The Roma enter an education system that is not predisposed to their success. The most evident indicator is the segregated schools and classrooms. Sometimes the segregation is purely geographic, as in a suburb of Craiova called Mofleni, where 90 % of the students in the elementary school are Roma. The school is mostly Roma for the same reason that Beverly Hills High is mostly white, but the poor school has inferior teachers and equipment. Other times, the segregation is forced. One 10^th grade classroom that I attended in Baleni was almost entirely Roma. They were grouped there because they were “low performing,” and probably would not graduate high school. Romani Criss, in a study funded by UNICEF, found that 67 percent of the Roma were in segregated classes. Given the US’ own history with “separate but equal,” it’s not hard to imagine that the average Roma child, separated by geography or classroom, is offered an inferior education to the average white child.

Even if the students are mixed, the clash of cultures and mindsets creates a division in the classroom itself—Roma students always sit in the back. This was the case for all ten of the classes that I sat in on, in three different cities. The teachers treated them differently too. Marcela Rusu, an English teacher from Baleni who had dedicated herself to the school and its pupils for 16 years, described her frustrations. “It’s hard to reach them. They won’t do their exercises or their homework. They are lazy.”

Cezara of Romani Criss offered a different side of the story. “The school is not a welcoming environment. The teachers are not trained to teach a class where the children are different.” Cezara argues that teachers don’t go out of their way to accommodate some of the special needs of the Roma children. This has an impact from the earliest years of primary school, because many of the Romani children did not get a preschool or kindergarten education. (The state does not pay for that schooling). Often, they never fully catch up.

The Romani suffer from other disadvantages as well. They are more likely to miss school and fall behind on lessons, and often do not have access to the private tutors that many of their classmates enjoy. It takes special attention and work to bring those kinds of students up to speed. The teachers, who make around 200 euros a month, don’t have the time or interest to do so. As the education system fails them, many parents and children don’t see the value of school as higher than the opportunity cost of their work. The dropout count tallies, and a cycle of poverty and undereducation perpetuates the problem.

But the problem of the Roma’s high dropout rates does not lay on the shoulders of the school system alone—the Roma tend to place less value on education than ethnic Romanians. Some of this stems from the fact that the parents themselves are not educated. The Criss-UNICEF study found that 20% of parents with at least one school dropout could not read and write, and less than 15 percent had finished middle school. It’s not always poverty that’s forcing them out of school either.

Some simply don’t believe that going past middle school will help them make more money or lead to a better life. With 44 percent unemployment among the Roma community (source: World Bank), and a tradition of discrimination among employers and government, few dream of being able to land a top job. “The biggest problem is that they have no role models” said professor Sarau. Maybe, but Liviu of Craiova thinks it’s a discrimination problem. “Everywhere I apply [for a job], they turn me away because I am a gypsy.”