Some political philosophers have recently argued that providing K–12 students with an adequate education suffices for social justice in education provided that the threshold of educational adequacy is properly understood. Others have argued that adequacy is insufficient for social justice. In this article I side with the latter group. I extend this debate to racial inequality in education by considering the controversial practice of paying students cash for grades to close the racial achievement gap. I then argue that framing the demand for racial justice in education solely in terms of educational adequacy leaves us unable to take issue with the cash for grades policy as a matter of principle. While this does not entail that educational adequacy is unimportant, it adds to the general case for why adequacy does not suffice for social justice.
AnchetaAN (2006) Scientific Evidence and Equal Protection of the Law. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
2.
AndersonE (2007) Fair opportunity in education: A democratic equality perspective. Ethics117: 595–622.
3.
Austen-SmithDFryerRG (2005) An economic analysis of ‘acting white’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics120: 551–83.
4.
BoboLD (2001) Racial attitudes and relations at the close of the twentieth century. In: SmelserNJWilsonWJMitchellF (eds) America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, Vol. 1, pp. 264–301. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
5.
Bonilla-SilvaEFormanTALewisAEEmbrickDG (2003) ‘It wasn’t me!’ How will race and racism work in 21st century America. Research in Political Sociology12: 111–34.
6.
BourguignonFFerreiraFHGLeitePG (2003) Conditional cash transfers, schooling, and child labor: Micro-Stimulating Brazil’s Bolsa Escola program. World Bank Economic Review17: 229–54.
7.
BowmanKL (2009) A new strategy for pursuing racial and ethnic equality in public schools. Duke Forum for Law & Social Change1: 48–70.
8.
BoxillBR (1992) Blacks and Social Justice, revised edition.Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
9.
BrighouseHSwiftA (2006) Equality, priority, and positional goods. Ethics116: 471–97.
10.
BrighouseHSwiftA (2009) Educational equality versus educational adequacy: a critique of Anderson and Satz. Journal of Applied Philosophy26: 117–28.
11.
BrooksRL (2004) Atonement and Forgiveness: A New Model for Black Reparations. Berkeley: University of California Press.
12.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) 347 US 483.
13.
CameronJPierceWD (2002) Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation: Resolving the Controversy. Westport: Bergin & Garvey.
14.
CookPJLudwigJ (1998) The burden of acting white: do black adolescents disparage academic achievement? In: JencksCPhillipsM (eds) The Black-White Test Score Gap, pp. 375–401. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.
15.
DarbyD (2009) Educational inequality and the science of diversity in Grutter: a lesson for the reparations debate in the age of Obama. The University of Kansas Law Review57: 755–93.
16.
DarityWJrMyersSLJr (1998) Persistent Disparity: Race and Economic Inequality in the United States since 1945. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
17.
Darling-HammondL (2000) New standards and old inequalities: school reform and the education of African American students. The Journal of Negro Education69: 263–87.
18.
DasJDoQ-TÖzlerB (2005) Reassessing conditional cash transfer programs. The World Bank Research Observer20: 57–80.
19.
DeciELKoestnerRRyanRM (2001) Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education: reconsidered once again. Review of Educational Research71: 1–27.
20.
DiamondJB (2006) Still separate and unequal: examining race, opportunity, and school achievement in ‘integrated’ suburbs. The Journal of Negro Education75: 495–505.
21.
DysonME (2005) Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?New York: Basic Civitas Books.
22.
DownesTGoldhaberD, eds (2008) Education Finance and Policy. Special Issue: Philosophical and Normative Issues in Education Finance Vol. 3. Available at: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/edfp/3/4
23.
EnrichP (1995) Leaving equality behind: new directions in school finance reform. Vanderbilt Law Review48: 101–94.
24.
EppersonLB (2004) Resisting retreat: the struggle for equity in educational opportunity in the post-Brown era. University of Pittsburgh Law Review66: 131–54.
25.
FarkasG (2003) Racial disparities and discrimination in education: what do we know, how do we know it, and what do we need to know?Teachers College Record105: 1119–46.
26.
FeaginJRBarnettBM (2004) Success and failure: how systemic racism trumped the Brown v. Board of Education decision. University of Illinois Law Review2004: 1099–130.
27.
FergusonRF (2001) A diagnostic analysis of black-white GPA disparities in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Brookings Papers on Educational Policy4: 347–414.
28.
