return on educational investment
is greater for the private individual than the greater society, contrasting the model
that first prompted government inroads in education. Brissett (2011) highlights
Psacharpolous who asserts, “Once education is treated as an investment, the
immediate natural question is what is the profitability of other alternatives?” (pp.
156). Students are being treated as consumers with the assumption of automatic
empowerment due to their role as customers. This assumption is false.
“[T]his is indeed a very dangerous and deeply flawed assumption, generally, but
especially in the educational setting in a society like Jamaica which is historically
rooted in inequality. This is because education is not a luxury commodity that only
interested parties of similar means will voluntarily purchase. Rather, education is a
basic good which every citizen is expected to acquire to shape their life chances and,
therefore, as is the case in Jamaica, the range of relative wealth of citizens seeking
education will be quite wide…The danger becomes quite obvious because of the
increased likelihood that the value of the customer (citizen) is then based on the
individual’s economic worth, while at the same time the capacity of the state to
provide some equalization is diminished. This merely serves to perpetuate or
further legitimize a system of structural advantage for some and exclusion for
others: (Brissett, 2011, pp. 157-158)
Discrimination based on one’s socio-economic status will increase as education

becomes commoditized. Working class Jamaicans are steadily becoming more
30
stigmatized as middle and upper-class customers start to judge them based on mere
“economic worth” (Brissett, 2011). Schools may also determine that it saves money
for them not to invest in students from lower income households because they are
generally underprepared. The system then creates a feedback mechanism that fails
students without means, a type of class reproduction very similar to that observed
during the colonial period on the island. Educational opportunity as a result, begins
to decrease for these poorer groups because of a lack of ability to pay, compounded
by other precursors for discrimination such as gender, race and skin-pigment.
“Students in ‘non-traditional’ high schools (those schools populated by students
from the poorest quintile), 89% failed English Language, in comparison to
traditional high schools (which the more privileged attend) where 37% failed the
same subject. Further, 96% of students in “non-traditional” high schools failed math,
while in comparison, 59% of those in “traditional” high schools failed the subject…If
real figures are used they would show that the performance gaps are even wider
because a disturbingly large number of students in non-traditional schools are
deemed not sufficiently prepared to take these exams at all.” Brissett, 2011 citing
Thomas (2007), pp. 161-162
Student Performance in the CSEC English Language at the General Proficiency Level
2005 2006
Secondary High Schools
Eligible Cohort 12,393 12,814
Entries 10,751 11,209
Total Awards 8,336 7,939
Percent of Passes 78 71
Upgraded High Schools

Entries 6,477 7,844
Technical High Schools

Entries 2,358 2,730
Total Awards 1,042 846
Adapted from Realising Rights through Social Guarantees: The Case of Jamaica.Final
Report submitted to the World Bank by Carol Watson Williams (June, 2008)
31
Student Performance in CSEC Mathematics at the General Proficiency Level
2005 2006
Secondary High Schools
Entries 9,445 10,414
Upgraded High Schools
Entries 4,606 5,834
Total Awards 849 925
Technical High Schools
Entries 1,584 1,905
Total Awards 503 431
Adapted from Realising Rights through Social Guarantees: The Case of Jamaica, Final
Report submitted to the World Bank by Carol Watson Williams (June, 2008)
When the above two tables are analyzed, the general trend is that Secondary school
passes are more than double that of the Upgraded High Schools (All-age,
Comprehensive and Junior High Schools). Unfortunately, 70% of the age cohort
attends these “second class” Upgraded High Schools, which contribute so little to the
overall pass rates in Mathematics and English.
This pattern of underperformance for the poor in Jamaican society gets
magnified at the tertiary level. Mean school enrollment for the lowest economic
quintile decreases from 99.2% at ages 12-14 to 84.9% at ages 15-16 then plummets
to 0.0% at ages 19-24 (Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions 2007). Ninety-one
percent of students at the tertiary level are from the top two octiles, “the poor are
chronically underrepresented while the richest dominate disproportionately”
(Brissett, 2011, pp. 167).
There is little incentive by top tier schools to facilitate poorer students. As a
result extra-lessons have become essential to compensate for inadequate efforts in
32
the classroom. Brissett observes that a large portion of “critical instruction is taking
place outside of regular school, while key learning opportunities are being mediated
by economic means”. If a student’s ability to obtain the resources that should have
been made available during normal school hours is dependent on his or her ability
to pay, then again Jamaica’s poor remains marginalized. “With the state projected to
steadily reduce or reconceptualize its direct role, the negative consequences to the
poor become glaring” (Brissett, 2011, pp.164).
Annual Household Education Expenditure (Primary & Secondary)
Category 2004 2006 2007

Extra Lessons 10,585. 12,15 14,37
(J$) 2 5 6
Source: Adapted from Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (2007)
Mean Annual Expenditure on School and School Related Items by Quintile
Quintil Amount Spent on Extra Lessons
e (J$)
Poorest 7,191.4
2 7,488.1
3 8,394.9
4 13,746.7
Richest 25,637
Source: Adapted from Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (2007)
This notion that individual returns on educational investment outweigh

social returns is false and does far more harm than good, especially in a society
already plagued with other social disparities. Raising the burden of individuals to
pay for education while reducing state funding brands the very objective to increase
skills training “out of reach for many, making unattainable the very goal it set out to
achieve” (Brissett, 2011, pp. 168). Education is still viewed by the majority of
Jamaicans as the way upwards despite the tremendous discrimination implicit by
the system. A lack of material locks out the vast majority from enjoying the benefits
that society purports education will provide such as social mobility.
“Education was widely associated with high well being and so it seemed reasonable
33
to infer that schools are regarded as important because of the personal benefits that
are seen to accrue from investing in education. In this vein, the costs of buying into
education service were seen as a major impediment to social advancement by the
poorer groups” (Levy & Ohls, 2007)
Functionally the educational system is still divided into two, a system that
educates the rich separately from the poor. The upper middle class and the wealthy
are trained in private or top tier secondary schools in preparation for high society,
administration within the civil service and professional careers, while large
amounts of the working class only gain sufficient education for jobs in unskilled
labor. This reinforces the colonial model of class reproduction through education
and only serves to illustrate in a contemporary context, the absence of meaningful
educational opportunity for the underrepresented in the island.
Legal Attacks on African-American Educational Opportunity

