"Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer"
About this Quote
Alphonso Jackson, a former HUD secretary, ties black advancement to school quality to stress how opportunity is built early and compounded over time. Calling education the last great equalizer echoes Horace Manns ideal while acknowledging that many other equalizers, such as fair hiring or equal wealth inheritance, remain constrained by history and policy. For black Americans, the path to mobility has often been blocked by segregation, discrimination, and the long tail of unequal housing and labor markets; schooling becomes the lever that can still be pulled if made truly excellent and accessible.
The phrase good schools matters. School quality in the United States is tightly linked to neighborhoods and property taxes, which means housing segregation reproduces educational inequality. Jacksons own portfolio at HUD highlights that connection: where families can afford to live shapes the teachers, facilities, safety, and peer networks their children receive. Brown v. Board ended legal segregation, but de facto separation and funding gaps endure, producing achievement gaps that mirror zip codes as much as talent.
Education as equalizer is both a promise and a challenge. When schools are well resourced, culturally responsive, and staffed by expert teachers, they can propel students into colleges, careers, and civic life that expand agency and earnings across generations. HBCUs, rigorous public magnets, strong community colleges, and apprenticeship pipelines all show how instruction plus support changes trajectories. Yet education alone cannot erase wage discrimination or the wealth gap; the equalizing power grows when paired with fair housing, healthy neighborhoods, and affordable higher education.
Jacksons line pushes responsibility onto institutions as much as individuals. It demands investment in early childhood, safe and integrated schools, advanced coursework, tutoring, and pathways that do not make college the only route to dignity. Equalizing education is not charity. It is the baseline condition for a democracy that claims to measure people by their potential rather than their postcode or their past.
The phrase good schools matters. School quality in the United States is tightly linked to neighborhoods and property taxes, which means housing segregation reproduces educational inequality. Jacksons own portfolio at HUD highlights that connection: where families can afford to live shapes the teachers, facilities, safety, and peer networks their children receive. Brown v. Board ended legal segregation, but de facto separation and funding gaps endure, producing achievement gaps that mirror zip codes as much as talent.
Education as equalizer is both a promise and a challenge. When schools are well resourced, culturally responsive, and staffed by expert teachers, they can propel students into colleges, careers, and civic life that expand agency and earnings across generations. HBCUs, rigorous public magnets, strong community colleges, and apprenticeship pipelines all show how instruction plus support changes trajectories. Yet education alone cannot erase wage discrimination or the wealth gap; the equalizing power grows when paired with fair housing, healthy neighborhoods, and affordable higher education.
Jacksons line pushes responsibility onto institutions as much as individuals. It demands investment in early childhood, safe and integrated schools, advanced coursework, tutoring, and pathways that do not make college the only route to dignity. Equalizing education is not charity. It is the baseline condition for a democracy that claims to measure people by their potential rather than their postcode or their past.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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