The State of Unequal Educational Opportunity: The Coleman Report 50 Years Later

Sponsored by the U.S. Office of Education, pursuant to Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equality of Educational Opportunity survey (EEOS) – commonly known as the Coleman Report (Cole et al. 1966) – was tasked with assessing inequality in American schools and its consequences for student achievement. In the 50 years since the EEOS first appeared in print, ten of thousands of articles and studies have taken up the questions that Coleman raised, the methods that he used, and the conclusions that he reached. The provision of public education remains bedrock to domestic and international social and economic policy. Much political debate and scholarship focuses on how to reduce the gaps in achievement that appear along socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic lines by improving schools: how to improve the distribution of financial resources, and how to introduce rigorous curricula. A largely separate body of research simultaneously attends to the out-of-school factors that affect inequality in student achievement; revealing strong inequalities in children’s skill development well before school entry…