Thoughts on Education
I’ll keep this intro short. I am someone that is very interested in education in this country. I’d love to see it begin to receive among the biggest budgets, and be taken seriously by all Americans. I hope everyone takes the time to read this post because I think it is a message that everyone can hopefully agree with. After the writing feel free to watch the accompaning video. It is a clip of the show Oprah did that I mention in the piece. As always, thanks for reading!
Not many would argue that race and socio-economic status, and the impact they have on people, are among the biggest problems for education in this country. I realize the issues surrounding this topic could go on for hundreds of pages, but for the sake of this post I will break it into brief mentions of the minority achievement gap and the housing and zoning problems in this country. Between these two topics most people can get an understanding of our education problems on a basic level.
The achievement gap in the United States is such an enormous problem. There are so many examples, but one example that caught my eye recently is a video of Oprah’s show. One school from an affluent neighborhood shocked both me and the kids who got to visit it with its Olympic sized pools, state of the art classrooms, and an incredible exercise room; in contrast, the affluent kids who went to the poor school saw moldy walls, equipment falling apart, and only 2 AP (advanced placement) classes. The achievement gap was further pointed out when one student from the poorer school went to sit in on the Trig class — a subject that she had taken at her own school — at the affluent school. She didn’t even understand the fundamental concepts of what they were talking about. That is very sad I think for everyone involved. The kids from the better school shouldn’t feel bad any more than the poor kids should. It is not their fault. On average, children from poorer schools perform at a minimum of 1 grade-level below those who are at affluent schools. More often than not this number is actually 3-4 grades unfortunately.
Something strongly connected to the achievement gap is the housing and zoning problems all across our nation. The vast majority (about 44-50%) of funding for schools comes from the property tax of the houses in its school zone. When you really think about that, it makes sense that some schools are grossly over-stocked with wonderful teaching aides, while other schools don’t even have enough to afford current textbooks. You have to understand that most of the houses in the poorer neighborhoods are one, or maybe two, bedrooms for an entire family compared to the nice neighborhoods with three, four, or even more. The taxes that the wealthy pay on their homes provide their kids with amazing educations; the poor get the raw end of the deal. This is the number one cause of keeping the wealthy where they are, and keeping the poor that way too. How can a child possibly compare against someone whose education was infinitely better? Unfortunately, it is also the biggest obstacle to overcome because the wealthy often are the ones making most of the decisions about zoning and the laws surrounding these problems.
It would take investment to local school districts from wealthy members of society, from local businesses, from everyone who can give even a little. We know this, but how many of us act on it? Doesn’t every child deserve an equal education no matter what social status they were born into? I hope everyone reading takes this opportunity to look at this problem, and hopefully some of you can now look at it in a new way. It is up to all of us to help fix the education system. There will never be enough Government funding to fix this problem, but Americans as a whole can make a real difference.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:33 am
Wow… you live under a rock and you think every thing is fine. I always figured a state budget was the same no matter what school you went to in that state. All the same classes, etc. I didn’t realize that the poorer areas were neglected. Thank you for the informative post.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:37 am
Oh, and I’m now following your blog.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Thanks, I’m glad you got something out of it!
March 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Having taught at the rich school and the not-rich school, yes. There’s a huge difference.
I was at a rich school when the district almost had to give money to the state for Robin Hood (trying to balance out the distribution of wealth, richer districts had to give to poorer ones). Our district made a big fuss about all the money they would lose and how that was going to cripple the district. This was explained to us by the superintendent, whose salary was in the $250,000-$300,000 range (if not higher). The biggest problem with money is that the people at the top keep all of it to themselves.
If you were to walk into the district boardroom for the two schools you mentioned, how different would they be? I’ll bet anything they both have leather-upholstered chairs, and state-of-the-art microphones, sound systems, projectors, etc. While the teachers in the classrooms are sitting in plastic chairs.
There’s the difference in the resources the schools can provide, but the biggest difference is in the quality of the teachers. Yes, you will find some great teachers at poor schools, but they are few and far between. You will find many more good teachers at the rich schools.
The system is so screwed up, I think our only hope is to bulldoze the whole thing and start all over. However, this http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/10/Taking-on-Education/ is a good start.