For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused elsewhere, particularly in the inner city schools. For many years, poor communities have failed at providing students with the best education. To add to this, the crime infested neighborhood is a distraction to most young people. Hearing sirens all night long could definitely keep students from staying awake in class. The best solution to this problem is to produce more jobs in these poor communities. The more work people could do in their spare time, the less trouble they could get into. Meanwhile, as the pressure of schools losing their students due to dropout, it is important that the inner city students have the support they need in school or at home, because many years of oppression have kept African-Americans from having the will to do better. Now young African-Americans have that same oppressed feeling in the schools that they are attending. When the students give up it seems as though everyone around them wants to give up. In fact, “In many parts of the country, the problems present withi... ... middle of paper ... ...of Chicago. Retrieved June 5, 2010, Web. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Retrieved June 6, 2010, Swaraj. Org. Web. Klopp, R. & Miguel, S. (2003). Teens campaign for better sex education. SIECUS Report, 31(4), 34-35. Proquest. Ivytech, South Bend, Retrieved July 8, 2010, Web. Krisberg, K. (2010, April). Teen pregnancy prevention focusing on evidence. The Nation's Health, 40(3), 1, 14. Proquest. Ivytech, South Bend, Retrieved July 7, 2010, Web. Melhado, L. (2007). Teenage parents' educational attainment is affected more by available resources than by parenthood. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 39(3), 184-185. Proquest. Ivytech, South Bend, Retrieved July 9, 2010, Web. Noguera, P. A. (2003). City Schools and the American Dream. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Retrieved June 5, 2010, Web.
The second is the concern over segregation and the effect it has on society. Mr. Kozol provides his own socially conscious and very informative view of the issues facing the children and educators in this poverty ravaged neighborhood. Those forces controlling public schools, Kozol points out, are the same ones perpetuating inequity and suffering elsewhere; pedagogic styles and shapes may change, but the basic parameters and purposes remain the same: desensitization, selective information, predetermined "options," indoctrination. In theory, the decision should have meant the end of school segregation, but in fact its legacy has proven far more muddled. While the principle of affirmative action under the trendy code word ''diversity'' has brought unparalleled integration into higher education, the military and corporate America, the sort of local school districts that Brown supposedly addressed have rarely become meaningfully integrated. In some respects, the black poor are more hopelessly concentrated in failing urban schools than ever, cut off not only from whites but from the flourishing black middle class. Kozol describes schools run almost like factories or prisons in grim detail. According to Kozol, US Schools are quite quickly becoming functionally segregated. Kozol lists the demographics of a slew of public schools in the states, named after prominent civil rights activists, whose classrooms are upwards of 97% black and Hispanic — in some cases despite being in neighborhoods that are predominantly white. It has been over 50 years since Brown vs. Board of Education. It is sad to read about the state of things today.
Kozol has compiled a list of schools that are either still segregated, or are re-segregating and the schools do not have the same things as those in suburban, or mainly white neighborhoods. He outlines many inner city schools as mostly African American and Hispanic students. Some schools have less than a quarter of their population come from Caucasian decent, and as few as one student in the demographics. Kozol speaks about unequal d...
On January 28th 2008, the Toronto District School Board voted to approve the creation of a highly controversial black focused public school. This black focused school is a supposed solution to the high dropout rate among black youth in Toronto, which runs as high as 40 percent. The school, which is one of three recommended across the city, will focus on black culture and history, as opposed to the mainstream education system which is seen to be Eurocentric. Although the goal of the school is to be open to students of all ethnic background, the title sends a divergent message. The use of the words “black” or “Afro-centric” within the title of the schools creates a distinct and obvious separation within society. It creates an ideology that black or African-descended students are incapable of succeeding in mainstream education, therefore specialized schools, such as black focused schools, will help solve the issue. Although it sounds like the “right thing to do”, creating a black focused school will not completely bolster black student’s attitude and achievements in school. Furthermore, the topic of black focused schools in Toronto is a moral panic, which corresponds to a form of voluntary racial segregation and deteriorates Toronto’s image as a “cultural mosaic”. This essay will explore the background of what a moral panic is and why this strategy is used in society. In addition, this essay will examine the correlation between black focused schools and two sociological theories, the social-conflict theory and the structural functionalist theory. Lastly, this essay will convey the many important reasons why black focused schools will turn Toronto into a partitioned city.
Detroit is a story of a once flourishing city that has been on a long downslide for decades. There are miles of unoccupied homes and buildings, and crimes and unemployment are at an all-time high. Many aspects of the city are breaking down, including the school system. The Detroit Public School System has lost over eighty thousand students due to high enrollment in charter schools, the large economic decline, and the departure of residents. For many years no one has taken responsibility for the public school system. However, for Detroit to rise again, it is necessary for someone to take responsibility, make a plan, and make sure that children are safe, well cared for, and are receiving a high quality education when going to school each day. In 2016, schools are low-performing with poor test scores, are falling apart, and teachers and parents have decided to take a stand.
