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Institutional Racism

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Education debt is a theory developed by Gloria Ladson-Billings, a pedagogical<br />

theorist. In her theory of education debt, she likens the focus of the achievement gap to<br />

the United States current focus on the national deficit. She argues that instead the true<br />

issue is debt rather than deficit: an education debt to African Americans, Native<br />

Americans, and Latino/as. As defined by a colleague of Ladson-Billings, Professor<br />

Emeritus Robert Haveman, education debt is the “foregone schooling resources that we<br />

could have (should have) been investing in (primarily) low income kids, which deficit<br />

leads to a variety of social problems (e.g. crime, low productivity, low wages, low labor<br />

force participation) that require on-going public investment”. The education debt has<br />

historical, economic, sociopolitical and moral components; the structure of the education<br />

debt theory makes is a logical cause of the racial achievement gap.<br />

Historical Component<br />

Historical debt is the concept of inequality throughout history that has prevented equal<br />

education of minorities. Inequities surrounding education throughout history have been<br />

designed to prevent people based on their race, class, and gender from receiving<br />

quality education. Disparity in achievement is a result of legislation that has prevented<br />

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