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Inequality in american education
Pros and cons of free education
Pros and cons of free education
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Aside from this many people still argue that there is not a gap in education. Education is fair, america is fair. If a boy living Chicago, well below the poverty line, wants an education he can get it! That’s true he can get that education, but, odds are he won’t. This is not because he can’t, it is because of endless odds stacked against him. Heaps of barriers for him to climb over where an affluent child walks right around. The issue is not if education is possible, it’s if it is fair. Education starts in the home and with no role models, no money for extra help, and worries far beyond the next math test. It’s not reasonable. For some children, even if they do care, they still don’t have the money for college. Making this so called gap …show more content…
Home life often starts a child down one path or another, but once inside the education system things skew even father in favor of some children than others. School is the one place that is supposed to level the playing field. At a first glance it may seem that way. Many students enter the same system or even that same building. As we take a closer look though, disparity arrises. Funding in public schools is far from equal. Students enter through the same door but once inside they take very different paths (Godsey). One of the biggest factors in this separation of education is the unequal distribution of money. A difference of 15% financing sits between the richest and the poorest communities. That comes to 1,500 per student, and the gap is growing. The problem, however, is not with national funding, but with local funding. As you could probably guess the wealthier a neighborhood is the more they value education and the more they want to spend on it (Barshay). The real problem is that the wealthy, who want money going to the wealthy schools, are the ones in the education system. Creating the well known scenario of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer …show more content…
Through generations these groups will start to catch up. The great thing about education is it has the ability to close gaps more effectively than anything else. If poor children become more educated they will in turn have more money, and then contribute more to society. So to solve this problem becomes the hardest part. There is no clear or easily solution or it would not be a problem in the first place. The fact that seventy five percent of students attend the closest school to their home means that housing location is school location for most children. One of the solutions is to integrate schools we need to integrate the neighborhoods. A way to do this is on new developments have multiple types of housing available. Some housing can be for rich homeowners, but other housing in the area has to be set aside for the working class. Another proposed solution is to have an incentive for families to integrate. In this system every school would be a magnet school. A magnet school is a specialized school in one area, for example engineering, music, or the arts. Then parents could then voice which school they want their child to attend. Finally, children would be placed in school with consideration to their choice of school and integration, looking at free and reduced lunch
It’s considered a rarity now days to walk down a major city street and not come across a single person who is fighting to survive poverty. The constant question is why don’t they go get help, or what did they do to become like this? The question that should be asked is how will America fix this? Over the past year, Americans who completed high school earned fifteen point five percent more per hour than that of dropouts (Bernstein, Is Education the Cure to Poverty). According to Jared Bernstein, in his article “Is Education the Cure to Poverty”, he argues that not only do the poor need to receive a higher education, but to also maximize their skill levels to fill in where work is needed (Is Education the Cure to Poverty). Counter to Bernstein’s argument Robert Reich expresses that instead of attempting to achieve a higher education, high school seniors need to find another way into the American middle class. Reich goes on to say “the emerging economy will need platoons of technicians able to install, service, and repair all the high-tech machinery filling up hospitals, offices, and factories” (Reich, Why College Isn’t (and Shouldn’t Have to be) for Everyone). Danielle Paquette, though, offers an alternative view on higher education. Paquette gives view that it doesn’t matter on the person, rather it’s the type of school and amount of time in school that will determine a person’s
The article notes that these are the inequalities of the title, seen in the way schools in predominantly white neighborhoods are more likely to have sufficient funding, while schools in poor and minority neighborhoods do not. Kozol shows everyone involved in the education system that public schools are still separate and, therefore, still unequal. Suburban schools, which are primarily made up of white students, are given a far better education than urban schools. These urban schools are primarily made up of Hispanics and African Americans. The second is the concern over segregation and the effect it has on society.
America’s public school system started off very rough, but through the dedication of many hard-working Americans, it was starting to shape into a system that allowed all children, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nation of origin, to have an education.
The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While increased spending may help, the real problem is often rooted in the complex issues of social, cultural, and economic differences. When combined with factors involving the school itself and the institution that supports it, we arrive at what has been widely known as the divide between the suburban and urban schools. Can anything actually be done to reverse this apparent trend of inequality or are the outside factors too powerful to change?
