Author: jjb6402

When I google ‘Sandy Hook’, I have to scroll past three pages of news articles and blogs about school shootings and gun violence, just to find one website that is unrelated to any of it, the Sandy Hook Elementary School website. With this website, however, I am haunted by the reality. The reality that the pictures I see of the hallways and smiling children were once disturbed by the most horrific, heartless act that continues to plague this country each day. The reality that an active school shooter once walked those halls and killed 20 children between the ages of six and seven years old, in addition to six staff members, with just one rifle.

One would think, that having 20 children viciously murdered in this way, that there would be reform immediately. That the American people would beg for changes to be made in regards to who can own a gun, what kind of guns people can even own, etc., but no. If anything, all that has changed is there has been more school shootings than ever before.

This year alone, and mind you we are only in the third month of the year, a gun has been fired on school property 18 times, and 10 of those times have resulted in injury and/or death.

Five years after tragedy struck on that fateful Friday in Sandy Hook, we still see no change. FIVE WHOLE YEARS. In these five years of waiting and rallying and begging for change, there have been at least 239 school shootings nationwide, resulting in over 400 people being shot and 138 killed. I’m really trying to stress the numbers here, because it just doesn’t even seem real.

I always try to really understand the numbers, by breaking it down. Ok, so 138 people, a little hard to imagine, but then I think about a typical high school classroom, lets say it typically has 25 kids. That means that 138 people equals more than 5 typical high school classrooms filled with students, just gone. Never coming back. AND WE STILL AREN’T DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

What can we do? There a lot of different approaches being thrown around, some include banning all guns everywhere and some include arming teachers. So how do we decide? How do we decide what is the best course of action to prevent these terrible tragedies from happening time and time again?

I’ll tell you what won’t work: putting even more guns into the hands of more people. Arming teachers could end up being the worst thing to happen in education ever. Putting more guns out there just makes for more opportunities for them to be misused, which could lead to injuries and fatalities. For example, an armed teacher in Northern California recently fired his gun in the classroom, during a safety demonstration, injuring three students. Even during what was supposed to be a lesson on gun safety, mistakes still happen and people still get hurt. This is a perfect example of how arming teachers would do nothing to improve the current situation.

The only thing left to do is decrease the amount of guns in the arms of civilians. I know, people start hating on anyone the second they mention anything related to gun control, but we need to wake up and face the reality. People are more worried about their own hobbies for fun than they are for innocent children dying in schools. I’m not saying that nobody should own a gun, but c’mon, nobody needs to own an assault rifle, plain and simple. Those are weapons of mass destruction designed to kill the most people in the least amount of time, and there is simply no need for them to be in the hands of anyone but the military.

In addition to this, many school shooters in the past have been mentally-ill to some degree….so why are we still allowing the mentally ill to buy and use guns? One of Trump’s biggest actions so far as president was reversing a piece of legislation from the Obama era that made it more difficult for the mentally-ill to purchase guns. How does that make any sense???? To anyone???

We need gun reform and we need it now. Gun should not be in the hands of the mentally-ill. A civilian has absolutely no reason to own an assault rifle. Teachers should not be armed.

Students shouldn’t be afraid to come to school just because they aren’t sure if they will come back home in the afternoon. Parents shouldn’t be afraid to put their children on a bus just because they aren’t sure if they will come return home on that bus. As a nation, we need to do better. We need to let children learn. We need to let children learn math and science and history and language and art, NOT shooting drills. Guns and schools do not mix. It’s a simple fact and we need to make that happen.

A major debate right now in the world of education is sexual education. Sexual education, also known as “sex ed,” refers to the education students receive, or do not receive, in school in regards to safe sex and the risks/dangers associated with having sex.

Across the country, schools have implemented varying degrees of sex education within their curriculums. Some schools, especially private or religiously affiliated schools, tend to not have any degree of sex ed, and if they do have any at all, it is often a lesson that teaches abstinence only. On the contrary, there are some schools that go so far as to explain the many different forms of protection/birth control, the risks and dangers associated with unprotected sex, and consent.

