Data reveal opportunity gaps along demographic lines
Opportunity Gap - Overview | Schott Foundation for Public Education - http://schottfoundation.org/node/2744
In recent years, we have heard plenty of sad news about our home state. We learned in 2016 that life expectancies of poor Oklahomans were basically tied for the lowest in the nation. Life expectancy of poor women in Oklahoma City and Tulsa had dropped to the nation’s second and third worst, respectively. Life expectancy for poor men in Tulsa and Oklahoma City were fifth and seventh worst, respectively.
The latest database publicized in September found that life expectancy in Stilwell (56.3 years) is the nation’s lowest. Two other towns, Eufaula (59.5 years) and Checotah (58.1 years), are among the 10 towns with the lowest lifespans. I looked up my address in the database and found that the life expectancy for Oklahomans is 75.7, or about three years less than the rest of the country, and life expectancy in Oklahoma County is 75.8. In my ZIP code, the average person lives almost 80 years.
Then, I changed a couple of digits and checked out North Highland, a neighborhood about three miles north of my house and characterized as having “extreme poverty.” I learned that my former students disproportionately came from a ZIP code where life expectancy was 10 years less than in my neighborhood.
Similarly, a 2015 New York Times database showed that, in comparison to the rest of the U.S., an Oklahoma County boy from the top 1 percentile will make an additional $4,590 in annual income. Meanwhile, a poor boy growing up in Oklahoma County will make $1,850 less, meaning that his home county is in the bottom 13 percentile in offering economic opportunity.
Our education system is not reducing these opportunity gaps. In 2017, we learned that 4.2 percent of students at the University of Oklahoma come from the top “1 percent,” earning Continue reading: Data reveal opportunity gaps along demographic lines
