Equal Education in the United States
Equal Education in the United States- Casey Kaliher and Macey Latty
April 24, 2017
Although k-12 schools throughout our nation may appear to act equally, this is far from reality. Schools ultimately may differ in many aspects such as extracurricular activities, teacher to student ratio, and even the textbooks that are provided.
It must be brought to the attention of people nationwide that the education system in the U.S. is not equal. Schools across our nation are in desperate need of reform in order to give every student a chance at succeeding in life. It is the ultimate goal that schools are the great equalizer. More specifically, every student will be given the chance to increase their social mobility in life.
One of the main contributing factors to this problem is the issue of parental knowledge. Many parents are under the impression that their children are receiving a quality education from their local schools. However, schools are largely funded by their local property tax and therefore schools reflect the image of the community.
Further, another contributing factor is that the federal government is largely absent from funding the nation's schools. According to data first, in 2012 school funding came from only 10.1% of federal funds. Therefore, the majority of the funding is coming from the state and local property taxes. Using only this information we can see just how unequal school can be based upon current situations of the community and within the state. We propose that the solution to this problem would be to send public advertisement and information home to the parents of communities in the United States to inform them of the civil right their children have access to. As well as addressing the rights of equal education in programs the school offers such as PTO (Parent-Teacher Organization). The purpose of these rhetorical artifacts would educate parents about how their children deserve equal education no matter where they live in the United States and what their current living situation.
Discussion Questions:
- What contributing factors do you think play a role in school systems around the United States having unequal education, besides the few we have proposed?
- Do you think there are specific reasons that some school districts have more access to community funding, higher education, more experienced teachers, etc. than others?
Sources:
(http://www.data-first.org/data/how-much-money-does-our-school-district-receive-from-federal-state-and-local-sources/)
https://www.google.com/search?q=fountain+of+public+education&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwign6zg2b3TAhUFbiYKHVmCBYoQ_AUICSgC&biw=1276&bih=630#imgrc=JnuEcrgE7g71AM:
https://www.google.com/search?q=fountain+of+public+education&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwign6zg2b3TAhUFbiYKHVmCBYoQ_AUICSgC&biw=1276&bih=630#imgrc=JnuEcrgE7g71AM:
1) I believe one contribution factor to the inequality among school systems around the United States is racial distribution. For example, if one community has more foreigners, the ESOL program in the schools of that community most likely is a lot more developed than in a community without many foreigners.
ReplyDelete2) I believe that in communities with a higher proportion of worrisome parents, school districts put in more effort and time into bettering their school environments as well as advancing the quality of the education. Of course, these districts are most likely to be the most well-off ones, as you have stated. This shows that coming closer to bringing educational equality is possible in the nation, but in districts of poverty, it would be very difficult.
Generally I really liked your blog post. I was surprised at the fact that only 10.1 percent of the funds from the federal government is involved; most would expect that the federal government would contribute more than just a tenth of their funds, especially with the emphasis on education we put as a whole.
Discussion Questions:
ReplyDelete1. I think there are several contributing factors that play a role in unequal education in school systems in the United States. Although I do think you raised many good points about the factors that contribute, I think that a major factor in unequal education has to do with the different economic status that members of the school have. To further my points, I mean to say that schools that are in more impoverished areas tend to have less resources than those which are wealthier. This is due to your point that most funding comes from local governments rather than the federal government. It also comes from more parents donations coming from that of the wealthier areas. I think this point is further induced by gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency in order to favor a party or class. Many times, officials will manipulate the boundaries leaving all the impoverished communities in one area and the wealthier in another. This makes the inequality worse because creating tight boundaries between the wealthy and poor instead of mixing the two will certainly create inequality in funding for their public schools.
2. As I mentioned previously, I think gerrymandering has a direct impact on the inequality of the school systems and therefore leads to wealthier school systems having a wealthier community to supply funding for schools, as well as the ability to pay more to their teachers. Higher payment for teachers will thus lead to better teachers applying to teach at the schools and in just lead to a higher education.
Inequality in school systems is so frustrating to think about and you guys did a great job addressing it. I feel as though it's a hard problem to tackle because there's such a vast amount of schools in this country. Some schools get less funding and attention because of their location in poorer neighborhoods for sure, which ties into the second discussion question posed. I'm sure many teachers live in the district they teach in, therefore they'd prefer to live in nicer areas and teach at better schools. Also, my topic was housing access, and the point I'm making sort of ties into the neighborhood segregation that still exists in America. I would hope that more federal funding could start going towards education, because educating our youth is one of the best things we could do for the country, but unfortunately it's tricky. I think you proposed a strong solution though!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Jessica's response, I also found the direct connection between the problems of housing access and educational inequality to be interesting, for it further illustrates how one civil rights issue is very difficult to solve when ignoring the other. Also, the fact that the segregation of neighborhoods and educational inequality are considered to be such two distinct and prevalent issues further contributes to showing the large scale and prominence of the general inequality in America.
ReplyDelete