The issue of what should be included in a school’s sexual education curriculum is such a hot topic because many parents, especially conservative or religious parents, believe that teaching any form of sex ed defies the parents’ choice to teach their children their family values. Many of these parents argue that the only thing that should be taught in schools is abstinence-only sexual education, or nothing at all.

Supporters of abstinence-only sexual education argue that this is the most effective way to prevent teen pregnancy, and in theory this makes sense, however, in practice it has proven to be unsuccessful. Although this lesson may have very short term success, possibly for up to a 12-18 months, it has proven to be very unsuccessful in the long term. The teen pregnancy rate in the United States has not decreased from abstinence-only education. In fact, the students who receive this form of sex ed are more at risk of teen pregnancy than someone who received a comprehensive sexual education, simply because they were not informed of the many forms of protection and resources available to them to prevent pregnancy. In addition to not being effective, abstinence-only education often includes inaccurate or biased information with the goal of scaring the students away from wanting to have sex…ever. But, as I mentioned before, this may work in the short-term, but in the long-term there are no benefits.

Some parents argue that teaching children about how to have safe sex in school encourages them to have more sex at an earlier age, which is simply not true. It actually prepares students for the future whenever they decide wanted to have sex. Personally, I received a very comprehensive sex education and it in no way encouraged or influenced how I felt about when I should have sex. The information was simply stored in the back of my mind for when I would need it in the future, when I decided when I was ready.

Another way to approach sexual education is with a comprehensive sex ed curriculum. A major aspect of comprehensive sex education that needs to be incorporated into every school’s curriculum is the topic of consent. Students need to understand that full consent is necessary when having any type of sexual interaction, and that if the consent is not there, it can have serious legal consequences. This concept is important for both parties to understand, because some victims of rape do not even realize what they experienced constituted as rape. They need to be informed that it can happen to anyone, by anyone, and that they have the power to stand up for themselves or get help.

Comprehensive sex education must to be incorporated into every school’s curriculum in America. Students need to be prepared for whenever they do decide to participate in sexual intercourse, so that they can keep themselves and their partners safe. By not requiring every student to learn about safe sex and the resources available to them, we are doing them a disservice.

There needs to be a national curriculum that all schools must follow regarding sex education. This is the only way to ensure that every student receives a proper education on such an important topic. Without the federal government stepping in, regulating this aspect of education would be impossible because many states would not require comprehensive sexual education.

In regards to the parents who are concerned about their children learning more about sex than just abstinence; they can have a private discussion in their own homes with their own children regarding the values that they wish for their children to learn. They have the option to talk to their children first, before the school, so that their child can hear both sides and make their own informed decision about whether or not, or when, they want to have sex. This compromise, in which every student can receive both formal and informal teachings of sex ed, is the most beneficial for the students because they are properly informed of the dangers and resources available to them regarding sex, while also learning about their own family’s values concerning sex.

Teacher tenure is a topic that has sparked massive debate recently in the field of education. There are thoughts circulating that tenure is awarded too quickly or to just about anyone, which leads to many teachers lacking work ethic. However many people, specifically teachers’ unions argue that tenure is imperative for the benefit of both the students and the teachers.

Teacher tenure was first awarded in the early 1900’s in an attempt to improve the quality of education in the United States because the lack of stability within the classroom was negatively impacting students’ educational experiences. Not only was this system developed to help the students, but also to help the teachers because they were now offered more job security for a position that they previously could have lost at any moment’s notice.

Tenure is the right of a teacher to due process when being fired, which is awarded after the successful completion of a probationary period. This includes being informed of the reasoning behind their termination and also having the right to a hearing prior to their termination. In theory, this is a very effective and seemingly reasonable action to follow for any teacher when considering termination, regardless of whether or not they have received tenure. However, because of the rules regarding what this hearing must include when a teacher has tenure, administrators are less likely to fire teachers who have tenure simply because the proceedings are very costly and time-consuming. This would be less detrimental to the school system as a whole if only the best and most qualified teachers were granted tenure, but it is almost laughable how easy it is to get it. Most teachers get tenure after only three years, no matter what their skill level is.

