Schools are inherently political. What is taught, both implicitly and explicitly, reflects what societies values. How schools are structured reflects how society is structured. And, most importantly, who succeeds reflects who society values. In America white middle class culture is the only valid culture. Everyone else must assimilate or they fail, in both school and in larger society. Education is administered by the powerful and thus it reflects and propagates stratified society. As Lisa Delpit states in The Scilenced Diologue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children, “the rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power” (Delpit, 1988, 282). That is, education prioritizes