As an African American male, I experienced inequality, and judgment from individuals that have no idea what kind of person I truly am. As a youth, I received a lackluster education, which has resulted in me underachieving in a number of my college classes. It has come to my attention that other colored students are currently experiencing and receiving the same inadequate learning environment and educatio...
The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the reality of inner-city public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems.
Today's education is often viewed as failing in its goal of educating students, especially those students characterized as minorities, including African American, Hispanic, and Appalachian students (Quiroz, 1999). Among the minority groups mentioned, African American males are affected most adversely. Research has shown that when Black male students are compared to other students by gender and race they consistently rank lowest in academic achievement (Ogbu, 2003), have the worst attendance record (Voelkle, 1999), are suspended and expelled the most often (Raffaele Mendez, 2003; Staples, 1982), are most likely to drop out of school, and most often fail to graduate from high school or to earn a GED (Pinkney, 2000; Roderick, 2003).
Adversity is commonplace for black youth in the inner city. In Patterson’s The Cultural Matrix, there are a plethora of examples that express these various facets of hardship and differentiate the institutional blockades from the cultural obstacles.
California is one of the largest states in the country and has one of the biggest state budgets, but in the past several years, its school system has become one of the worst in the nation because of enormous budget cuts in efforts to balance the state’s enormous deficit. The economic downturn at the end of the 2000s resulted in even more cuts to education. It is in environments like this one in which students from poor backgrounds become most vulnerable because of their lack of access to support in their homes as well as other programs outside of schools. Their already financially restricted school districts have no choice but to cut supplementary programs and increase class sizes among other negative changes to public schools. The lack of financial support from the state level as well as demands for schools to meet certain testing benchmarks by the state results in a system in which the schools are no longer able to focus on students as individuals; they are forced to treat students as numbers rather than on an individual case by case basis. An article from the Los Angeles Times showed that majority of Californians give California schools “a grade of C or below” and half think that the quality of schools will continue to decline (Watanabe).While the economic downturn affected the public school system in a negative way, it was not the sole root of its problems. It just simply exacerbated already existing issues.
Five miles away, a world apart: One city, two schools, and the story of educational opportunity in modern America.
Through programs that directly fuel desegregation in schools, our educational systems have become a melting pot of different races, languages, economic status and abilities. Programs have been in place for the past fifty years to bring student that live in school districts that lack quality educational choices, to schools that are capable of providing quality education to all who attend. Typically the trend appears to show that the schools of higher quality are located in suburban areas, leaving children who live in “black” inner-city areas to abandon the failing school systems of their neighborhoods for transportation to these suburban, “white” schools. (Angrist & Lang, 2004)
With people moving in the cities, overcrowdedness has become a major issue for the public city school system. People often thought of cities as places paved with gold and opportunities, occupied by diverse groups. Everyone comes from different parts of the world chasing after its glamour and freedom. While those desires can be met with settling in urban society, overcrowdedness in Queens of New York City schools have adverse effects on the students’ academic performance.
Education is an integral part of society, school helps children learn social norms as well as teach them how to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. These schools have lower test scores and high dropout rates. In Trenton Central High School West, there was an 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often from low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial reasons to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and further teacher education, urban schools can be transformed and be better equipped to prepare their students for the global stage.
Though, the rule motivation to desegregate neighborhoods is very difficult by a growing ignorance of the nation’s racial history. It must be talked about improving the social and economic conditions that bring too many students to school unprepared to take advantage of what even the best schools have to offer. There is a strong feeling of racial inequality in today's school systems, which harmfully effects the quality of education that its students receive. A schools potential to give an appropriate education often depends on the viewpoint on racial backgrounds of its students. America's school systems seem to be returning to their past state of segregation. There is an unfortunately small number of minority children who are lucky enough to attend such quality schools but white children defiantly make up the majority of upper class high. “All of them, of course, were white, and desegregation was far from their minds” (Margolick
The American society, more so, the victims and the government have assumed that racism in education is an obvious issue and no lasting solution that can curb the habit. On the contrary, this is a matter of concern in the modern era that attracts the concern of the government and the victims of African-Americans. Considering that all humans deserve the right to equal education. Again, the point here that there is racial discrimination in education in Baltimore, and it should interest those affected such as the African Americans as well as the interested bodies responsible for the delivery of equitable education, as well as the government. Beyond this limited audience, on the other hand, the argument should address any individual in the society concerned about racism in education in Baltimore and the American Society in