This is a major issue because teachers who are average or below average at their job are granted tenure after just three years of teaching and are almost guaranteed job security for the rest of their career, even though this might not be the most beneficial teacher for the students attending the school. A new teacher with outstanding credentials and is a better teacher than some already working in a school could apply for a teaching position, however, because a teacher who already works at the school has tenure, this new teacher may not get hired, ultimately resulting in a loss for the students’ education because they are losing out on a better teacher.

In addition to this issue, tenure also causes many teachers to lose their motivation to do their absolute best and continue to improve their teaching skills. Once a teacher is awarded tenure, they know that their job is secure enough that as long as they don’t perform completely horribly, the school’s administration would probably not go through the long and costly process of creating a hearing in order to fire them just for doing an average job. As a result, some teachers who lack the passion to do their best in the classroom from a pure passion for teaching just do the bare minimum in order to keep their job. Tenure decreases incentives for teachers and that is incredibly harmful to the education of students across the United States.

In contrast, teachers and unions, particularly the American Federation of Teachers, argue that taking away tenure would be detrimental to teachers nationwide and that the recent attacks on teacher tenure are uncalled for. Claiming that it is only a small percentage of teachers with tenure that abuse their job security assured by tenure, they say that we do not need to completely get rid or or change the system. The American Federation of Teachers’ websites argues that tenure is just as necessary today as it was when it was first created.

The reasoning behind this argument is that tenure can be seen as civil rights protections for teachers. They state that because of racial tensions that still exist today, tenure is a form of protection against being fired for an unjust reason. Basically, their main argument is that without tenure, teachers would have no protection against being fired just because an administrator had a personal problem with them because of their race, gender, religion, etc. These reasons are definitely valid in support of teacher tenure, however I think there are definitely better ways to address these issues.

I am not trying to argue that no teacher should be granted tenure just because some teachers tend to misuse their job security, I am just saying there needs to be reform in terms of who can get tenure. In addition to changing the requirements of the probationary period, I think that teachers should be reevaluated randomly throughout their career to ensure that they are holding up to the standards they were first held to in the very beginning of their career, before they had been granted tenure. Teacher tenure is so important to the success of education in the United States, however we need to fix it before the cons outweigh the pros of it.

You all knew this post was coming…Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s appointment for the Secretary of Education. Oh boy, where do I even begin?

I guess the best place to start is where her career in education policy all began….oh right, it started with being the highest official for education in the United States.

The Secretary of Education is a position within the President’s Executive Cabinet. Appointed by the President, they advise the President on all things relating to education in the United States, including policies, programs, and other activities. They are also the head of the United States Department of Education.

Her qualifications for this position? Let’s see…

Considering her position as Secretary of Education heavily involves the public education system in the United States, one would probably hope that she has some experience with public schooling, but nope. Not only has she herself never attended public school, but she also has never put her children through public school. Not only did she not have any experience being a student or parent in the public school system, she also has never even held a position involving public school in her career or even a degree in education. Instead, she was a chair for the American Federation for Children, which advocates for school choice rather than typical public schooling. This includes education vouchers and scholarship tax credits.

In addition to chairing the American Federation for Children, she was also the former chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party, however the experiences she had from this position most likely did not prepare her for this new role of Secretary of Education.

The president of the American Federation of Teachers called Betsy DeVos, “the most ideological, anti-public education nominee.” In almost every statement DeVos has made about education, she has expressed her disapproval for the public education system, instead emphasizing the need for charter schools and other for-profit schools. Her anti-public school ideology could be extremely detrimental for America’s public education system as we know it.

