Reflecting on educational inequities in Bay Area high schools

By Staff Writers Amber Halvorsen, Erika Liu, Veer Mahajan

Introduction

For some students, their biggest worry is only their grades. Yet, not everyone can enjoy this level of financial or emotional security. For Avalon Wood, a current sophomore at Oakland’s Latitude High School, educational inequality is a constant presence at their school. Standardized exams at their high school, such as the Measures of Academic Progress exam (MAP), are not offered in languages such as Spanish, putting English learners at an inherent disadvantage. Strict policies against tardiness disproportionately punish students with difficult family situations, which are “often out of their control,” according to Wood. Moreover, many of her Hispanic classmates, of whom constitute more than 66% of the school population, had “recently immigrated” with “very, very little money.” They emphasized how the school system was unaccommodating and extremely difficult to navigate under such circumstances. 

These modern disparities in education can be traced back to socioeconomic inequity and historic policies, such as redlining. Starting in the 1930s, redlining began segregating communities into “red” and “green” sectors to denote favorability. A significant factor in deciding whether a neighborhood was “good” or “bad” was race. Majority Black and Latino neighborhoods were flagged as “hazardous” for investment, leaving them intentionally deprived of resources, nice housing, and job opportunities. Even nearly sixty years following the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which banned redlining, these practices have still left nonwhite communities segregated and struggling with more reproductive health disorders, air pollution, and fewer urban amenities than their privileged counterparts. 

Today, East and West Oakland remain the most segregated regions in the Bay Area as a result of redlining practices. Residents in these neighborhoods  are more than twice as likely to go to the emergency room for asthma, according to NBC Bay Area. They are also more likely to experience higher rates of poverty, crime, and infant mortality. Harmful pollutants are also overrepresented in poorly graded neighborhoods (neighborhoods denoted with a C or a D), according to a 2022 study from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. With 60% of D-graded neighborhoods being nonwhite, these structural disadvantages systemically target people of color. 

“I take a few honors and some regular classes, and I noticed the demographics are very different in those classes,” Foothill High School Sophomore Avery Du said, highlighting racial disparities he had observed. “I think there’s also sometimes teachers that may also judge students based on their ethnicity.” 

Educational inequity is not confined to Oakland. Right across the bay from MSJ is the town of East Palo Alto. The town borders Palo Alto, one of the most affluent cities within the entire nation, where the average home value is around $3.5 million, and the cost of living is 92% higher than the national average. East Palo Alto, by contrast, has had low incomes paired with high crime rates since the 1990s. Considered a less affluent area encircled by regions of extreme wealth, its residents have long felt the pressures of poverty. 

“East Palo Alto is one of the poorest towns in the Bay Area, traditionally, one of the towns with the least money,” Hopkins History Teacher Brian Miller said. For many years, East Palo Alto did not have a high school of its own. Instead, Miller stated, children in East Palo Alto, already struggling with poverty, had to be bused to Redwood City to attend school approximately half an hour away. “They could have gone to Palo Alto High School, which is literally five minutes away from where they live,” Miller said. “But that very wealthy community blocks those kids from a poor community from going to high school in their town. And I think that that … is a really striking example of inequality in education. I think it’s happening around us. It’s happening now.” 

The wealth difference between East Palo Alto and Palo Alto is striking, highlighting another issue in educational inequality — wealth disparity. Wealth disparity has become an especially relevant issue within the Bay Area, where skyrocketing costs of living have driven disparity both in class and education. A fifth of the Bay Area is now dependent on aid for basic necessities, all while the median income in other areas such as Palo Alto and Menlo Park often exceeds $200k. Variation in a school district’s per-student spending is nearly $6,000 – the wealthiest schools spend up to $6,000 more per student as compared to lower-income ones. One study published by financial technology company SmartAsset revealed that Fremont was among the top 20 cities with the greatest increase in wealth inequality in 2025. Currently, 63.6% of CA’s population is “socioeconomically disadvantaged,” according to the CA School Dashboard. 

SAT data results, according to Inside Higher Ed, consistently correlate poverty (between $0-20,000 in income) with low standardized test scores (approximately 400 per category). The median household income for Black and Hispanic students also stands at roughly $70,000 to $80,000 as of 2025 — substantially lower than both the statewide median and the average of more than $200,000 for Asian households. Evidently, according to the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, student achievement gaps are driven primarily by poverty, not race.

When deprived of support or financial stability, students will inevitably struggle more in school. “I see that there are students within our system that have real struggles, because they are also providing childcare to younger siblings or cousins and whatnot … balancing someone’s academic rigor with all of those things in life can be quite challenging,” current FUSD Superintendent Zack Larsen said. Wood observed among their own peers many who have had to “drop off a sibling, or [take] public transportation that’s unreliable,” another side effect of living in a disinvested community.

“I have a friend at my school, Juana,” Wood said. “She’s still learning English, but she never comes to school because she has a really hard home life … She would rather be anywhere else but school.” Wood says Juana’s willingness to learn isn’t the issue — but rather circumstances that are out of her control. 