Affirmative Action and other race positive policies have been at the center of
legal attacks by conservative activists since the end of the Civil Rights era. Current
legal precedence is that many of these policies are unconstitutional because they
bestow rights on the basis of racial categorization. Socio-legal scholars such as
Daum, Ishiwata and Rosenfeld argue against this opinion on the basis that it
assumes a level playing field that is not there, and denies the existence of “racial
based classification” (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 847).
American society has evolved to the point where “overt acts of racism are no
longer deemed acceptable in the public domain”. Ackerman notes that as a result,
racial antagonisms largely exist in the form of subtle associations that make up a
larger mosaic of intuitional racism in American Society; “A muted form of racism
that rehearses a cruder form of racism” (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010), (Ackerman,
1996). Consequentially, conservative activists have framed their politics to reflect
these changes. A new doctrine of equality has now been developed that opposes the
one used to achieve the gains made in the civil rights era.
“Organizations such as the Institute for Justice, the Center for Individual Rights, the
Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Center for Law & Justice work to
justify their politics by amplifying anecdotal confirmations of a level playing field.
Whether in the form of individual success stories or Asian Americans as the model
34
minority, conservative activists attempt to impart the belief that individual’s
successes and failures are strictly a matter of individual talent and efforts.” (Daum &
Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 848)
Despite the fact that within individual achievement and group advancement exist
statistics that still show a society deeply entrenched with racial inequality,
conservatives argue that obstacles to minorities no longer exist.
The politics of the civil rights movement that has worked to bridge deep rifts
in American society is now perpetuating a system of racial domination and white
entitlements in the US. Through identity politics the country was forced to confront
the racial discrimination, which so permeated the society. Daum & Ishiwata
carefully observe, “The wave of conservative activism therefore, is part of a
countermovement that has fought since the 1970’s to dismantle these civil rights era
policies.” They are using a new conversation of rights to change the direction of
federal funds from social issues to private interests. (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp.
850).
This “politics of resentment”, that Daum & Ishiwata describe, is drawn from a
myth of rights7 to create an alternate conception of rights that accuses minorities of
pursuing “special rights” to further extra-Constitutional interests. “Special rights”
here are those rights designed to ameliorate past and present forms of
discrimination because they threaten core American values especially of equal merit
and equality of opportunity (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 851).
In order to combat these perceived entitlements, conservative legal activists
have embraced the position of equal rights to argue that each subject must be
treated equally with respect to the law, irrespective of racial, historical or
socioeconomic differences. This becomes a type of rights mobilization that
legitimates the boundaries of rights, affirming some while opposing others. “Certain
7
Scheingold outlines that the “myth of rights” associates “litigation, rights, and remedies with broader
appeals to social change”, leading to legal action as a primary means of achieving rights and
recognition. He notes that the main limitation to the myth of rights is that courts cannot force
broader society to accept and uphold their decisions. “Its salience has led groups and individuals to
understand legal action as a primary means of achieving rights and recognition.” The myth of rights
he believes encourages individuals to act and groups to coalesce since private problems are now
brought under the spotlight. (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 850)
35
policies are celebrated for being equal, universal and just, and others derided for
being special, preferential and unfair.” (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 852)
They belief in a smoothing over process using a politics of equal dignity that
eliminates historical and racial differences, which when completed society will
finally become efficient (pp. 853).
“Their privileging of formal rather than substantive equality locates the blame and
burden of America’s problems on those historically marginalized groups who are
unwilling to move beyond the injuries incurred by conquest and discrimination…
[and] can be read as an effort to conceal asymmetric power relations with an
ahistorical, antiracial flatness” (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 853)
This is done on the presumption that there is a level playing field where
longstanding claims of racial injustice have been resolved implicitly preserving the
status quo through a minimization of public responsibility. This “ahistorical legal
reasoning” instead of an understanding of institutional hegemony unfortunately, has
won out as accepted jurisprudence and as the overall interpretation of equality in
the United States8 (Daum & Ishiwata, 2010, pp. 854).
Case in Conservative Activism: Missouri v. Jenkins

In 1984, the Kansas City Missouri School District (KCMSD), the school board
and the children of two of the board members sued the State. The rationale was that
Missouri, assisted by surrounding school districts and certain federal agencies
“perpetuated a system of racial segregation in the schools of the Kansas City
Metropolitan area”. A cross claim was brought against the state “for its failure to
eliminate the vestiges of its prior [segregated] school system” (Missouri v. Jenkins,
1990, pp. 74). The case was dismissed but the state was determined liable for
operating a segregated school system. In June 1985, the District Court identified 25
schools within the KCMSD that had 90% or more black students (pp. 75). In
November 1986, the State approved a number of strategies to eliminate the vestiges
of segregation including a magnet school in order to attract white students to return
to urban schools after mass white flight. The case was again brought to the district
court for approval and was rejected under the premise that salary increases did not
8
See also Shelby v. Holder, Fisher v. UT Austin and Missouri v. Jenkins and others
36
directly address and relate to the State’s earlier violation (Missouri v. Jenkins, 1990,
pp. 81). This was overruled by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit but when
granted certiorari by the Supreme Court the District Court’s ruling was affirmed.
The justification was that the lower court had exceeded its authority by ordering
state funds to be used for education programs that the state could not afford.
What made this decision even more significant was the rationalization that
conservative justices had for departing from the legal precedence in Brown v. Board
of Education. In Missouri v. Jenkins the Court made an assumption that in the time
period between the ruling in Brown and the hearing of the case, the vestiges of “de-
jure racial segregation” had ended and changed to “mere de facto segregation” 9.
There was no causal support for the assumption (Missouri v. Jenkins, 1990, pp.122).
The term “racial segregation” underwent a change in terminology and was referred
to as “racial isolation” instead (Post-Missouri v. Jenkins), as this was “not a state
imposed harm” (Missouri v. Jenkins, 1990, pp. 122). The Court at that time failed to
acknowledge the considerable connections between the de-jure segregation
observed in Brown and the de-facto segregation in Jenkins. But there is a significant
connection that state-imposed racial segregation pre-Brown has in demographic
make-up today in the United States
The average white child attends a school that is over 78% white. Only 9% of
other children in this typical school are black, 8% Hispanic, and 3% Asian. Though
children often do not attend a neighborhood school, the racial composition of
schools attended by white kids closely matches that of their own neighborhood. In
sharp contrast, the average black child’s school is more than half black (57%).
Hispanic children also are in majority Hispanic schools (57%). And Asians, despite
being only 4% of the elementary population, are in schools that average 19% Asian
(Logan, 2002, pp. 2).
Each minority group’s exposure to white children is declining. In 1989-90,
32% of the average black child’s schoolmates were white; that has dropped to 28%
in 1999-2000; similar drops were experienced by Hispanics (from 30% to 25%) and
9
De-jure segregation is segregation by law; de-facto segregation is segregation by choice or
“demographic segregation”
37
Asians (52% to 46%) (Logan, 2002, pp. 2). This statistic and many others
demonstrate the causal link between the racial segregation of the past and the racial
isolation of the present. Brown did not require any social science research or many
statistics to show that the government was “discriminating against its citizens on
the basis of race”, producing unequal schooling (Missouri v. Jenkins, pp.120) but
today these statistics are necessary to disprove the arbitrary and capricious claim
made in Jenkins. “[T]he vestiges of segregation that are the concern of the law in a
school case may be subtle and intangible but nonetheless they must be so real that
they have a causal link to the de jure violation being remedied (Missouri v. Jenkins,
1990, pp. 96).”
The perpetuation of racial segregation is one of the defining aspects of the
United States’ educational system. The strength of this conservative jurisprudence
should be “abhorred by the constitution” (Grutter v. Bollinger, 2005, pp. 553). It is
in every respect as abominable as the segregation of the past, especially if one can
acknowledge the ties that current de facto racial isolation has with de jure
segregation of the past and do nothing to remedy it. “We are a free people whose
institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality” (Grutter v. Bollinger, 2005,
pp. 326). If our institutions are to be true to the ideals asserted in the constitution
then there is an obligation to promote substantive opportunities for
underrepresented.
Final thoughts on Neoliberalism and its effects on the