FergusonRF (2002) Addressing racial disparities in high-achieving suburban schools. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) Policy Issues13: 1–11.
29.
FergusonRF (2007) Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
30.
FiszbeinASchadyN with Ferreira FHG, Grosh M, Kelleher N, Olinto P, Skoufias E (2009) Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
31.
FordhamSOgbuJU (1986) Black students’ school success: coping with the ‘burden of acting white’. The Urban Review18: 176–206.
32.
FormanTA (2004) Color-blind racism and racial indifference: the role of racial apathy in facilitating enduring inequalities. In: KrysanMLewisA (eds) The Changing Terrain of Race & Ethnicity, pp. 43–66. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
33.
FryerRG (2010) Financial incentives and student achievement: evidence from randomized trails. Unpublished working paper, Harvard University, EdLabs, and NBER.
34.
FryerRGTorelliP (2010) An empirical analysis of ‘acting white’. Journal of Public Economics94: 380–96.
35.
GlennWJ (2006) Separate but not yet equal: the relation between school finance adequacy litigation and African American student achievement. Peabody Journal of Education81: 63–93.
36.
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) 539 US 306.
37.
HarrisAL (2006) I (don’t) hate school: revisiting oppositional culture theory of blacks’ resistance to schooling. Social Forces85: 797–833.
38.
HavemanRHWolfeBL (1984) Schooling and economic well-Being: the role of nonmarket effects. The Journal of Human Resources19: 377–407.
39.
HuntMO (2007) African American, Hispanic, and white beliefs about black/white inequality, 1977–2004. American Sociological Review72: 390–415.
40.
JencksCPhillipsM (eds) (1998) The Black–White Test Score Gap. Washington DC: The Brookings Institute.
41.
KaoGThompsonJS (2003) Racial and ethnic stratification in educational achievement and attainment. Annual Review of Sociology29: 417–42.
42.
KoskiWSReichR (2006) When adequate isn’t: the retreat from equity in educational law and policy and why it matters. Emory Law Journal56: 545–617.
43.
LiuG (2006) Education, equality, and national citizenship. The Yale Law Journal116: 330–411.
44.
LouryGC (2002) The Anatomy of Racial Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
45.
MagnusonKWaldfogelJ (eds) (2008) Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and The Black-White Test Score Gap. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
46.
MasonPL (2007) Intergenerational mobility and interracial inequality: the return to family values. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society46: 51–80.
47.
McGaryH (1999) Race and Social Justice. Malden: Blackwell.
48.
MickelsonRA (2003) When are racial disparities in education the result of racial discrimination? A social science perspective. Teachers College Record105: 1052–86.
49.
MoranRF (2004) Brown’s legacy: the evolution of educational equity. University of Pittsburgh Law Review66: 155–79.
50.
NussbaumMC (1997) Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
51.
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002) Pub. L. No.107–110, 115 Stat. 1425.
52.
PersellCHHendrieGF (2005) Race, education, and inequality. In: RomeroMMargolisE (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities, pp. 286–324. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
53.
RawlingsLBRubioGM (2005) Evaluating the impact of conditional cash transfer programs. The World Bank Research Observer20: 29–55.
54.
RebellMA (2009) Courts and Kids: Pursuing Educational Equity Through the State Courts. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
55.
Rose v. Council for Better Educ. (1989) 790 S.W. 2d 186, 205–13 (Ky).
56.
RyanJE (1999) The influence of race in school finance reform. Michigan Law Review98: 432–81.
57.
RyanJE (2003) The limited influence of social science evidence in modern desegregation cases. North Carolina Law Review81: 1659–1702.
58.
RyanW (1976) Blaming the Victim, revised edition.New York: Vintage Books.
59.
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) 411 US 1.
60.
SatzD (2007) Equality, adequacy, and education for citizenship. Ethics117: 623–44.
61.
ShelbyT (2004) Race and social justice: Rawlsian considerations. Fordham Law Review72: 1697–714.
62.
ShelbyT (2007) Justice, deviance, and the dark ghetto. Philosophy and Public Affairs35: 126–60.
63.
SteinbergS (1995) Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
64.
TysonKDarityWJrCastellinoDR (2005) It’s not ‘a Black thing’: understanding the burden of acting white and other dilemmas of high achievement. American Sociological Review70: 582–605.
65.
Ullmann-MargalitESunsteinCR (2001) Inequality and indignation. Philosophy and Public Affairs30: 337–62.
66.
WaxAL (2009) Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
