ABSTRACT
Despite the national aspirations of egalitarianism, public education in impoverished urban spaces in the U.S. is starkly inferior to that provided for school children in more affluent areas. This paper explores the causes for the maldistribution of resources in public education, the impacts on educational achievement and earning capacity, and the relationship of education policies and race. I argue that although this is an issue with which Public Theology needs to engage, with few exceptions, the voices of public theologians have been largely absent. Based in an anthropology of personhood and human community rooted in creation theology, there is a theological framework in which an argument for distributive justice of public resources can be made.
