What Are the Real Problems with American Public Schools?
Part 2 Income Wealth and Inequality
The Resegregation of America's Schools
By Roberta.
Americans like to believe that their system of public schools provide equal opportunity for all children. But the fact is America's schools do not. Not by a long shot. There are three main sources of public school funding: local, state, and the federal governments.
At the local level funding is largely achieved through local property taxes. But the amount of dollars property taxes actually bring in varies greatly between the roughly 13,500 school districts in the United States. At rock bottom, funding for American public schools is tied to community affluence or the value of property in the district. Therefore, schools in wealthy suburbs generally have more money than schools in urban or low land value communities.
I could find no data bank that ranks every individual district's per pupil expenditures. I easily found state rankings. In school year 2004-05, New York had the highest average per pupil funding at $14,119; Utah had the least at $5,257. The national average was $8,701 per pupil. (Source: Census Bureau) But, if you remember from your statistic class, averages can be misleading since they are a measure of 'central tendency.' In 1992 Jonathan Kozol in his book, Savage Inequalities, reported that the difference in local, property tax funded per pupil expenditures in the just the New York City area ranged from a high of $11,000 per pupil to a low of $5,585 per pupil.
Each state also helps fund their public schools. But again, differences in state funding formulas create wide variances in the amounts of money that individual school districts receive. In their book, The Manufactured Crisis, David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle publish a chart from the Educational Testing Service that shows the ratio of state education spending differences between high (rich) and low (poor) spending groups of school districts. Two states (Texas and Ohio) spend nearly three times as much on wealthy districts than on districts with poor property values in their respective states. (I live in Ohio. I can attest to the truth of this.) New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Michigan, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Georgia were not far behind Texas and Ohio in providing more money to wealthier districts than to poorer districts. Three states were nearly equal in the amount of state dollars and local dollars going to the state's local schools (Maryland, Nevada, and Delaware.) The rest of the states were in-between these two extremes.
In 2007 the federal share of funding K-12 schools was 8.3%. (Source Ed.gov) Most of that money by law must go towards two programs-Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (Source: Ed.gov) Therefore, these federal dollars do little to alleviate the unequal funding issues of local schools.
Exacerbating the funding problem even further, both Reagan and George W. Bush lowered corporate tax rates, as have many states. Additionally many communities give tax abatements to businesses. All this means less tax revenue for the schools. Worse yet, much of this loss of monies have been made up by simply shifting and increasing the taxes of the individual tax payer. (Source: America: What Went Wrong? Barlett and Steel)
Inequitable funding at both the local and the state levels creates tremendous problems for public schools in low wealth communities. In his book Savage Inequalities, Kozol reports on his travels across the nation. In poor school district after poor school district he chronicles appalling conditions: crumbling school buildings, dilapidated classrooms, overcrowding and rooms with no heat, lack of supplies and textbooks, science labs with no equipment or running water, sewer backups, toxic fumes, and more. Would you want your child to go to a school like this? And sadly, the most experienced, best educated, and often more competent teachers tend to migrate to the schools with high funding and therefore higher salaries.
Some people may prefer to ignore inequitable funding and poverty and blame the poor themselves for the situation. But the average child cannot escape the cycle of poverty if he or she doesn't have access to good quality schools and education.
Add into the mix of low funding in poor schools the societal problems I cited in Part 1 and we have an even direr situation before us. Children who come to school hungry or malnourished or in cast off and torn clothing, who lack basic health care and suffer from untreated medical conditions, and who come from homes without even basic amenities let alone books, learning toys, and games are more difficult to teach. So there is a double whammy on poor children in poor communities-bigger and more societal problems plus fewer dollars to buy needed resources to teach. The children who need the most and the best, far too often receive the least.
It is shortsighted for Americans to ignore poverty or to say, 'well, it does not affect me or my children.' It is one thing to blame the poor for their condition. It is quite another to condemn their children to substandard schools on the basis of their luck in not being born into the right race, the right class, or having the right address. The immorality of tolerating poverty and low funded public schools is both appalling and unconscionable.
Widespread poverty affects all Americans in countless ways. Higher health care costs for all is one way. Another is massive amounts of crime and violence and the subsequent creation of a huge and expensive social-service-punishment bureaucracy to contend with the increased crime and violence. Some states are spending more money building prisons and housing prisoners than they spend on education.
Consider:
-It costs $23,183.69 to house 1 prisoner in a federal jail for one year. Source: U.S. Courts, Office of Public Affairs
-It costs $19, 087.94 to house 1 prisoner in community correction centers for one year. Source: U.S. Courts, Office of Public Affairs
-It cost an average $8701 to educate 1 child in public schools in 2004-05. Source: Census Bureau
Seems like American public schools are the better bargain all the way round.
But the most egregious result of unequal funding of public schools is something far more pernicious than just lack of resources to teach. Today there is a resegregation of schools taking place in America. Schools are now segregated into poor schools and rich schools, instead of the old white schools and black schools.
This new resegregation is color blind. Poverty affects all skin colors. Therefore, this resegregation is worse and the effects exponentially greater and harsher than the old 'separate but equal' schools. Schools in affluent communities have. Schools in poor communities have not. The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown Vs Topeka Kansas has been turned on its head.
Tragically, this is a new, more harmful Jim Crowe updated for the 21st century. Instead of being forced to go to the back of the bus, instead of being forced to drink at a different water fountain, instead of not being able to sit at the lunch counter, instead of being hung from a tree, today we deny a good education and a way out of poverty to millions of our children.
To our everlasting shame, this resegregation of children into rich schools and poor schools is the real and biggest problem in America's schools today.
