cheetah

Okay, here's a thread to discuss the issue of K-12 education inequalities in America. Are there inequalities? What are they based on (race, money, sex, hair color...)? How did this result? Is it okay to have the inequalities? How may it be rectified? Does affirmative action adequately address this inequality (if you agree it exists)? If not, should affirmative action be replaced or reconfigured?

Ok, that was a lot of questions, but I hope it will spark a good discussion. I personally do believe and know that there are inequaltiies and I don't think they are a good thing. I think our society would be best served by equal access to education and access to really showing your potential to the utmost (Sidenote, this is also why I am a feminist. I believe everyone, regardless of sex, socioeconomic status or anything else, should have equal opprotunity. It's then up to them to do something with that opportunity). That's all I'll say for now. I am most interested in hearing the ideas of some of those who are more knowledgeable about the process/ have great ideas on what would work better.

Thanks!

Ab_Normal

I'm doing some research on education funding in my state (Washington) so I can bring something to this discussion other than opinions... thank you for starting the topic, cheetah, and I hope I can get something put together this afternoon.

Off the top of my head: We have state-mandated standardized testing at fourth, seventh, and tenth grade, and the differences in test scores by school/district that I've seen almost exactly match income distribution. That's why I'm looking at funding, to see how much of it is tied to property tax, and how much comes from the general budget.

Zadok001

School funding is actually not a good predictor of student performance. In fact, it's flat-out awful. I checked out some of the funding information on high schools in the Baltimore area - Result? The school with the most funding doesn't even come CLOSE to having the best performance. It's a scattered plot, the two elements are only vaguely related.

On the other hand, family income in an EXCELLENT predictor.

Ab-Normal, cross-check funding and performance. But then check the averages of the schools in low-income areas against the averages of low-income families in higher-income areas. You'll find that a student in a given income bracket will normally perform the same, regardless of school funding.

Solution? God knows.

Ab_Normal

That's what I was trying to say, just not very well. (Not enough sleep + too much caffeine = incoherence. I should know better.) From what I've been able to find so far, the majority of our school funding comes from the state general fund, and is distributed based on the number of students in the district. Some districts do get more from local tax levies than others, which leads to some funding inequalities.

Anecdote alert:

My daughter is in our public school district's gifted program. There was a series of meetings last spring (to get the parents to rubber stamp the changes they planned for the program, but that's another rant entirely) about the program in the elementary schools. There are four elementary schools in our district, with general income levels ranging from lower middle class to filthy stinkin' rich. When the number of kids in the program were broken down by school, the "poor" school had the least and the "rich" school had the most. The district administration said that was to be expected, not because the kids from the "poor" school were any dumber than the other kids, but because their parents were so busy making ends meet that they didn't have the time to devote to their children's academics.

I am also stumped for a solution. Sigh.

Celsus

Hey Cheetah,

Great topic. I can't help you with inequalities in the US, but I did write my dissertation on gender inequalities in education in Ghana. My methodological outline may be useful in thinking about the problem, but it will probably bore you. Here's the relevant stuff:
Ribot gives a much more radical definition of access which extends beyond the conventional legal framework. Most government legislation has focused on the superficial, legal aspect of access, disregarding the content. Nelly Stromquist, probably the leading academic researcher on gender and education, rails against what she sees as merely symbolic victories from the state. In determining whether there is equal access, one cannot only look at just the legal institutions, but also at the extra-legal or social mechanisms that work at preventing people from gaining fuller education. The second term, "adverse cultural practice" is more relevant to the developing world, but could potentially shed some light. This approach focuses on parental choice, since that is the most significant factor children have to deal with in obtaining education. I hope thinking along those lines will help you answer your questions.

Joel

cheetah

Joel, thank you for this. I will have to spend some time thinking about it, before I can get a good feel of what it means to this question and the problems we face. At first glance, I can say that I think the point about access is key.

To stimulate more ideas in the meantime, is it too simplistic to JUST say we'll give each school a certain amount based on attendance? If so, why?

Celsus

Hi again,

Are we talking about allocation of state funding? If so, that is too simplistic for a few reasons. Firstly, this will cause schools to base their policies on what increases their funding. If it is solely reliant on enrolment, then they will focus on exactly that. Equal efforts must be made to reward quality of course. Secondly, the geographical location of income disparities affects what kind of kids a school will attract (a significant factor in parental choice is simply distance, especially among poorer neighbourhoods). Tackling this means one must consider the likely recipients of funding will be. Thirdly, if education is to play the role of the great leveller, then special attention must be made to areas (not necessarily schools) with higher dropout rates, and why such things happen. Fourthly, niche schools (especially for those catering to kids with learning difficulties) must be considered separately.

There are actually plenty of other reasons, I could go on and on. But that'll do for now... I need to go to bed soon. These all basically factor in levelling access and how to improve quality.
Joel

cheetah

True, there would have to be some standardization of HOW schools could use the money, so they didn't just try to get a million kids, 50 to a classroom, so they could use the monety to supplement the superintendant's salary. I do however, aslso believe in local choices in how to spend money, so there would have to be some compromise, but the way that money is spent is undoubtedly important.

I didn't get your second point, though. Could you clarify?

You're other points are well taken and would have to be considered in the compromise between local choice in spending (to focus on local issues) and equality of funding (so the schools don't spend it all on the super's salary).

So, that brings up another good question. how do you come to a good compromise on the issue of enabling locals, who know most about their issues, spend the money in the right place, but also have some standards state-wide (or whatever) that allow for equality and disallow abuse (particularly in districts where parents, for whatever reason do not actively police their schools)?

Celsus

Hi cheetah,

My second point is that different areas in a city will have different levels of income (suburbs - more middle class; inner cities - more working class; etc.). Thus, schools' funding must take into account the income levels of the pupils' parents - poorer schools are less able to raise money for special programs, for example. It's mainly a matter for city councils to decide how progressive or regressive they want their funding to be.

Two sociologists whose name I can't recall (well Bowles is one of them) tried to argue that schools reproduce the inequalities of capitalist society: i.e. the rich get good schools, and the poor get poor schools (in general, obviously there are exceptions), and thus the rich are favoured in adult life. The main critique of this would be that education is not oppressive, and there are plenty of aspects which are liberating for the individual. The second argument is that they have not been able to show how education reproduces class inequality. However, the dangers of society reproducing unequal relations are something that policy concerning educational expenditure ideally would need to work against. Thus, analysis of the income of catchment areas for schools should focus on a progressive expenditure (more money to poorer areas).
I'm not really sure how it works in the US, but in Singapore, the Ministry of Education determines the proportion of spending to different areas. They also have a certain amount of leftovers for the School Boards to determine how it should be spent. This would be a good idea, except that I don't agree with the Ministry on where the vast majority of funding goes (usually to the sciences, with a massive neglect of humanities). So in principle, the ministry governing standards must be more accountable, but then they base all their estimates on what skills and manpower distribution they foresee the economy as needing in twelve years' time when these kids graduate. It's very Brave New World really.

For a more democratic society, a number of institutions governing minimum standards and advising schools and councils on where distribution should be allocated would probably be as good as you can get in an imperfect world (and I'm sure they exist, focusing on different areas of expertise). I presume in the US, state expenditure is fairly autonomous, differing across counties and so on. So it's up to you to get out and vote, petition, write letters and so on to make your voice heard, both at a board, district and state level. Quality vs. quantity is always an extremely tricky and complicated situation, especially in education.

Joel

RoddyM

As far as American leaders are concerned with "education" the policy is to allow for the freedom for it's citizens to be educated the way they wannabe.