Having held this position for about a year now, I think this is the perfect time to evaluate the jobs she has done thus far.

Since the beginning it seems that one of her greatest mission is to take away all programs and policies put in place by the Obama administration, whether she agrees with them or not. Some of them she is rolling back only to make a new one that is very similar, but of course just slightly different. These actions seem more symbolic and damaging to education than actually helping them.

One of the policies that she changed completely was the federal regulations and mandates on sexual assault on campuses. The Obama administration worked hard to ensure that victims of sexual assault felt like they had a voice and could feel safe enough to report any incidents by creating a “preponderance of the evidence” standard that all schools must follow. Betsy DeVos has rescinded that order and is now leaving up to the schools to decide whether they wanted to use that tactic or the “clear and convincing evidence” tactic. This is dangerous because now victims will be more afraid to speak up and less likely to report incidents of sexual assault, only helping to fuel the ever-present rape culture that exists on campuses everywhere today.

In addition to this change of Obama administration policy, they also concluded that allowing transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity could not be clearly interpreted from Title IX, despite the prior administration ruling that not allowing free bathroom use was clearly sex discrimination in education, which Title IX explicitly prohibits.

Civil rights is clearly a hot topic with Betsy DeVos’ plans, as she continues to take away even more progress. She rescinded documents that outlined the rights of students with disabilities in the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), because they were “outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective.” This action could actually end up hurting students with disabilities though because certain documents that they rescinded provided necessary clarifications to schools about the act.

Lastly, she has continued to advocate, as she did before accepting this position, for school choice. This includes sending children to charter schools as well as voucher programs that allow students to send their children to private school. The issue with these schools and programs is that in theory it make sense, but in practice, it hurts the students that remain in a typical public school. The voucher money that would have gone to the public school and benefitted more than one student is now being taken away and given to a private school which is already privately funded. This leaved the public school with very little money, and the students left there suffer because of it.

If Betsy DeVos continues to support these programs, the public education system as we know it will fail in consequence.

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

But what does this really mean now?

“High test scores plus monotony-that is the goal of true education” –Every School in America (mwahaha)

Joking, joking. Kind of. Well…..not really. The students of today are facing an education epidemic. Name? Teaching to the test.

What is ‘teaching to the test’? This is the phrase used to describe the teaching method of basing a curriculum off of a standardized test, maximizing the importance of the scores, rather than actual content knowledge and practical skills.

When schools were first created, the entire purpose was for children to learn basic knowledge and skills so that they were able to succeed in the “real world” in their future, however, today we see schools abandoning these simple values of education. Instead, all they care about now is having the highest test scores.

In 2002, No Child Left Behind was created by George W. Bush. This act mandated that all schools have standardized testing each year, to ensure school accountability. This was just the beginning of a very long road that standardized tests had to travel to reach the magnitude of importance that they hold today.

After No Child Left Behind, the Obama administration continues to stress the importance of standardized testing, specifically to evaluate teachers. Since teachers were being evaluated based on the test scores their students received, it provided a greater incentive to ‘teach to the test’. Although this incentive did work to raise test scores, it did not work to improve teaching quality. In fact, it did exactly the opposite.

Schools nationwide were eager to do anything necessary to get higher standardized test scores because it brought in more funding. Funding is easily one of the most influential incentives the government can provide for schools. So, when schools put more emphasis on preparing for standardized tests and scores, they put additional pressure on the teachers to ensure that their goals are met.

‘Teaching to the Test‘ is a threat to education everywhere because it causes students to focus more on how to increase their chances of getting the correct multiple choice answer instead of actually gaining the ability to think creatively and learn deep thinking skills. This is dangerous because when this generation finally goes into the workforce, they will have very little skill and common knowledge that previous generations did have. Critical thinking is such an important skill that students need to learn in school, but if nothing changes soon, we will definitely see a decrease in the development of this skill in the coming years.

