Better schools is not enough

I have learned a number of things about the way prestige/rankings work in Brazil, that I feel will contribute to my comparative analysis of how diversity affects prestige, reputation, and rankings in the United States.

To begin with, there are evaluations and rankings in Brazil, their impact is much greater than what I had previously thought. Before the year 2000, the only formalized evaluative mechanism was implemented by Playboy Magazine. Playboy had sent surveys to various professors to create a comparative evaluation of educational quality. The results have been used by those trying to decide where to disseminate their funds.

In the year 2000, the ministry of education began to institute a much more thorough ranking/evaluative system that takes into account a number of various measures in order to compare the relative strength and value of different educational institutions. What is interesting about these new evaluations is that schools depend on a good evaluation for funding, and students care about the evaluations when deciding what school to go to.

What I repeatedly hear from Brazilian students is that the best way to influence diversity and the way it is perceived and decided upon by universities and students, is to influence public education before the university level. I have gathered that we are at a crossroads with Brazil, and I believe we are going to have to learn from each other if we are both going to become more equal in the future. Rankings and evaluations are becoming more important in Brazil, while people are beginning to realize and accept that discrimination exists, and are even beginning to take some affirmative steps to remedy it. In the United States these rankings are already all important and we are moving towards a society that does not recognize that discrimination exists and are taking away affirmative steps to combat racism.

In both countries there is the seduction of colorblindness and racial democracy. Advocating for better public education is a great thing to struggle for, however, it seems to be too assuaging to those who desire the colorblind. They can simply say they want better schools, and then turn away from recognizing the influence of racism in creating the disparities and maintaining an educational gap between blacks and whites. Better elementary and high schools are necessary, but they are not enough and this road alone would take too long to travel down. We need better universities to close the educational gap, and in order to do that, we need to convince people that affirmative action makes universities better.