School funding comes from a number of sources, but the main source is property tax. The more your house is worth, the more your school should recieve. Money has been seen as an tool used to create inequality in the schools and has been manipulated to correct inequalities. In 1965, Congress passed Title 1 in which over $100 billion has been dispensed to school districts with high concentrations of "impoverished" students (Traub, 55). Lawsuits and court decisions have also attempt to equalize spending amoung schools and districts. Many of these results have had mixed reviews, but they are also hard to track because of the complex nature of gather the information. Equalilizing the school finance system will not necessarily lead to more equality in educational opportunity. Even if spending per pupil was the same accross the nation, inequalities would still exist.
"A child living in an inner city is in school for only so many hours. It's the rest of the day- as well as the rest of the neighborhood- that's the big influence and the problem," -James Traub.
Unfortunately, schools are not equal because communities, families, and students are not equal. Students face a plethora of challenges in inner cities as vividly shown in Amazing Grace. Youth witnessing murders, drug use, parents dying of AIDS, who have a lack of sleep, health care, safety, sanitation, and confidence are on unequal grounds before the first bell rings. Not to say that amazing things cannot happen, but that is what it is, amazing, when it does happen.
The government has so much money, as do the communities in which they are attempting to assist. With the Colman Report, maybe this money should focus on the social aspects that contiune this vicisous cycle. Reforming the spending on per pupil might sound great but if the greatest hinderance to a child success happens out of school, pumping more money into schools might just be putting bandaids on a gunshot wound. Schools cannot and should not be seen as the insititution that can cure the social ills all by itself.
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In Amazing Grace, Kozol talks about the personal earnings of a money manager in Manhattan. This man earned over $1 Billion dollars in a single year. Kozol goes on to state, “an extra 20 percent tax on his earnings, if redistributed in the South Bronx, would have lifted 48,000 human beings—every child and every parent in every family in Mott Haven—out of poverty, with enough left over…..When newspapers speak of New York City’s lack of money, clearly, they are referring not to private wealth but to the public treasury,” (Kozol, 1991, p. 111).
Ever since reading this passage, I have not been able to get it out of my mind. In one maneuver, 48,000 people could get the break they need to move on with their lives. The money manager will still have more than enough money to live luxuriously. If this one man could change the lives of so many people, just think of what the collective multi-billionaires in the United States could do to help the country and its children.
"Even if spending per pupil was the same across the nation, inequalities would still exist". I think this goes back to one of the ideas we discussed in class this week, about how even if schools themselves were exactly the same, down to the pencil sharpners and the paint on the ceiling, there would still be inequalities. If, then, funding isn't going to fix the gap, then something else is going on. Yes, we need to deal with the money issue, but that is an ongoing issue that I am cynical enough to think will never truly be solved. I know that schools cannot cure social ills, but ideally, can't they help the children? If you educate a child properly, isn't his/her chance of pursuing his/her dreams greater, and isn't that the goal, to give the child a chance?
I totally agree with you Michelle, inequalities will exist regardless of how similar schools are because fundamental social problems exist outside of the school. It is important to realize that while students are in the classroom they should be given every opportunity to succeed or as Michelle said, "given a chance."
Expectations should be high, teachers should plan the most quality activities, students should be given time to do their work during the school day, and role models (or people who have been in their position and succeeded) should be shown to the students. I have seen that often the school becomes a safe haven for students living in poverty.
I think too often people believe that people from a disadvantaged social background don't care as much about school, or aren't able to do as well in school because other issues in their life have to take precedent. Educators must realize while they are in the school we have the opportunity to reach them. In reality, I have seen that these are the students who care the most because they realize that education is their way out of their current circumstance.