underrepresented
A brief exploration of the underlying concepts behind Jamaica’s emerging
educational policy, No Child Left Behind and increasing conservative activism in the
US, leads me to conclude that any discourse that reneges educational policy as a
mere individual good is flawed. Problems in education shape and are shaped by
society; therefore, reform can only be successful if the government and people in
38
general accept this fact. Consequentially, educational opportunity in Jamaica and the
United States still mostly resides with those of “superior” class, wealth or skin color.
The general observation is that a misleading concept of opportunity is being
applied in the United States and Jamaica. Rosenfeld (1986) notes that equality of
opportunity is “not reducible to formal equality of opportunity” (pp. 1687). This
formal equality of opportunity is defined as absence of certain obstacles that would
affect “a class agent’s chances of obtaining the same goal” or negative freedom
(Rosenfeld, 1986, pp. 1688). Essentially this concept of equality allows an individual
to do something that he or she would “otherwise be prevented from doing” (pp.
1690). This increases the probability of an individual accessing something from zero
to “mere possibility” but not a certainty. What is observed in the US through NCLB
and conservative legal activism is that educational opportunity is framed as a
prospect as opposed to a guarantee. The belief is that if an individual has enough
pre-existing social clout or personal motivation then he or she can gain substantive
educational access. On the other hand if one does not achieve success through
education then “that’s just how the cookie crumbles”. Regrettably, Jamaica is
heading in this direction. Emerging educational policy in Jamaica is making money
and pre-existing privileges such as race, the arbiter of one’s educational access. A
decent education is slowly shifting as a guarantee for all as it was framed in the
1960’s and 1970’s in the island to a mere possibility, something that can be gained
only if one has enough money or initiative. Educational Opportunity is not
meaningful especially for individuals without such social or financial clout.
“It is true that an opportunity falls somewhere in the spectrum between a mere
possibility and a guarantee. For example, there is a mere possibility that in the
future I may go to the moon because it is technologically feasible for a person to
travel to the moon, and because I possess the negative freedom to travel wherever I
wish if my government imposes no restrictions on my freedom to travel.
Notwithstanding this mere possibility, however, it hardly seems appropriate for me
to characterize this as an opportunity… [I] do not have access to the means to travel
into outer space, and because the prospects of my gaining access to such means are
virtually nil.” Rosenfeld, 1986, pp. 1691
The presence or absence of meaningful educational opportunity depends on the