This teaching concept is very evident in New York, where the standardized tests are called ‘Regents‘. These regents test relatively basic knowledge of each school subject, however the format of the exam is slightly different from a normal test. That means students spend all year learning how to take this new test and get the most points added to their score. This is an issue because the time spent learning how to take the test could much better be used to help students develop practical skills or learn how to actually apply the information they are supposedly “learning”.

This idea isn’t unique to New York, however. Each state has their own version of standardized tests that evaluate teachers based on scores, not style or anything else.

So why is ‘teaching to the test’ such an issue? Because it takes away creativity in the classroom. Because it takes away genuine learning. Because it squashes teachers’ individuality and teaching styles. There has to be a better way to incentivize and evaluate teachers other than standardized testing.

In addition to all of the negatives that I have already previously mentioned regarding ‘teaching to the test’, one of the most detrimental impacts it has is on students’ mental health. The mental health of students of all ages and all areas of the nation is in danger because of how much emphasis and importance is put on test scores. Instead of trying to learn as much as they can, they are focusing on this test or that test and how they should’ve just scored a little higher.

This is dangerous because more students are developing academic related stress, and in turn this prevents them from learning as much as they could without the stress. In addition to that, they begin to see school and learning as something negative and stressful when it should be all about exploration and excitement.

So the verdict? ‘Teaching to the test’ hurts everyone involved, the teachers (who want to have creative license to teach in their style), the students (who face unprecedented pressure and stress to score well on standardized tests and miss out on a fun educational experience), and the parents who just want what’s best for their children. The only way to fix this issue is to find a new way to incentivize schools to teach their students thoroughly and creatively.

If you keep up with the news, particularly news related to education, you probably hear stories about under-funded schools that are lacking resources relatively frequently, but do you know why exactly funding is not equally distributed among all public schools in the United States?

Let’s break it down: It all begins with property taxes. Basically, property taxes are the essential component of how much funding a school receives. What does this mean? It means that where you live has a HUGE impact on the quality of education you receive.

Funding doesn’t rely solely on property taxes however, as there are portions of each school’s budget that come from local, state, and federal funds. Of course, each school’s funding is comprised of different percentages from each level, because if the funding at the local level is relatively low, then a higher percentage of the overall budget comes from federal and state dollars. This can be confusing though because if the percentage of a school’s budget that comes from the federal level is higher, that doesn’t mean that a school gets more money from the federal government. It just means that the set funds comprise a higher portion of the funding in a particular school/district because the other levels are not contributing as much money.

On average, the distribution of revenues looks a little something like this: 45% of funding comes from the local level (this is where the property taxes come in), 46% from the state level, and about 9% from the federal level. Clearly, this breakdown shows just how much of an impact location has on school funding, ultimately leading to inequality of educational opportunities from school district to school district.

Although school funding is not the primary factor that influences academic achievement, it still has a significant impact on the education that a student receives. For example, in the William Penn School District located in the Philadelphia suburbs, school funding is so low and poorly distributed that the schools do not have heating, even in the harsh winter. Not only that, but the walls of the schools are metal, with no insulation whatsoever. This intense cold in the classroom affects students’ education because instead of focusing on the material being taught to them, they are focused on staying warm and trying to get a blanket from the teacher before they run out. Obviously, having to worry about keeping warm is just one more thing taking away from their educational experiences, a factor that is most likely not even an issue in most other districts.

So what can we go to change this issue with school funding? Should we even change anything? Should the federal government be investing more funds to school districts? Should we find a new method of allocating funds to schools, maybe by basing it off of something other than property taxes? These are all good questions, and governments at the local, state, and federal levels are all making moves to try to solve this issue.

In 1971, the state of California proposed a plan to get more state dollars into the school districts that were struggling. They announced that schools within the state of California could write a proposal for more funding. Although the intentions were good, it ended up backfiring. Why? Because in order to write a proposal, schools needed to allocate time and resources (teachers/staff to write the proposal) and only better schools with an abundance of resources were able to write proposals. As a result, the schools that actually needed the funding the most just weren’t able to get a proposal submitted.

