This IowaWatch collaboration with four Iowa newspapers, published in fall 2013, is particularly pertinent during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday period. It tells you how and why gaps exist in home ownership, jobs and pay, education and crime exist among white, black and Latino Iowans.
In August 2013 IowaWatch and West Liberty Index reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller interviewed West Liberty schools Superintendent Steve Hanson about the district’s dual language program. District officials say the program has helped improve the educational experience and outcomes in their schools.
Two of every five black Iowans didn’t always live in poverty.
In the 1970 and 1980 censuses, for example, their poverty rate was 28 percent. It jumped to 37
White Iowans have made strong gains in high school and college graduation rates, lowering poverty levels, median family income and home ownership since 1960. But black and Latino achievements have grown far more slowly, or in some cases declined, widening an opportunity gap among the races, an IowaW