probability that an individual has of gaining success through an educational
institution. It may involve using outside intervention to acquire a good education
39
such as affirmative action or district busing. It may also involve depriving an
individual of such an opportunity, such as a white student losing a place in a high
school or college. On the surface it may seem unethical but assistance designed to
position someone in a place to gain a meaningful education may be appropriate
dependent on the case (Rosenfeld, 1986, pp. 1691-1692).
Rosenfeld categorizes inequality into two groups: inequality of circumstance
and inequality of results. Inequality of circumstance when applied to education
occurs when individuals come from “different backgrounds and have different
experiences, talents and capacities”. If the initial circumstances are so divergent so
as to create widely differing talents, it is easy to assume that results would be
allocated in relation to those with the greatest access to the “best background”.
Therefore, individual talents would develop relative to one’s circumstances (pp.
1699).
This is precisely the problem with this notion of formal equality supported in
the US and Jamaica. The assumption that if legal obstacles do not exist that natural
talent and individual faculty would allow full access to substantive opportunities is
completely false. Proponents of “formal equality of opportunity” fail to recognize
that the level playing field purported to exist never will, as long as stark structural
inequalities occur. Unfortunately, inequality will always be tolerated as long as
neoliberal values such as antistatism and individualism are supported by society
(Rosenfeld, 1986).
As the great Martin Luther King Jr. remarked, "The arc of the Moral Universe
is long, but it bends towards justice". It would therefore be shortsighted of me to
arrive at this conclusion without acknowledging the meaningful inroads made in the
expansion of educational accessibility. Substantively however, this does not exist for
as many individuals in underrepresented groups as society claims. Few do attain
upward social mobility through education but this number is so scarce that it does
not change the general mosaic of inequalities among social groups (Edelman, 2001).
For this reason educational opportunity for underrepresented is political myth. In
the final section of this paper I will demonstrate the validity of my claim that
40
educational opportunity for all is a political myth that serves to manipulate
underrepresent groups into passivity and quiescence.
Critical Analysis
In this portion of the paper I will attempt to validate the latter portion of my
hypothesis; that the notion of educational opportunity, an offshoot of formal
equality is a political myth, which promotes passivity and quiescence in the minds of
underrepresented groups in the United States and Jamaica. Previously, I successfully
demonstrated that educational opportunity is a concept that has truly not been
extended to the underrepresented, particularly Afro-Jamaicans and African-
Americans. It exists in name but in not much else. Unfortunately large sways of the
privileged and underrepresented alike have an unwavering belief in the power of
education as a socio-economic equalizer. I have established previously that this was
a notion enforced by dominant groups and often framed to be accepted by the
dominated. To be fully embraced however, the idea that a meaningful chance of a
good education had to also exist for the underrepresented. Without that, the idea
that individual faculty is the sole reason of educational success would not be as
widespread as it currently is.
The first analysis of the power of political myth in a postcolonial perspective
came from Professor of Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona
(UWI), Louis Lindsay, in his series of myth essays 10. In the, “The Myth of a Civilizing
Mission” (1981), Lindsay posited that the notion of a ‘civilizing mission’ in the
British colonies was a political myth and served as a means of symbolic
manipulation to rationalize the various colonial interventions undertaken by the
metropole. He notes that colonization as a whole is “steeped in political
10
“See Louis Lindsay (1975), The Myth of Independence: Middle Class Politics and Non-mobilization in
Jamaica. Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, Mona.
Working Paper No. 6; Louis Lindsay (1976)‚ Colonialism and the Myth of Resource Insufficiency in
Jamaica in Size, Self-Determination and International Relations: The Caribbean edited by Vaughn
Lewis. Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies; Louis
Lindsay (1981), The Myth of a Civilizing Mission: British Colonialism and the Politics of Symbolic
Manipulation. Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies,
Mona. Working Paper No. 31.” (Heron, 2005, note 2, pp. 1)
41
manipulation”. The major theme taken from this work is the observation that
domination is inseparable from the methods used by oppressors to encourage the
oppressed to accept views of “themselves and their societies which bear little or no
relationship” to the realities in which they live. He acknowledged the strength of
political myths as devices that disguise social inequalities and injustices. i It is
important to note that my premise is not that the origins of the civilizing myth are
the same as the myth of educational opportunity in the United States, but
disregarding the different contexts of the two societies (imperial domination versus
racial domination) the observed effects and psychological justifications are very
similar.
This portion of the paper is an examination of the ability of political myth to
promote passivity. This evaluation draws upon work in the field of political
psychology. Using Edelman and Fromm I will attempt to trace why these myths
become necessary and pinpoint a reason for their observed effects. Fromm’s work,
“The Fear of Freedom” was an attempt to understand the psychological processes
that shape an individual and their interactions in society. Fromm contended that
fear of adverse changes in comfort and potential for isolation drives people to
conform to the expectations of others, causing a loss of identity ii. In Edelman’s book,
“The Politics of Misinformation”, he explored the position that rationality is seldom
the reason for political behavior. Edelman argued that established institutions often
maintain stagnancy, and the change they produce, if any, makes very little
substantive difference in people’s lives. Despite this stagnancy, there is near
pervasive confidence in progress and improvement despite evidence to the
contrary. This confidence, Edelman affirmed, serves to counter discontent in the
prevailing conditionsiii.
The Myth of Educational Opportunity

Kaplan and Laswell (1965) explore the idea of political myth in the
perspective of political theory. Political Myth, as they define it, consists of those
42
political perspectives most firmly accepted in society. Myth does not assume
correctness or incorrectness but are mere “fundamental assumptions” in political
affairs involved in explaining and justifying current power practices. Unfortunately,
in the case of meaningful educational opportunity for the oppressed in the US and
Jamaica, the myth is certainly not correct. The political doctrine which evolved to
justify the myth, primarily neoliberal educational practices in Jamaica, conservative
notions of formal equality and No Child Left Behind in the United States, become
rationalizations which maintain the status quo. Kaplan and Laswell define Political
Doctrine as part of the political myth that “formulates basic expectations and
demands”, symbols, sentiment and identification in society. These are exhibited in
formal sentiment and government policy. The doctrine often becomes an offshoot of
various social norms and attitudes; derivations of prevailing standards and tastes of
dominant groups (Kaplan and Lasswell, 1965, pp. 117).
Political Manipulation is steeped in organized systematic deception (Lindsay,
1981). Political Symbols are often used to conceal a structure of control and
manipulation. Kaplan & Lasswell (1965) define a symbol as whatever that has
meaning or significance in any sense (pp. 10). Political Symbols are therefore
“symbols that function directly in the political process” (pp. 103). They contend that
the effects of symbols are often the result of the feelings and emotions that the
symbol insights. Lindsay identifies, two types of political symbols: Referential
Symbols and Condensation Symbols. Referential Symbols allow particular groups of
individuals to control and direct their activities and interests in the pursuit of a
relatively concrete goals. Condensation Symbols on the other hand are explicitly
mobilized to evoke false gratification with things, as they should be rather than as
they are in reality. Here we see that the myth of educational opportunity fulfill both
benchmarks. Educational Opportunity is often linked to both emotion and
rationality. It is linked to emotions of fairness, justness and the idea of a fair shot,
notions which, as we have established earlier, do not substantively exist for the
underrepresented. It is also linked to the concrete economic interests of school
privatization in the US and reducing the state deficits in Jamaica.
43
Lindsay (1981) notes that the idealistic norms used in the civilizing mission
were “often times deliberately and subconsciously” used as condensation symbols
to “excite attitudes that supported the persistence of imperialist rule”. These
attitudes ranged from passive, quiescent to even favorable responses to colonialism.
A similar observation can be made for the myth of educational opportunity.
Symbols, particularly condensation symbols, continue to be crucial to fostering
orientations of “resignation and toleration” to the status quo of racial domination.
Condensation symbols were explicitly mobilized to evoke false gratification with
things as they supposedly could become, in lieu of gratification with things as they
are in reality. These symbols become potent political weapons that serve to dupe
the oppressed into having faith in the ruling classes (Lindsay, 1981, pp. 18-20).
Current educational discourse, whether from the Supreme Court of the United States
or from the Government of Jamaica, is being sold to underrepresented groups. And
they are falling for it – hook, line and sinker.
African-Americans are becoming increasingly favorable to prevailing
attitudes in society in regards to institutional discrimination. In a 2011 data update
to Schuman’s work, “Racial Attitudes: Trends and Interpretations”, Krysan
highlights the changing views of African-Americans. The amount of African-
Americans that are of the view that “if blacks would only try harder they could be
just as well off as whites” has increased 9% between 2004 and 2008 and the amount
that completely disagree with that statement has decreased by 10%. African-
Americans that are of the opinion that blacks should overcome institutional
prejudice without Special Favors has increased by 16% in the same time period.
Even the amount of African-Americans that agree with the idea that “generations of
slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks
to work their way out of the lower class” has decreased by 11% between 2004-
2008. In recent times African-Americans increasingly believe that “black children
have as good a chance as white children …to get a good education” despite
prevailing realities (see tables below).
New data on perceptions of discrimination (blacks):
44
196 1989 199 199 199 199 1999 200 200 200 200 200 2007 2008
2 0 1 5 7 1 2 4 5 6
Good Chance
Education (Gallup)
Not as good a chance 44 35 30 40 34 33 41 47 49 48 48 48 51 50
As good/same 56 65 70 60 66 64 59 53 51 56 52 52 49 50
chance
Adapted from: "Data Update to Racial Attitudes in America." (Krysan, Maria, 2011)
New data on explanations for inequality (black respondents)
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
No Special Favors (NORC)
Disagree strongly 25% 15% 19% 22% 15% 17% 17% 14% 17%
Disagree somewhat 17 18 13 14 15 18 15 12 13
Neither agree/disagree 10 14 20 15 14 15 14 18 11
Agree somewhat 27 25 24 22 27 17 24 30 27
Agree strongly 22 29 24 27 28 32 30 25 33
Adapted from: "Data Update to Racial Attitudes in America." (Krysan, Maria, 2011)
Symbols are manipulated to myth-make, this facilitates the kinds of