When that plan failed, what else did we do as a nation to provoke change?

We went to the federal government. During the Clinton Era, there was an experiment. This experiment included target spending on early education by increasing the participation and quality of Head Start, a program created to improve/provide early childhood education for low-income families. This experiment actually proved to be successful. As it turns out, money works best when it is spent early because those are the most crucial years in a student’s educational development.

So, where do we go from here?

Everyone has differing opinions on where school funding should come from, which makes it especially difficult to improve the system if not everyone agrees that it is even broken in the first place or how we should go about fixing it.

In my opinion, this system of funding schools in the United States is not the answer. We need reform and we need it now. Having nearly half of a school’s funding come from property taxes is the exact root of the issue and we need to change that. Why should a student be subject to a lesser education just because of the family or location they were born into? Every student deserves the chance to start in the same spot, with equal educational opportunities so that they can determine their own future.

When thinking about issues regarding inequality within the public school system in the United States, one of the most obvious components is racial segregation. Schools all across the United States lack diversity, which in turn hurts students on both sides of the issue. The lack of racial diversity in schools is one of the leading causes of inequality of educational opportunity, but why?

Many reasons. For one, all students, not just minority students, benefit from racially diverse classrooms. Upper- and middle-class students have both seen positive effects from being exposed to a diverse environment.  Students gain cognitive skills such as problem solving and critical thinking when they are exposed to people who are different from themselves. In addition to these benefits, students are also better equipped to survive and succeed in the democratic society that they will experience during adulthood. To ensure that students are gaining these important life skills, schools must take actions to desegregate.

Despite all of these benefits, public schools are more segregated now than they were in 1960’s. Today, one-third of black students attend school with a black population of over 90% and about one-half of white student attend schools with a white population of over 90%. How is this even possible, considering all of the achievements made since then concerning civil rights? Let’s discuss.

In the 1950’s, during Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court decided that “separate but equal” facilities were inherently unequal, and therefore violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because of that decision, all public schools in the nation had to integrate, even if that meant using the military to enforce it. Students were bussed from different districts just to ensure that all students had equal access to proper education.

In the majority opinion for the decision, Chief Justice Warren stated that having segregated schooling was detrimental to the personal and educational growth of African American students. This clearly is still a problem, except it has been proven to be detrimental to white students as well. All students need to have access to diverse environments in order to follow the democratic principles of the United States.

Segregation within the public school system might not seem like such a huge issue if all schools gave their students equal opportunities to succeed, however, as discussed in my previous blog post, this is not the case. Most high poverty schools are composed of mostly minority students. So not only are students losing out on the opportunity to learn in a diverse environment, but minority and low-income students are also losing out on basic educational opportunities. These low-income schools lack the proper resources to give these students the same opportunities that most middle- and upper-class white students have.

So, there is an issue regarding segregation of schools today, but what can we do about it? Can we even do anything about it?

There are many states and school districts that are doing their best to try to combat this issue. Some of these methods include redrawing district lines, providing bussing to different school districts, and creating magnet schools.

In 2016, the Obama Administration allocated $120 million dollars for a grant program called “Stronger Together”. This money would be awarded to school districts nationwide who were actively making an effort to integrate their schools. This created an incentive to actually solve the issue that many past administrations were afraid to even approach.

This new incentive caused many school districts to redraw their district lines based on socioeconomic status (because redrawing district lines based on race is unconstitutional). This, in turn, led to a decrease in racial segregation. By considering socioeconomic status when drawing district boundaries, school districts are becoming more economically and racially diverse.

The Obama Administration really pushed the idea of choice rather than forcing integration. By providing an incentive instead of compulsory bussing, there was much less opposition, because people wanted to get more federal money for their schools. In addition to the grant money, there has been a push for more magnet schools throughout the country.