I agree with most of the points so far in this blog discussion. Especially on the fact that emily brought up saying that those of a poor SES are generally disregarded as being those who don't care about education, when really this generalization couldn't be further from the truth. It is most often that these students need to combat a great deal of social obligations in order to even get to their school work, and when they are unable to finish every last bit of homework they receive, they are reprimanded in school, without given the opportunity to explain whatever extenuating circumstances there may be. This should not be the case. We as teachers need to put less emphasis on homework and realize that although to us it may be inexcusable to disregard ones school work, there are more important things in life than finishing a worksheet or two. In observing classrooms, teachers to often spend a significant time in their classroom going over homework, while leaving those who have not had the opportunity to do the work at a loss. It is practices and unfair assumptions like this that makes the academic playing field completely uneven.
I also wanted to address the idea that erica mentioned from 'Amazing Grace'. While it sounds great that by taxing a billionaire 20% of his income an entire community can be fixed, one must be cautious when thinking like this because we do live in a capitalist economy and by taking that much money from an individual and giving them no benefit from that tax, you are giving more and more of a precedent for a socialist economy. Who gets to draw the line of how much money the billionaire will have to give up before he really misses it. While we often make unfair assumptions of the poor, i think we also make unfair assumptions of the rich, and that only furthers the divide of those of different SES groups.
It sounds like there are two different arguments in play here: in order to help students, schools either need to affect MORE of a student's life, or less. We usually focus on the more: schools offer breakfast, free and reduced price lunch, after-school programs, some health services, etc. etc. This definitely works toward meeting some of the basic needs of children so that they can focus more on the academic parts of school, but it can't change the environment from which these children come to school. And, as many of you have pointed out, when coupled with certain stereotypes about low SES students not caring about school, it can start to seem futile, even a waste of money.
I hear shadows of a different argument in Michelle's, Emily's, and Chuck's posts--that perhaps school should stick to what school already does, but do it better, and keep it contained. This is an argument I am less familiar with, but I find it intriguing. I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth and say you all aren't in favor of programs like the ones I described above--not by any means! But it does sound like you are saying: let's address what actually goes on inside of schools and how that might be able to help students outside of school. I think the issue of homework encapsulates it a bit; rather than insisting that homework is the key to success in school and punishing students who are unable, for various reasons, to complete it, change the system so that everything academic that needs to be done can be done during the school day. Give students a chance to succeed while they are in the (relatively) protected space of the school day, rather than asking them to carry it outside, where, as we discussed in class, they may not have a home to go to, or a table to sit at to do those worksheets.
I'm not sure what I think about this argument in terms of actually improving the lives of students, but it does seem that it could be developed to help students succeed in school, which might, as Michelle and Emily say, be the key to changing their circumstances outside of school. The problem is that this idea is focused on the long-term. What do we do about the short-term?
Zach says, "If the greatest hinderance to a child success happens out of school, pumping more money into schools might just be putting bandaids on a gunshot wound." Clearly external factors, especially as extreme as the students Kozol featured in Amazing Grace experienced, will have a strong impact on children and their success in schools. Many classmates have already addressed this in their comments to Zach. Charter schools are a fairly recent development in schooling that I am very interested in learning more about regarding this topic. Since charter schools are so new, there has not been enough solid longitudinal studies to show the impact these schools have on low SES and impoverished students. Charter schools were created though to tackle this problem of external factors and family life affecting children. If charter schools do prove to be effective, I would be very interested to see if this would have a larger impact on public schools in America.
For more information on charter schools, http://www.uscharterschools.org.
I am beginning more and more to see the difficulties inherent in this subject. I agree with Zach when he pointed out that "schools cannot and should not be seen as the institution that can cure the social ills all by itself." Though a valid observation, much of the subsequent discussion swerved from Zach's argument to one of discussing things that schools can do to fix the problem. In summarizing much of the discussion thus far, Nicole stated that we should "give students a chance to succeed while they are in the (relatively) protected space of the school day, rather than asking them to carry it outside, where, as we discussed in class, they may not have a home to go to, or a table to sit at to do those worksheets." I believe this line of thinking has some temporary pragmatic value, yet falls terribly short of addressing the real issue that schools cannot solve, namely, a society that marginalizes and segregates large numbers of "unwanted" individuals into deplorable situations and then blames "them" for ruining their lives. As evidenced in Kozol's touching work, such is the heart of the problem.