conditions that not only make exploitation profitable, but also makes even
pronounced situations of exploitation appear legitimate to the dominated and the
dominant (Lindsay, 1981, pp. 23).
“It is this use of mythology which primarily accounts for the existence of in socio-
cultural and political life of extreme levels of deferential attitudes and behavioral
patterns. Myths have the ability to make people believe fatalistically that they have
to accept the existing values, rewards and deprivations offered by ruling political
authorities. As such, myths function as masking devices which cover over and
disguise social inequalities and injustices. They are the key agents which legitimize
impressions conveying the idea that the burdens and tribulations which are carried
by the lowest classes in all societies are not burdens at all; or that if they are
burdens then it is the duty, obligation or even ‘natural right’ of some individuals to
enjoy the fruits which these burdens produce. They are the fantasies which often
prompt desperate men to walk the fabled last mile – even where all or most rational
indicators point clearly to the fact that there is nothing at the end of the road (or
more appropriately no road at all), and that the ‘last mile’ will turn out to be exactly
the same as the first.” (Lindsay, 1981, pp. 23)
45
Models of behavior that pretend to explain real life situations are being used
to twist and warp reality into a “single but senseless distortion” for the oppressors
and the oppressed (Lindsay, 1981, pp. 36). This bilinear reality warp and its effects
on white respondents can be observed through values frames on support for
progressive education reform. There are significant differences in the way White
and Non-White respondents react to education reform. A Frameworks Report by
Davey & Simon reveals that framing educational reform in the context of “explicit
priming of group disparities and historical discrimination” sparks, rather than
diffuses, stereotyped “notions about historical and institutionally based causes to
racial inequity among Whites”. The report concludes that this is largely due to faulty
notions of historical progress held by whites with regard to racial equity. “We find
that priming conversations with an orientation to inter-group disparities serves to
reinforce stereotyped and individualized patterns of reasoning regarding the causes
of such disparities“ (Davey & Simon, 2010, pp. 5). Departure from the established
norm often serves to cause more polarization, “the more opposition they encounter,
the more firmly are partisans more likely to maintain their already accepted view”
(Edelman, 2001, pp. 13). Then the question remains why is the myth of educational
opportunity so successful in veiling reality?
The answer is that rationality is the exception rather than the norm. Fromm
and Edelman contend that rationality is a rather an exceptional position. A great
deal of political behaviors are not rational accounting for the superficial benefits
that most institutions such as educational institutions provide to the masses
(Edelman, 2001, pp. 1). Humans tend to imagine the originality of their ideas even
though this is often not the case. We imagine that reason precedes our ideas but in
large part these ideas are ‘pseudo-ideas’. “Thoughts are merely a front and not from
experience, desire or knowledge” (Fromm, pp. 163). The greatest of these illusions,
Edelman (2001) notes, is the attributing of “obnoxious traits to groups” to
rationalize discrimination against them (pp. 2). This phenomenon is noted earlier by
the white respondents in the Frameworks study, who when presented with facts
46
contrary to the norm, retreated to a default position predicated by stereotypes and
prejudice.
Most individuals at some point advantage from misleading and inaccurate
positions. Proponents usually accept them as truth but unfortunately; most are
political myths (Edelman, 2001, pp. 4). Explicit distinctions caused from differences
such as socio-economic class, race or education become “implicit symbols of
competence, worth or deserved status”, which become more powerful when swept
under the rug. This can be detected, as we highlighted earlier, by the way in which
individual competence and intelligence is increasingly becoming equated to one’s
material wealth in Jamaica. Passivity, quiescence and inertia play a crucial role in
creating these conditions that almost certainly lead to obstruction of social change.
Rationalizations are accepted and created by the advantaged and disadvantaged
alike, to justify the relative place that they have in the social hierarchy, such as the
belief that the good life is accessible to all and failure is due to personal inadequacy
(Edelman, 2001, pp. 23-28).
Myths reinforce subservient behaviors. Docility, obedience and accepting the
notion that the underrepresented are less deserving than the privileged, are some of
the encouraged behaviors (Edelman, 2001, pp.28). The wealthy are perceived as
more “worthy” while those who have the hope of becoming successful are framed as
failures. As was highlighted earlier in the case of Jamaica, wealth is increasingly the
predicator of individual worth. Jamaicans are more likely to attribute educational
and personal achievement to socio-economic status as the two increasingly
correlate. Levy and Ohls (2007) note that the high figure of Jamaican school
enrollment hides a substantial lack of educational access. A large portion of the age
cohort does not attend school regularly, which parents tend to attribute to “money
problems”. The Ministry of Education estimated that the average daily attendance at
secondary level during 2010/11 as 80.6 per cent (ESSJ 2011). Other than purely
socio-economics, another reason may be apathy caused by the internalization of the
view that self worth is proportional to social class. Hoxby & Avery (2012) note that
in the US even among high achieving low-income students, the vast majority does
not apply to colleges that fit their level of achievement. These high achieving low-
47
income students instead exhibit behavior typical for their income bracket and
attend schools and live in neighborhoods that lack similar high achieving role
models. The reason for this resignation to the status quo, this passivity, lies with
socialization.
Socialization is the main reason for these value systems associated with
educational institutions. Individuals who are somewhat dependent in a greater
power tend to be more hostile and rebellious because of their weaker stature but
become desensitized due to educational processes. Fromm gives the example of a
little girl who realizes the insincerity behind her mother’s actions even though she
preaches of love and friendliness. Her faith in her mother is crushed but has no
choice but to suppress her insight since her mother does not accept criticism.
Sooner or later the child loses the ability to notice her mother’s insincerity and
eventually forces herself to believe that her mother is sincere and decent since it
may be dangerous to keep notions of the contrary alive (Fromm, 1942, pp. 166).
Fromm’s analysis is more or less applicable to the socialization of myths. Since
individuals are more or less dependent on the society in which they live people tend
to lose the ability to think critically and fail to see the inconsistences behind societal
norms of thinking, including the promises made by society of fairness and justice.
One must take into account the “psychological motivations” of an individual
rather than their logical positions. Irrational rationalizations are used to “harmonize
one’s beliefs post factum with existing reality” (Fromm, 1942, pp. 166). Driven by
fear of adverse changes to their current comforts and potential isolation in society
people tend to conform to the expectations of others. “Every repression eliminates
parts of one's real self and enforces the substitution of a pseudo feeling for the one
which has been repressed.” (Fromm, 1942, pp. 173, pp. 204). Case in point, blacks in
Jamaica and the US convincing themselves that things will get better if they work
hard enough.
Repression creates a need to conform to prevailing norms for acceptance.
Fromm illustrates that in order for one to overcome the loss of identity caused from
dehumanization and oppression, individuals are compelled to conform, “to see his
[or her] identity by continuous approval and recognition by others”. As an
48
individual loses sight of himself or herself, they hope that others acknowledge this
loss of self and if others do, the individual is compelled to accept these norms and
values as their own. People are increasingly willing to “submit to new authorities,
which offer security and relief from doubt” (Fromm, 1942, pp. 174).
Fromm and Edelman identify that there is almost a “sado-masochistic”
element associated with domination and use of myth and symbolism to manipulate
individuals and groups. Nazi Germany is the society that Fromm analyzes and a
number of the conclusions that he makes are applicable to societies similar to the US
and Jamaica, albeit to a less extreme extent today. Fromm describes the dependence
that the sadistic person has in their possessions, “how weak and empty he feels
