How the American School System is Failing Poor Students
Anyone can achieve the American Dream if they are able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps; but what if you were never given any boots?
Would you appreciate contributing to a society that gives equal opportunity to our young scholars to ensure a true meritocracy? If so, we could have the best, brightest, and most talented people reap the benefits of our education system and therefore contribute more overall to society. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the American school system. Many people love the theory of equal education, though revolt when people attempt to achieve this goal. The US needs to let go of individualistic ideals that are holding back under-deserved students from reaching their full potential.
“Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit”
This excerpt reads from Article 26:1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights released by the United Nations. Many of us would agree that general education should be free and accessible to anyone, hence our public school laws in America. It also makes sense to provide higher education to those who are able to prove their intelligence and worthiness. Therefore, if everyone was given equal resources and opportunity, higher education could be earned by those that deserve it. This system is known as meritocracy, and can be seen in not only education, but through many practices such as careers, politics, and policy. It seems very reasonable to base our education on these values, so those with the greatest merit can achieve the best rewards.
We employ many meritocratic values in our education system in the U.S. such as test scores, grades and extracurricular performance. Though, does this mean that the US employs a true meritocracy? In practice, utilizing the meritocracy system proves to be a lot more complicated than in theory. We must ensure that our education system are made to give all students access to the same resources in their schools. Though more often than not, we see that some students have access to more resources.
Hypothetically, two students with the same level of intelligence are put through the public school system. One receives private tutors, high-paid teachers, study abroad opportunities, and test prep for the SAT, while the other student can only pick from 3 extracurricular clubs, has teachers that cycle through due to low pay and can only take the SAT twice based on one waiver. Who do you think will eventually get accepted into Harvard at the end of their public education? Even though both students possess the same levels of merit and talent, one is clearly given better tools to succeed and therefore will benefit from a system that is not true meritocracy.
Many factors interfere with ensuring everyone has equal access to quality education. We may ask ourselves at this point, “What can be giving students unequal opportunity to display merit? Researchers at Stanford are asking the same questions, and are trying to find clear answers and causes through data and statistics across America.
The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University is an ongoing research study that aims to observe current trends and patterns associated with educational opportunities and outcomes across a variety of factors such as school funding, pupil-teacher ratios, and teacher characteristics. The continued collection of data across America includes statistics related to race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status in comparison to test scores.
The Interactive Chart plots almost every school district in a graph with Average Families’ Socioeconomic Status being one variable, and Average Test Scores being the other. The positive correlation between the two effectively displays one of the factors that plays into unequal education outcomes: poverty and wealth. The more likely that a child is born into a wealthy family, the more likely that they will reside in a school district with better average test scores, and therefore better outcomes.
How is this possible if America’s public education system is alleged to give all students the same education regardless of socioeconomic status? If a student from any background can attend any school they want? The answer is found in America’s system for funding for public education. Though federal and state taxes contribute a portion of earnings for public schools, a majority of funding comes from local property taxes.
The United States Census released data that displays numbers in school revenue, spending and per student spending. Their numbers present local sources accounting for 44.6% of elementary and secondary funding. Though these figures may vary depending on location and school district, it is a great indicator of the great impact local funding has on school systems.
In a policy brief released by Andrew Reschovsky from University of Wisconsin, local funding is examined closer. In Figure 1, it is stated that “[l]ocal governments provided 45 percent of public school funding in 2013–14, and more than 80 percent came from the property tax”. Statistics and numbers may vary from state to state, though on average, 36.4% of school funding is solely on property taxes.
At a quick glance, this system makes sense, since it ensures that the community’s tax dollars go directly right back into the district. If you are living in a home and sending your child to the public school down the road, you have security in knowing that your taxes paid on your home go to your child’s education. Though, the arrangement and distribution of funds gets more controversial as we look at the implications this has for disadvantaged communities, as shown in the Interactive Map from Stanford.
Poorer people tend to have lower property values, therefore producing lower amounts of property tax in their respected school districts. Meanwhile, school districts that generate lots of funding often have higher property taxes in that area. People who are more affluent tend to reside in these areas, because to sustain high property taxes, you must possess a higher income. We see many examples of this, where districts in the same city are often “better” or “worse” depending on their average level of income in that area. Some parents will send their children to schools across the city to recieve a better education than they are offered at the local school district.
This structure of funding further perpetuates systematic poverty in under-deserved communities by ensuring students with low socioeconomic status receive less educational resources and opportunity than their wealthy counterparts.
“It is completely upside down that we currently have a system where the funding of a school district is based on the tax base of that community… The community that has the lowest tax base is going to receive the fewest resources, and by the way probably [has] the highest need” -Vice President Kamala Harris 2020
As expressed by our current Vice President and many other politicians, the funding system presents many equality issues and is a continued topic for discussion in policy among the government and education administrations.
According to Cory Turner in an article from NPR, every state has faced lawsuits surrounding the debate of inequitable school funding, with 13 states currently facing one at the time of publication. One of the most notable lawsuits highlighted by the article was San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, in which Demetrio Rodriguez, a parent activist, argued that “local property tax revenue is fundamentally unfair to poorer districts”. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, gaining national attention from educators across the nation. Rodriguez and other parents considered their case to be an extension of Brown vs. Board of Education nearly 20 years before in which The Court eventually ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. In Rodriguez’s case, the Supreme Court eventually ruled that the constitution did not protect equal school funding, therefore they could not decide whether the current system shall be changed, no matter if it was right or wrong.
As stated previously, many states have made an attempt to address this issue in our public education including Pennsylvania’s Senate Bill 76, which ultimately failed to pass by one vote. Many people, represented in those who voted against the change, are opposed to changing the system that we have right now, claiming that “it has worked thus far and is the best system we can think of”.
The system in place was placed a long time ago and proves to be outdated if you ask anyone that goes to school in poor neighborhoods in America. People also opposed un-segregating schools during the Civil Rights Movement, though today we see cannot fathom the unethical implications of segregating schools based on race. At the time, changing the system was necessary to get to where we are today to guarantee equal education for all. Many other countries have better education outcomes for all students, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, and property taxes.
What can we do as a country to change the organization of public school funding? In the policy brief mentioned previously, Reschovsky argues that we could possibly replace property tax with state and government funding, though it gets very complicated. State and federal funding are currently decreasing, and therefore he states that we cannot fully take away property taxes in giving money to our schools, as many schools rely very heavily on them. The Education Trust also tackles this issue by suggesting a few solutions to reducing the equality gap in education. Reducing reliance on local property taxes to fund education is the major one, and examining the distribution of said funds from districts, and how we currently separate tax lines. This distribution of property taxes will greatly ensure disadvantaged communities receive similar funding to their wealthy counterparts. Another suggestion they brought up was ensuring extra state and federal dollars go directly to the low-income districts that need it, to help close the gap.
Eliminating the local property tax all-together seems a bit far-fetched from where we are now, though this idea is not completely unfeasible. America needs to follow through on its ideals of “equal education” and therefore, ensure a true meritocracy for all our young people to benefit from.