Schools can spend more, hire better teachers, create responsive curricula, and allow students to do homework at school, yet they will inevitably fail because these represent bandaid fixes for ancillary issues rather than all out attacks on the root problem.
We need to be realistic, which in this debate requires recognizing the limitations of schools and realizing that some problems will not, and can not, be changed without a dramatic societal shift in thinking.
Until this paradigmatic shift occurs, the best we can do is "put bandaids on the gunshot wounds" inflicted by society, realistically aware that we will, unfortunately, only be able to stabilize a precious few.…
I agree with Michelle and Emily in that helping students succeed in school will lead to success outside of school. I also don't think that increasing money and resources is necessarily the key to achieving success in school. I think that the issue is whether or not confidence is being instilled into the individual student. If the parents aren't building up their children at home, then in my opinion the responsibility falls on us, the educators.
You can give the poorest schools in the world all the resources they could ever wish to have, but unless the students are being taught that they can succeed, success will remain elusive.
Matthew, you're right that my suggestion does nothing to tackle the societal problems of Harlem and the Bronx. I guess my point was that schools still have to do their job, and that in a place like Harlem or the Bronx, they may have to do it in a way that doesn't exactly resemble the school experience that most of us had. This in itself might not pull anyone out of poverty, but as (future) educators, I think we have to start with the question of how we can do our basic job well in difficult circumstances. Only once we reach that point can we start thinking about being agents of social change. Schools may or may not be able to change the world, but if they are failing at their most basic tasks, or--perhaps I should say it another way--failing to support students in those aspects of school which we consider fundamental, namely, academics, then there's almost no point even discussing that next level. School may be many things to many people but let's not forget that it's still school. Does that make sense?
Based on Nicole's recent post about educators needing to remember that a school is first a school, even in difficult situations, I felt that this NYTimes blog ("Lesson Plans") would be appropriate. The current entry is written by a teacher in a New Orleans public elementary school, discussing some of her observations teaching in a school that is part of the rebuilding of a city. http://lessonplans.blogs.nytimes.com/
I agree with RC to some extent, but with some additions to it.
We as teachers (or future teachers) have tremendous abilities to influence our students. They spend large amounts of their days with us and how we and everyone in the school system presents their future. If we don't provide them with the best environment we can then are we helping them or just contributing to their current lively-hood.
Granted, this path is not as easy one. In order to do this is requires a lot of work, way beyond the expectations of what we consider to be the regular work of teachers. Is it worth it? Personally I think so.
Most everyone I know who has gone into teaching from all levels (uncertified to masters degrees) have landed in a "bad" or "failing" school as their first job. This is something which we can't blow off because we may as well be faced with it in the very near future.
I do agree with RC and the others that educators, like it or not, have to live in the current environment in which some parents and families are not encouraging their sons and daughters. As educators, our main priority is to encourage and develop the potential in all students. If the parents are not doing this, then we are the ones who need to make up for it. No point in tring to fix what we cannot fix ( the family situation) but remedy it as much as we can with our involvement.
Along the blog of Chuck, I agree that some children deal with their primary need of survival and not homework, as seen in Amazing Grace. The curriculum/teaching instruction needs to work with this issue and realize that homework might not be the answer to learning in a survival environment. I have worked in a school where we do all projects at school, none at home. That way, the child is not negatively affected in his grades and efforts by a lack of parental involvement. On the other hand, the children who have excessive amounts of parental involvement could not be rewarded positively for a project that essentially the parents completed for them.
There are so many thoughts going on that it is hard to know what to talk about. But I think talking about student motivation is very important. I think we can go in circles until we are blue in the face about what we should do about the funding and what is going on at home (outside of school), but I think the real issue is providing opportunities where students can learn and be successful. As teachers we are responsible for using the resources we have to provide situations where students are motivated to learn about the world around them and how to make sense of it all. If students are motivated to value their education and how to apply it into life then we are giving them skills that will transfer into them having a better life. So a question I would ask is what are some ways we can better utilize the resources teachers are given and how can we motivate students to use their resources wisely to make the best of their lives?
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