unless he has power over somebody and how this power gives him new strength”
(Fromm, 1942, pp. 190-196). This is one such observation that can be applied
successfully in these societies. Many poorer whites in the US and much of the brown
working/middle classes and the black elite in Jamaica through a false sense of
superiority have increased group solidarity from the oppression of the marginalized
(Alexander, 2010), (Lindsay, 2002).
“While the "leaders" are the ones to enjoy power in the first place, the masses are by
no means deprived of sadistic satisfaction. Racial and political minorities within
Germany and eventually other nations, which are described as weak or decaying,
are the objects of sadism upon which the masses are fed.” Fromm, pp. 194
Fromm also observes that self-preservation is often identical to the drive for power
and some, particularly the privileged, believe that extending justice to others means
then removing their rights. This phenomenon is observed earlier in the
FrameWorks study and Krysan’s work.
While the very elites and the “masses” in extremely repressive states are
typically the ones who enjoy this “sadistic satisfaction”, this is where I depart of
Fromm’s analysis. Sado-masochism is an incredibly extreme label to place on the
repression that takes place in societies similar to Jamaica and the United States
today, especially if the standard is Nazi Germany. Apartheid South Africa, Chattel
Slavery in Jamaica and Jim Crow would more suitably fit this category.
Unfortunately, Jamaica and the United States are not immune from developing this
type of societal “sado-masochism” again. If socio-economic and racial disparities
49
continue at the rate at which they are now, the end result may be akin to what was
described earlier.
The masses nonetheless, are still subject to a distinct type of political
manipulation. They are manipulated by feasting upon individuals in society deemed
weak and incapable of ruling. A type of benign cruelty that explicitly denies
inequality but implicitly dominates the disadvantaged through targeting the white
middle/working classes, the black elite in the US, and the upper and middle classes
in Jamaica and instilling false notions of superiority.
The only way that one feels truly accepted in society therefore, other than
being at the very top or being at the very bottom, where one almost becomes
inconsequential, is by losing one’s individuality. The isolated individual feels
“powerless and insecure”, anxious and alone, and therefore attempts to lose himself
or herself to gain others’ approval, and freedom from this powerlessness. But in
doing so the individual becomes a new slave, in bondage by a cyclical notion of
freedom.
Conclusion
Race and socio-economic class have an enormous impact on educational
opportunity in Jamaica and the United States. Analyses of historical and
contemporary educational discourse illustrate that this impact is defined by the
oppression of the underrepresented, mainly Black Americans and Jamaicans, and
the elevation of the privileged, primarily White Americans, affluent Brown and
White Jamaicans and a minority black elite in both countries. Despite the significant
underrepresentation of the dominated groups there remains a misguided
confidence in society as a whole that educational policy is the ultimate means of
upward social mobility. However, these educational institutions have only evolved
to preserve existing power structures. The ideology of race was too ingrained within
50
both the dominant and the dominated to allow meaningful educational opportunity
to be extended to disadvantaged groups. Over time a trickle of education became
accessible to Afro-Americans and Afro-Jamaicans but largely as a substitute for
directly tackling the socio-economic disparities of the time.
Presently, educational discussions are isolated from a greater social
narrative. Whether it is No Child Left Behind, Conservative Activism, or emerging
educational discourse in Jamaica, neoliberal framing has driven an ahistorical
interpretation of educational inequity that further serves to reinforce the status quo.
These ‘pseudo-solutions’ reproduce notions that schools are social and economic
equalizers without recognizing that educational disparities cause, and are caused by
other socio-economic disparities. Equality of opportunity is not equivalent to formal
equality of opportunity. Any discussion that reneges educational policy to this view
is inherently flawed. The only way substantive educational opportunity can be
provided to the underrepresented in Jamaica and the US is to attack the specific
socio-economic issues in health, criminal justice, employment and education in a
holistic way. Consequentially any other approach that does not take into account
these issues as a whole will most likely to reproduce and deepen race and class
inequalities.
Some individuals do attain upward social mobility through education, though
markedly few relative to the entire population. Unfortunately, they are miniscule
enough in number that it does not change the general mosaic of inequalities among
social groups (Edelman, 2001, pp. 27). For this reason meaningful educational
opportunity is a political myth. This Myth of Educational Opportunity not only
legitimates pronounced instances of exploitation but also makes this exploitation
profitable. The idea of Educational Opportunity pretends to explain socio-economic
disparities and historical discrimination, creating a reality warp for the dominant
and the dominated. African-Americans increasingly believe that if they just tried
harder they could be as successful as whites, and increasingly even are against the
idea that slavery and discrimination have created difficult conditions for African-
Americans to succeed. The reverence that working class Jamaicans had for
education since colonial times remains unaltered. Sharp differences in class, race or
51
education are still symbols of worth and deserved status. Passivity, the acceptance
of prevailing views with little or no critical thought, plays a significant part in
creating these conditions. As a result, rationalizations are accepted and created by
the advantaged and disadvantaged alike, to justify their place in society.
Socialization sows the seeds of this political myth. Since individuals are
dependent upon society, they tend to lose the ability to see the inconsistencies
behind societal norms of thinking. The prevailing view is that society is generally
unaccepting of criticism, and driven by fear of losing current comforts or becoming
potentially isolated, people subconsciously tend to conform to societal expectations.
The extreme domination of the past using political myth has a sado-masochistic
element to it especially when periods such as slavery or Jim Crow are assessed. In
the present, attributes of this sado-masochism still exist. Of notable mention is the
dependence that the dominant has on the dominated. How empty the dominant feel
without a group to exercise power over and how this power gives the dominant
“new strength”. On the other end, the powerless and insecure attempt to gain
freedom and power through conformity and mass approval only to become
entrapped in a cycle of bondage and acquiescence.
There is only one way for the beliefs associated with educational opportunity
to end and that is for it no longer becomes political myth. This can be done by
remedying structural inequalities in a holistic way or by attacking the main thought
process behind myths and myth-making. This is the desire to conform. Simply
highlighting the facts alone will not do the job, as this is more likely to cause
increased group polarization. Instead, there needs to be a more conscious effort to
inhibit the desire to conform. If individuality is promoted more, then there will be
less need to conform to societal expectations. The subconscious need to fit in would
be impeded and the power that myth has to manipulate individuals by socialization
into “[tolerance] of behaviour and actions which they would otherwise find
unbelievable and unacceptable” (Lindsay, 1976) could be impeded.
If there is to be educational parity then it is becoming clear that African-
Americans, Afro-Jamaicans and other disadvantaged groups have to become
significantly more active on the ground, not necessarily only trying to convince the
52
dominant of these problems, but directly resisting institutions based on clear
discrimination. A significant portion of that is overcoming the mental slavery
surrounding institutions such as education. Unfortunately, efforts to gain racial
equity have mostly been the black man’s burden. They should not be. We all have a
considerable amount to gain should these myths vanish. Only then perhaps, can
those less fortunate, melanin pigment, hair texture or eye shape aside, claim
meaningful opportunity for the first time.
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds” –
Bob Marley
References
Ackerman, Robert John (1996) Heterogeneities: Race, Gender, Class, Nation, and
State. Amherst, MA: Univ. of Massachusetts Press.
Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness. New Press. DOI: 1595581030, 9781595581037
Anderson, J. (2010). The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. University of

