American Education: Unequal Opportunity

As a student who had attended public schools her whole life, I was never aware of the injustices that reside within the United States education system. In this country, we chose to believe that education is a tool that is equally accessible to every American and we have to make the effort to utilize it. I have read countless articles on our country's education system, and have learned from experts that this thought process is far from the truth. Countless students are going unnoticed, left to be given a mediocre education that is underfunded and setting them up poorly for the future. Meanwhile other students in more affluent areas are receiving a top notch education, because they live in areas that generate more property tax that is then fed into their school. This is reinforcing the advantage of wealthy students and further leaving behind underprivileged students.

Schools are being underfunded to the point where they have to be taken over by the state because they can not stay afloat anymore. Research published by Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization, found that schools that are in the most economically segregated areas are the most effective in properly funding their public schools. When low income students are spread throughout counties, it makes it more difficult for the federal, state and local governments to adequately fund students. That is part of the reason why so many struggling students go unnoticed.

A reform in the financial system for public education is necessary to give each student an equal opportunity to succeed. The government needs to fund each student equally based on their needs. The lack of funding is reinforcing the vicious cycle of generational poverty. Without a fair education from the start how can we expect students to work their way out of poverty? Unless a change is made, the students who are already from wealthy families will continue to get a better education, setting them up for success starting in kindergarten.

While the US is able to recognize the injustices within its public education system, the remedies are not always sufficient. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was passed in 2002, with the intention to improve the outcomes of underperforming public schools. Under No Child Left Behind, public schools had to test their students' proficiency in reading, math, and science and report those results. Public schools in each state then had to bring their students up to a “proficient” level, even though the individual states got to decide what proficiency looks like. By doing this it becomes an inaccurate measure of how well US students are learning since each state had a different standard. States were able to lower their standard if students were not improving fast enough, rather than improving their educational practices.

Thirteen years later, in 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which was a revision of NCLB. It focuses less on standardized testing and uses less of a “cookie cutter” approach to improving education. Now, schools have to provide an accountability plan to the state, to show that their outcomes are improving. The state will intervene in any school that is in the bottom five percent of low performing schools and high schools that have a graduation rate of sixty seven percent or less. However, the state only identifies these underperforming schools every three years.

It is important that policy makers are recognizing these issues and making an effort to take action to minimize the achievement gap. Although they have not landed on a solution that is anywhere near perfect, recognizing the issues is a step in the right direction.

The concept of charter schools was created in 1988 by Albert Shanker, a teachers union leader. His purpose of charter schools was to provide a place for students who are unmotivated or who have dropped out of school. A few years later, he renounced his idea because he feared that charter schools would be capitalized. Unfortunately, he died before he could see that his prediction was accurate. Charter schools severely damage public education. They take tax dollars from these public schools that are in need of funding. Families can choose to send their children to a charter school that may very well be better funded. This causes public schools to not only receive less money, but also have to fire staff and cut down on other resources they can no longer afford.

Ultimately, it is clear that our country's public education system has a lot of room for improvement. Students are not being given equal opportunities to expand their education in environments that are properly equipped and funded to do so. Students and their families should not be punished for living in a lower income area by getting a lesser education. Luckily, policy makers are making efforts to be progressive on this issue.