Magnet schools are another means by which students and families are choosing to integrate themselves. Students apply for these magnet schools based on a particular area of study, rather than being placed in a school based on the neighborhood they live in. This offers them a chance to get a proper education, even if they live in a low-income area. These schools are especially beneficial to low-income students because they are free, so they don’t need to worry about affording a private education. Some magnet schools even have a lottery system to get in if there are more applicants than places in the school, just to ensure that all students have an equal chance of getting accepted, regardless of race or income.

Clearly, solving the problem of school segregation doesn’t have one clear-cut answer. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to create more equality within the public school system, but we are slowly getting there, one step at a time.

When I was first thinking about which topic I should select for this Civic Issues blog, I knew I wanted to do something related to inequality. However, since this topic is so overwhelmingly broad, I have decided to narrow it down a step further. With so many different ways to approach this, I starting thinking: Where does inequality actually start?

The answer is education. Having a proper education is the foundation for success because it leads to many more opportunities in the future such as many career paths. So, if there is an issue with inequality, there is a good chance it begins with unequal educational experiences. Although there are a few exceptions, most high-paying jobs within the United States require at least a college degree, if not more. 

This in and of itself is not the glaring issue here; it is the fact that not every student in America has the same, or even close to the same, amount of resources to get them to earn that degree. Students need various resources and support from their education in order to graduate and go to college to pursue their career and life goals. Throughout the nation, inequality in educational opportunity is heavily debated. People argue over whether it is an issue, and if it is, what we can do to improve the system and decrease the gap.

If you are not familiar with this issue, you may be asking yourself, What is inequality in educational opportunity exactly?

Inequality in Educational Opportunity refers to academic gaps leading to educational attainment gaps, which ultimately causes long-term inequality for an individual or family, both socially and economically. By this I mean that when certain demographics are disadvantaged to limited resources/poor school systems, they are ultimately disadvantaged for the rest of their lives.

The public school system is so inconsistent in terms of its national success rate because it relies heavily on property taxes to supplement the national and state funding each district receives. Right off the bat, this puts areas with low-income residents and/or poverty-ridden neighborhoods at a disadvantage. Because they don’t pay nearly as much in taxes as an upper class neighborhood would, they automatically don’t have as much funding for their school systems.

For wealthier districts, this method of distributing funds is beneficial because they are able to use their funding to provide incredible opportunities and resources within the public school system in order to make sure that the students are well-prepared to succeed later in life. However, on the opposite side of the issue, this means that other public schools in low-income areas are struggling to fund even the most basic of resources. For example, some school districts are overcrowding their classrooms and are unable to provide desks and books for all of these students. This is the most basic example of inequality within education because from the very start, these students have very little chance of getting the education they need to succeed.

This also helps to prove why poverty is considered hereditary. If a child grows up in a poverty-stricken area, the likelihood of them going to a school with limited funding is much greater. Because education is so fundamental to economic success, these children are much less likely to get themselves out of poverty by going on to college and getting a decent salary.

There are many ways that the government, school districts, and other organizations are challenging this problem. Within the last 20 years, the federal government has assumed a much larger role in the United States public education system by creating many new policies such as No Child Left Behind, Common Core, Race to the Top and many more in order to combat inequality in educational opportunities. The purpose of these programs was to decrease the achievement gap. The achievement gap is the disparity in academic achievement due to socioeconomic background. This gap is proven through test scores, grades, graduation rates, etc. The achievement gap between students of differing socioeconomic backgrounds has decreased because of many of these federal government programs, however it is still a very present and important issue facing our nation today.

In addition to the advantages middle and upper-class neighborhoods have just through funding for the schools, these families are also able to afford other means of preparing their children for future success. Although the most obvious method is probably being able to afford tutors, there are even more things that middle and upper-class families do that help put their children ahead. For example, they can afford to put in time to read to their children or help them with their homework; both of which have been proven to improve a child’s educational experience and success later in life.

In conclusion, in order to achieve any sort of equality, we need to start where it all begins. We need to start with education.