North Carolina Press. DOI:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9780807898888_anderson
Avery, C. & Hoxby, C. (2012). The Missing One-Offs: The Hidden Supply of High-
Achieving, Low-Income Students, NBER Working Paper 18586.
Brissett, N. (2011). A critical analysis of Jamaica's emerging educational policy

discourses in the age of globalization. Electronic Doctoral Dissertations for UMass
Amherst. Paper AAI3445151.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3445151
Card, D. & Rothstein, J. (2007) Racial Segregation and the Black-White Test Score
Gap. Journal of Public Economics 91, 11-12: 2158-2184.
Cohen B. (2002), "Bretton Woods system," in R. J. B. Jones (ed.), Routledge

Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. New York: Routledge
53
Darling-Hammond, L. (2007). Race, inequality and educational accountability: the
irony of ‘No Child Left Behind’. Race, Ethnicity & Education, 10:3, pp. 245-260
Daum, C. W. and Ishiwata, E. (2010), From the Myth of Formal Equality to the Politics
of Social Justice: Race and the Legal Attack on Native Entitlements. Law & Society
Review, 44: pp. 843–876. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2010.00424.x
Dee, T. & Jacob, B. (2011) The impact of no Child Left Behind on student achievement.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pp.
418-446, Summer.
Edelman, M. (2001). The Politics of Misinformation (Communication, Society and

Politics). (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Fromm, E. (1942). The Fear of Freedom. Great Britain: Ark. Retrieved from
http://majnown.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/erich-fromm-the-fear-of-freedom-
escape-from-freedom.pdf
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003)
Heron, T. (2005). A Lost Opportunity? A Commentary on the Jamaican Experience of

Independence. Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the
West Indies, Mona. Working Paper No. 6, pp. 56-72
Hoetnik, H. (1967). Caribbean Race Relations: A Study of Two Variants. NY: Oxford
University Press.
Hursh D. (2007). Assessing No Child Left Behind and the rise of neoliberal education
policies. American Educational Research Association, 44(3), pp. 493-518.
International Monetary Fund (May 2013). Jamaica: Request for an Arrangement

Under the Extended Fund Facility. Washington, DC: IMF Country Report No. 13/126
Retrieved from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13126.pdf
Kantor, H., & Lowe, R. (2006). From New Deal to No Deal: No Child Left Behind and
the Devolution of Responsibility for Equal Opportunity. Harvard Educational Review,
76(4), pp. 474-502. Retrieved from
http://her.hepg.org/content/yg7l5t01617h7628/
Kaplan, A., & Lasswell, H. (1965). Power and society: A framework for political
inquiry. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Krysan, M. (2011). "Data Update to Racial Attitudes in America." An update and

website to complement Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations,
Revised Edition, Howard Schuman, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria
54
Krysan, 1997, Harvard University Press.
http://www.igpa.uillinois.edu/programs/racial-attitudes/
Ladson-Billings, G. & Tate, W. F. (1995). “Toward a critical race theory in education”.

