Public schools in the United States of America provide basic education from kindergarten until the twelfth grade. This is provided free of charge for the students and parents, and it is mandated by the state. With the completion of this basic schooling, one obtains a high school diploma as certification of basic skills for employers. Although free to the population, many do not finish and obtain their diplomas due to personal hardships and differences in educational quality and available materials across different school districts.
Local property taxes provide most of the funding for public school and this varies in accordance to the relative affluence of each neighbourhood. Reduced funding can limit available electives, or advanced placement courses. Cases such as these limit students and causes inequality in education because there is no easy way to gain access to those courses since the education system might not view them as necessary. The public education system does provide the classes needed to obtain a General Education Development (GED) and obtain a job or pursue higher education. Most of the disadvantaged population includes those in a lower income city or neighborhood. This population mostly deals with minorities. As Kozol talks about in his book, racial inequality, school infrastructure, as well as neighborhoods, play a big factor in who gets funded more or less. Some of these kids end up dropping out because they no not have support from parents or school faculty.