April 9, 2017 - 16:51
When looking at the many issues of public education, it can be difficult to choose which issue to tackle first. For me, the issue that resonates with me is the clear disparity between the quality of urban and suburban schools. How is it that public schools in suburban and urban locations differ so much? Historically speaking, race and gender has played a large role in the United States in determining who gets to be educated and who does not. Because of this, there’s a significant number of people of color who are given the short end of the public educational system. Many Black and Latino students are forced to attend high poverty stricken schools because 1. They are zoned to the high poverty school and 2. There are no other convenient options.
So what are some strategies to combat this imbalance of unequal education? Current strategies have been the creation of charter schools with certain a disciplinarian attitude dubbed “no excuses” schools. Looking at these types of schools in a macro level, many would consider these schools the solution to unequal educations. However, many are simply looking at the standardized test scores that “prove” that these students are learning the material that is needed for them to be deemed successful. Unfortunately, because students at no excuses schools are desperately studying and parroting the rules and expectations for them, they have no outlet to express themselves or have their voices heard from administration. This double edge sword is one that theoretically would lead at risk students to a successful life in high school but burn out in a college environment that values freedom to question everything and independence, things that no excuses schools do not practice. What can be down here? Should the model be tweaked or should it be shut down in favor of large public schools?
Another possible solution would be to bus suburban children to urban schools and vice versa so that schools are vastly diverse in race and socioeconomic standards. Although there is a program in Louisville, Kentucky that does exactly that, they were first met with protest and fear from suburban families that were afraid of a spike in fights and drugs if students from urban schools were to bused to suburban schools. It’s interesting, however, that over time they were able to convince the worrisome public that the rise of schools fights and drugs would not be an issue. Now the program is thriving with both sides satisfied that their children are learning in environment that has much to offer. In fact, the community of suburban Louisville even came together to support the urban community by having carpools or clothes drives for the urban community. These types of bonds aren’t something that happened over night but the lasting effects are clear. The only issue is how to convince the public that busing is the way to go for suburban-urban inequalities. Another issue I would be looking in to is the use of the suburban community and the role they would play in desegregation policies. Or even looking at how communities in the urban area are creating successful schools, and if having their own community is better than integrating with the suburban community.
Other issues that would be interesting to consider would be the redistricting of properties, public vs private interest, and zoning laws for schools. There are many issues to public education so it wouldn’t be surprising to have a mass number of strategies to combat these issues. Despite their being a vast number of suggestions, however, ideally the only ones that are ever considered are the fast and cheap ones with immediate results.