Poorer schools with more diverse populations have poor educational programs. Teachers methodically drone out outdated curriculum on timetables set by standards set by the state. Students are not engaged or encouraged to be creative thinkers. They are often not even given handouts or physical elements of education to touch or feel or engage them into really connecting to the material being presented by the teacher in front of them. Time is not wasted exploring any of the subjects in a meaningful way. As much of the curriculum is gone through as the teacher can get through given the restriction of having a classroom of students that are not picking it up adequately enough according to standardized tests scores. So time is spent re-droning the material to them and re-testing before the cycle repeats in this classroom and other subject classrooms in these types of school. This education is free. As John Gatto writes about in his book, “Against School”, it seems as if the vast majority of students are being taught be blue collared, low paid but obedient citizens. As she makes her way up to less diverse, more likely private and expensive schools, the education becomes better. Students are engaged by teachers that seem to like to teach. Students are encouraged to be
"Parents with incomes below $40,000 were much more likely to say they couldn 't afford college compared to those with higher incomes. The unsettling aspect of this poll is that in all likelihood, these parents ' perceptions mirror reality," says Tamara Draut, author of "Strapped”. She talks about how most middle class families can 't afford to put their children into college. The highest education they can get is a high school diploma, which we all know in this modern world it cant get you a lucrative job to maintain your whole life. Most American don 't get the chance to develop their full capabilities through higher schooling due to lack of resources like funds to enable them see their full potential. People will say that education is meant for people who can afford to go. And already the government has made schooling from pre-k to high school free for all public school, so making community colleges free will cost the state about 60 billion dollars as said by the white house spokesman Eric Schultz . Education must not be limited to only privilege people,it should be universal for anybody willing to educate themselves to make their life better and help grow Americas economy reducing
Before entering into defense of the argument, it is important to communicate that the current situation is one which demands reform. It must be understood that the state of the public school system is not simply confined to the domain of education but is instead very much interrelated with the distribution of wealth. The current opportunity gap-which affords those who are middle and upper class greater access to higher quality education-is the cause of the inequality seen in the distribution of income. “Children born into the top fifth of the income distribution have about twice as much of a chance of becoming middle class or better in their adult years as those born into the bottom fifth (Isaacs, Sawhill, & Haskins, 2008)”.
Morosely, people hitting poverty level are truly given zero opportunities to advance their education. In America, it 's not common that the A+ education is given to you. It 's not entirely easy to land the greatest job ever with just a high school diploma. But, the cost of college has made the difference between having a job that pays well, and having a job that pays immensely for people living in poverty. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. The cost of living per month for a single, childless person in America is $2,372. Galbraith stresses importance of improving housing across the nation.(Galbraith 405) With unemployment rates remaining high, jobs are hard to find in the current economy. Even if people can find work, this does not automatically provide an escape from
Education can help Americans receive a well paying job and lead to less low income families. A quality education allows people to feel accomplished and empowered to get a job that could help their family and their financial needs. According to an article by the Global Partnership, education reduces economic inequality and “If each [employee] from poor and rich backgrounds receive the same education, the disparity between poverty would decrease by 39 percent” (“5 Ways Education Can Help End Extreme Poverty”). In an article by William Bennett, states that American companies estimate that currently there are 3 million jobs available. The downside is that the children are poor and lack the education to fulfill those jobs. The government needs to provide more affordable schooling so that young adults can obtain a higher education to earn a higher salary. Currently, The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2014 the poverty rate of people twenty-five and older was 12 percent. Figure 1 demonstrates the statistic provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. It clearly displays that Americans who obtain more years of schooling and further their education, display a lower poverty rate. In 2014, those who have obtained no high school diploma show a greater poverty rate in relation to those who do have a bachelor degree. For example, Americans who have no high school diploma have the highest poverty rate at 29 percent. In contrast, Americans who have Bachelor’s degrees or higher, have the lowest poverty rate at 5 percent (“How does level of Education Relate to
The gap between the haves, and the have-nots continues to grow rather than close. It’s a never-ending cycle. There are many reasons why economic inequality is so high, some of which include education and wealth. The gap is vast between skilled and non-skilled
Since the two factors went in different directions at the same time it seems that the change in residential locations is not the sole cause for segregation of schools. However the study found that in 1990 schools showed less segregation than neighborhoods, which is an indicator that during this time period local legislation or policies were instrumental in lowering the effects of residence based segregation however, in 2000 is seemed that public policies were no longer being instituted as commonplace as before leading to increasing correlation between residential segregation and school segregation. This is supported by a study done in 2013 which showed that school segregation increased over the decade of 2000 to 2010
Education is now more important than it has ever been. Because it is the law that every child receives an education, most people believe that all children are getting an equal education. But, that is not the truth; low-income children are receiving poorer quality education than middle-class children. These children also experience racial inequality, and they live in an unbreakable low-income cycle, all of which are things that have an effect of the quality of education a child is receiving. As stated by Brooks and Duncan (1997), "How does the relative lack of income influence children 's day-to-day lives? It is through inadequate nutrition; fewer learning experiences; instability of residence; lower quality of schools;
I think the only responsibilty of the change agents are to inform the public of their choices. Let the public know what is out there, and what the benefits are to school choice. Most people are going to wonder why they should take the trouble to transport their children to a school that might be a little farther than the school in the neighborhood. I believe that it is also very important to give many choices. I think it would be a mistake to limit the students to certain schools.
A kid growing up in poverty does not have near the same probability of graduating from a university as a wealthy individual does, and each learns to value post high school education accordingly. Do you think most poor hungry kids are going to think about college after seeing flashy drug dealers from their own neighborhoods driving Benzes, wearing designer clothes, loaded with jewelry, and toting matching Rolex watches? They know this kind of life is morally wrong, but do you think they would rather see their families continue to live like rats? Many of these kids have already dropped out of high school to better support their families by working a full time job. So many times funding is not the only problem. Sure, they could probably get financial aid to go to college and make even more money in four to six years, but hungry stomachs and overdue rent payments just can’t wai...
With the growth of income inequality since the 1970s, there has been a growth in education inequality. According to Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane in Growing income inequality threatens American education, before the 1970s American families with low incomes generally had opportunities to work their way to success. However, “computer-driven technological changes favoring highly educated workers… have produced sharply growing income gaps among families”. Education decline has “accompanied the