Principal Sheila Jemo of Robertson High School, an alternative high school institution offering a smaller, more flexible environment for students who have struggled in traditional schools, shared her own experiences. “I work with students who are just as capable as their peers but have experienced housing instability, family responsibilities, or the need to work,” Jemo said. “Students don’t leave their lives at the door when they go to school … We see patterns across [the educational system] that reflect broader societal inequities.” 

 

A Culture of Privilege

Sarah, who is only using her first name to be able to speak confidently about her experience, began attending BASIS Independent Silicon Valley Upper School in sixth grade. Having moved over from a modest neighborhood adjacent to American High, she’d just emerged from pandemic-era distance learning. Sarah did not think much of the school’s annual $40,000 tuition, nor its status as one of the most competitive academic institutions offered in an already high-value area. She was solely glad to be able to go to in-person school again. 

Entrance at BASIS is selective — however, Sarah was able to skip the lengthy waitlist for her first year at the program. Once accepted, the sheer rigor of curriculum Sarah witnessed at BASIS was unparalleled. APs are integrated into even normal pathways — in fact, AP Government is mandated in the average BASIS student’s freshman year. Seniors, guided by teachers, are expected to complete a professional research paper or other relevant initiative before graduation. 

“Everyone at BASIS gets into good schools,” Sarah observed. She estimated 3 out of the 40 seniors in her older brother’s graduating class made it into Stanford. The least competitive college anyone at BASIS has ever attended, according to Sarah, was UC Irvine, with an acceptance rate of 28.6%.

However, Sarah felt that BASIS students were not inherently smarter than their public school counterparts. “Grade inflation [at BASIS] is actually really heavy,” Sarah said. “I remember … my physics teacher was really nice,” Sarah said. “If the class did [badly] on one test, she would just scrap the grades … and tell us all the answers.”

Grade inflation has seen a much steeper rise within suburban private schools as compared to low-income ones. While grade inflation in the latter has been consistent across decades, a product of inherently lower expectations, the same trend has overtaken wealthy institutions out of virulent competitiveness. The average GPA of SAT-takers in suburban private schools increased by 8% over 18 years, whereas urban public schools only saw a 0.6% increase during the same time period. Simultaneously, SAT scores fell. Post-pandemic era averages have consistently ticked downward, with the 2024 average falling to a 1024 from a 1028 in 2023.

A majority of affluent students also benefit from enrollment in elite tutoring programs. One comprehensive review by MIT-based research center Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) found that tutoring put students approximately three to 15 months of education ahead of their peers. 

This same tutoring, Sarah stated, was a widespread and competitive industry within BASIS, and one that, even at the affluent private school, maintained an air of exclusivity. “People would gatekeep [tutoring programs] from others,” Sarah said.

As a result, affluent students have systematically been able to excel at standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. SAT exams are often prohibitively expensive; one Harvard University paper showed that only around 25% of the poorest 20% of students even take an ACT or SAT exam. By contrast, over 80% of the highest earning families take these tests. Free waivers only offer financial aid students two attempts on these tests. Wealthy students can and often do exceed this number.  One research paper from Harvard revealed that 17% of children from the top 20% of earners scored above 1300 on the SAT, whereas only 2.5% of students in the bottom 20% were able to do the same. 

This privilege extends beyond BASIS, though. 

“I feel like a lot of us [at MSJ] … don’t really see it … but I feel like we’re very privileged in the way that we take a lot of things for granted,” Sophomore Maya Sarkar said. “There’s a lot of other kids who really want an education and are struggling for an education, rather than complaining that they have too much education.” She went on to highlight the amenities those within the “MSJ bubble” enjoy — including outside extracurriculars, academic competition, and a student parking lot full of Teslas and Cybertrucks.

“[MSJ] is the only school in Fremont Unified that’s platinum status,” FUSD Director of Assessment and Accountability Elie Wasser said. “It’s a top performing school. [MSJ] … stands out.” He cited the school’s competitive culture, commended by College Board, and diverse selection of APs — 25 total, the most of any institution in the school district. Ranked twelfth highest of any other school in the entire state, MSJ offers an atmosphere of privilege and opportunity that many other students cannot experience. It’s an advantage that, for much of the student body, still goes unacknowledged. 

 

Future Steps

Increasing access to education remains a prevalent issue amongst policymakers. However, the education system as it stands currently is still a long way away from full equality.

Miller cited a series of historical court cases on education — of them, the 1973 Supreme Court case San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. “[In this court case,] the Supreme Court ruled that education is not a fundamental constitutional right, that [no student] actually [has] the fundamental right to education by the constitution,” Miller said. That’s why some districts have access to so much  more resources than others, he explained. “In the end, all this inequality compounds,” he said.

Despite these challenges, Wood believes there is hope. “I just think that a good teacher is the most important thing that you can have,” Wood said. Sharing a story from a “remarkable” teacher she had over the past couple of years, Wood emphasized funding into school lunches, which some of her classmates rely on wholly, and employee pay. “I think that a good teacher can make even a terrible school better,” they said. They just needed more funding, more resources.

“Talent is evenly distributed,” Burmeister said. “Opportunity isn’t. That’s where the work is.” To this day, administrations are still working to close that gap — extending quality education, one of the most fundamentally ignored rights, to everyone.