The Resegregation of America's Schools
By Roberta.
Americans like to believe that their system of public schools provide equal opportunity for all children. But the fact is America's schools do not. Not by a long shot. There are three main sources of public school funding: local, state, and the federal governments.
At the local level funding is largely achieved through local property taxes. But the amount of dollars property taxes actually bring in varies greatly between the roughly 13,500 school districts in the United States. At rock bottom, funding for American public schools is tied to community affluence or the value of property in the district. Therefore, schools in wealthy suburbs generally have more money than schools in urban or low land value communities.
I could find no data bank that ranks every individual district's per pupil expenditures. I easily found state rankings. In school year 2004-05, New York had the highest average per pupil funding at $14,119; Utah had the least at $5,257. The national average was $8,701 per pupil. (Source: Census Bureau) But, if you remember from your statistic class, averages can be misleading since they are a measure of 'central tendency.' In 1992 Jonathan Kozol in his book, Savage Inequalities, reported that the difference in local, property tax funded per pupil expenditures in the just the New York City area ranged from a high of $11,000 per pupil to a low of $5,585 per pupil.
Each state also helps fund their public schools. But again, differences in state funding formulas create wide variances in the amounts of money that individual school districts receive. In their book, The Manufactured Crisis, David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle publish a chart from the Educational Testing Service that shows the ratio of state education spending differences between high (rich) and low (poor) spending groups of school districts. Two states (Texas and Ohio) spend nearly three times as much on wealthy districts than on districts with poor property values in their respective states. (I live in Ohio. I can attest to the truth of this.) New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Michigan, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Georgia were not far behind Texas and Ohio in providing more money to wealthier districts than to poorer districts. Three states were nearly equal in the amount of state dollars and local dollars going to the state's local schools (Maryland, Nevada, and Delaware.) The rest of the states were in-between these two extremes.
In 2007 the federal share of funding K-12 schools was 8.3%. (Source Ed.gov) Most of that money by law must go towards two programs-Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (Source: Ed.gov) Therefore, these federal dollars do little to alleviate the unequal funding issues of local schools.
Exacerbating the funding problem even further, both Reagan and George W. Bush lowered corporate tax rates, as have many states. Additionally many communities give tax abatements to businesses. All this means less tax revenue for the schools. Worse yet, much of this loss of monies have been made up by simply shifting and increasing the taxes of the individual tax payer. (Source: America: What Went Wrong? Barlett and Steel)
Inequitable funding at both the local and the state levels creates tremendous problems for public schools in low wealth communities. In his book Savage Inequalities, Kozol reports on his travels across the nation. In poor school district after poor school district he chronicles appalling conditions: crumbling school buildings, dilapidated classrooms, overcrowding and rooms with no heat, lack of supplies and textbooks, science labs with no equipment or running water, sewer backups, toxic fumes, and more. Would you want your child to go to a school like this? And sadly, the most experienced, best educated, and often more competent teachers tend to migrate to the schools with high funding and therefore higher salaries.
Some people may prefer to ignore inequitable funding and poverty and blame the poor themselves for the situation. But the average child cannot escape the cycle of poverty if he or she doesn't have access to good quality schools and education.
Add into the mix of low funding in poor schools the societal problems I cited in Part 1 and we have an even direr situation before us. Children who come to school hungry or malnourished or in cast off and torn clothing, who lack basic health care and suffer from untreated medical conditions, and who come from homes without even basic amenities let alone books, learning toys, and games are more difficult to teach. So there is a double whammy on poor children in poor communities-bigger and more societal problems plus fewer dollars to buy needed resources to teach. The children who need the most and the best, far too often receive the least.
It is shortsighted for Americans to ignore poverty or to say, 'well, it does not affect me or my children.' It is one thing to blame the poor for their condition. It is quite another to condemn their children to substandard schools on the basis of their luck in not being born into the right race, the right class, or having the right address. The immorality of tolerating poverty and low funded public schools is both appalling and unconscionable.
Widespread poverty affects all Americans in countless ways. Higher health care costs for all is one way. Another is massive amounts of crime and violence and the subsequent creation of a huge and expensive social-service-punishment bureaucracy to contend with the increased crime and violence. Some states are spending more money building prisons and housing prisoners than they spend on education.
Consider:
-It costs $23,183.69 to house 1 prisoner in a federal jail for one year. Source: U.S. Courts, Office of Public Affairs
-It costs $19, 087.94 to house 1 prisoner in community correction centers for one year. Source: U.S. Courts, Office of Public Affairs
-It cost an average $8701 to educate 1 child in public schools in 2004-05. Source: Census Bureau
Seems like American public schools are the better bargain all the way round.
But the most egregious result of unequal funding of public schools is something far more pernicious than just lack of resources to teach. Today there is a resegregation of schools taking place in America. Schools are now segregated into poor schools and rich schools, instead of the old white schools and black schools.
This new resegregation is color blind. Poverty affects all skin colors. Therefore, this resegregation is worse and the effects exponentially greater and harsher than the old 'separate but equal' schools. Schools in affluent communities have. Schools in poor communities have not. The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown Vs Topeka Kansas has been turned on its head.
Tragically, this is a new, more harmful Jim Crowe updated for the 21st century. Instead of being forced to go to the back of the bus, instead of being forced to drink at a different water fountain, instead of not being able to sit at the lunch counter, instead of being hung from a tree, today we deny a good education and a way out of poverty to millions of our children.
To our everlasting shame, this resegregation of children into rich schools and poor schools is the real and biggest problem in America's schools today.
Labels: American Education, poverty
posted by John Smart at
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
PERMALINK
<< Home