Teacher’s College Record, 97, pp. 47-68.
Levy D. & Ohls J. (2007). Evaluation of Jamaica's PATH conditional cash transfer
programme, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., MPR Reference No. 8966-090.
Retrieved from http://www.mathematica-
mpr.com/publications/pdfs/JamaicaPATH.pdf
Lindsay, E., A. (2002). The Comprehensive High School in Jamaica. Athens, Georgia:
University of Georgia. Retrieved from
http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/bitstream/handle/10724/5864/lindsay_audrey_e_2
00205_edd.pdf?
Lindsay, L. (2013, July 26). Telephone Interview.
Lindsay, L. (1981). The Myth of a Civilizing Mission: British Colonialism and the
Politics of Symbolic Manipulation. Mona, Jamaica: vol. (31) Institute of Social and
Economic Research, University of the West Indies.
_____________ (1976). “Colonialism and the Myth of Resource Insufficiency in Jamaica” in

Size, Self-determination and International Relations: The Caribbean, (Ed.) Vaughn
Lewis. Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the
West Indies.
Logan J. (2002). Choosing Segregation: Racial Imbalance in American Public Schools,

1990–2000. Unpublished manuscript, Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban
and Regional Research, State University of New York at Albany.
Lomotey, K. (Ed.). (2010). Encyclopedia of African-American Education. Thousand

Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412971966
Miller, E. (1971). Education and Society in Jamaica. Caribbean Artists Movement,

Savacou 5: pp. 51-70
Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70 (1995)
Orfield, G. (2001). Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decadeof Resegregation.

The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED459217.pdf
Patterson, O. (1967). The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins,

Development, and Structure of Negro Slave Society in Jamaica. London: Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press
55
Rosenfeld M. (1986) Substantive Equality and Equal Opportunity: A Jurisprudential
Appraisal, 74 Cal. L. Rev. 1687. Available at:
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/californialawreview/vol74/iss5/3
Shepherd, V. & Beckles, H. (Eds.). (2000). Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World.
Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2000.
Simon, A. and Davey, L. (2010). College Bound: The Effects of Values Frames on
Attitudes toward Higher Education Reform. Washington, DC: FrameWorks Institute
Statistical Institute of Jamaica (various editions from 2007-2009). Jamaica Survey of

Living Conditions. Kingston: Planning Institute of Jamaica and Statistical Institute of
Jamaica.
Task Force on Educational Reform Jamaica (September 2004). A Transformed

Education System 2004. Report (Revised Edition) presented to the Prime Minister,
the Most Hon. P.J. Patterson.
Watson Williams, C. (2008). Realising Rights through Social Guarantees: The Case of
Jamaica. Final Report submitted to the World Bank. Retrieved from
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEV/Resources/3177394-
1168615404141/3328201-1192042053459/Jamaica_fullReport.pdf
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for

Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1992-
2011 Reading Assessment.
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for

Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1994-
2011 Mathematics Assessment.
56
i
ii
iii

Education and The Myth of Equal Opportunity in Jamaica and The United States

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Education and The Myth of Equal Opportunity in Jamaica and The United States

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Education and the Myth of Equal Opportunity in Jamaica

and the United States

Amherst College ‘16

Research Project for the

Historical Context: Education from 1655-1990..........................................................11

Emerging Educational Policy in the present................................................................20

No Child Left Behind............................................................................................................ 23

Increasing Educational Neo-liberalism in Jamaica....................................................27

Legal Attacks on African-American Educational Opportunity...............................34

Case in Conservative Activism: Missouri v. Jenkins....................................................36

Final thoughts on Neoliberalism and its effects on the underrepresented.......38

The Myth of Educational Opportunity...........................................................................42

Post reconstruction, many educators such as G. M. Elliot and observers such as

Jamaican educational institutions unfortunately became framed as a great

Emerging Educational Policy in the present

Black and White Student Performance in Reading during 8th Grade

201 National 231 205

Black and White Student Performance in Mathematics during 8 th Grade

Year Jurisdiction Average Scale Score Average Scale Score

NCLB isolates educational discussions from a greater social narrative. It

Increasing Educational Neo-liberalism in Jamaica

Consequently, the government wants to decrease allocations to education in its

Undoubtedly, the current IMF agreement has a significant part to play in

Discrimination based on one’s socio-economic status will increase as education

Upgraded High Schools

Eligible Cohort 19,930 21,684

Technical High Schools

Eligible Cohort 4,646 4,526

Annual Household Education Expenditure (Primary & Secondary)

Category 2004 2006 2007

Mean Annual Expenditure on School and School Related Items by Quintile

Quintil Amount Spent on Extra Lessons

This notion that individual returns on educational investment outweigh

Legal Attacks on African-American Educational Opportunity

Case in Conservative Activism: Missouri v. Jenkins

Final thoughts on Neoliberalism and its effects on the

The presence or absence of meaningful educational opportunity depends on the

The Myth of Educational Opportunity

New data on perceptions of discrimination (blacks):

New data on explanations for inequality (black respondents)

1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

No Special Favors (NORC)

Symbols are manipulated to myth-make, this facilitates the kinds of

Anderson, J. (2010). The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. University of

Brissett, N. (2011). A critical analysis of Jamaica's emerging educational policy

Cohen B. (2002), "Bretton Woods system," in R. J. B. Jones (ed.), Routledge

Edelman, M. (2001). The Politics of Misinformation (Communication, Society and

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003)

Heron, T. (2005). A Lost Opportunity? A Commentary on the Jamaican Experience of

International Monetary Fund (May 2013). Jamaica: Request for an Arrangement

Krysan, M. (2011). "Data Update to Racial Attitudes in America." An update and

Ladson-Billings, G. & Tate, W. F. (1995). “Toward a critical race theory in education”.

Lindsay, L. (2013, July 26). Telephone Interview.

_____________ (1976). “Colonialism and the Myth of Resource Insufficiency in Jamaica” in

Logan J. (2002). Choosing Segregation: Racial Imbalance in American Public Schools,

Lomotey, K. (Ed.). (2010). Encyclopedia of African-American Education. Thousand

Miller, E. (1971). Education and Society in Jamaica. Caribbean Artists Movement,

Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70 (1995)

Orfield, G. (2001). Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decadeof Resegregation.

Patterson, O. (1967). The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins,

Statistical Institute of Jamaica (various editions from 2007-2009). Jamaica Survey of

Task Force on Educational Reform Jamaica (September 2004). A Transformed