Recently I re-read Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, in which he outlines the alarming disparities present in our schools. I have read other books by Kozol-- Shame of a Nation and Letters to A Young Teacher—and readily nod my head in agreement as he details the particular challenges of advancing student achievement in historically under-funded school districts.
This week I discussed the book with fellow teachers and once again rehashed the tragedies of many urban school districts. As we rehearsed familiar lines, I began to really think about the factors that led to this mess in the first place. Is it an issue of teacher quality? Funding? Parenting? Community? Year after year passes with parents, politicians, and principals passing the buck when all the while our students are entering the world without the requisite knowledge and skills to succeed.
One of the recurring points in Kozol’s book, and what I discussed with other Baltimore City teachers, was the base issue of school funding. Per pupil allocation varies dramatically across states, with low-performing schools receiving the least funds, in many cases, per student. Other factors aside—and there are many of them—this puts those students at a stark disadvantage straight out of the gate. Where a community itself is resource-poor, its schools will reflect that. To pretend that all students have an equal shot at success is to deny the reality that we do not provide the same starting point.
Yet, I find it fascinating that so many tenets of school reform continue to operate under the guise of a meritocracy. Indeed, it seems to be how we define ourselves as a nation. From Horatio Alger on up, we insist that the American Dream is within reach if you simply work hard enough. Pull up your bootstraps, pull out the books, and one day you too will be privy to all the benefits of our nation.
This sort of philosophy manifests itself in school incentives, standards-based testing, and pay for performance. We insist that if schools work hard enough they will meet with success, and when they meet with success there will be rewards. On the flip side, if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, there will be consequences. We seem to collectively buy into this philosophy of prizes and punishments (and I fully own up to loving the ideas of standards and accountability…who could argue with those things?) Yet, the underlying fact remains: these standards are pressed upon communities who have never, from day 1, been operating with the same resources.
If we insist on funding our schools based on lop-sided tax brackets, if we continue to insist that it’s every man for himself up until the day of Judgment—test day—then we will never reconcile the competing philosophies that have fueled the current system of inequalities.
3 comments:
This past summer, I worked in the CEO's office on the Free-and-Reduced Meals (FARM) Campaign and wanted to share the importance of FARM applications in helping level the funding playing field. The FARM application is also used as a proxy for the poverty measure, so its really important that your students fill them out, even if they're not interested in lunch. Many different funding streams are dependent on FARM counts, including:
1. The State Compensatory Education Grant, which allocated roughly $4800 per FARM child to City Schools two years ago.
2. Title I funds, while allocated to City Schools based on Census data, are distributed to individual schools according to the percentage of students qualifying for free meals. If your school qualifies as a Title I school, your school will receive more Title I funds for each free student enrolled. Two years ago, schools received approximately $1100 for every student with a “free” status.
3. For TRADITIONAL HIGH SCHOOLs, under Fair Student Funding, City Schools distributes $900 to each school for each FARMs enrolled student (under the drop-out prevention label).
4. The FARMs enrollment rate determines the E-Rate discount rate, a federal program that allows us to invest millions of dollars into technology.
The lack of funds has a clear impact on our schools of Baltimore city. Additionally, the kids are very aware of how "underprivileged" they are with regards to resources and funding when compared to the county schools. I think in addition to the lack of funds, we as a city maintain the attitude of "this is how it is" and in fact create a self-fulfilling prophecy of low achieving schools because that is what we seem to expect. So in addition to funding issues, we need to change our game faces as educators in Baltimore city and truly push to reach those high standards.
Similarly, I too reread Jonathan Kozol's work and was appalled that even though his book "Savage Inequalities" was written 19 years ago, schools in urban environments are still seeing the same injustices that he witnessed. I decided after reading to do some research about funding in Baltimore City compared to Baltimore County and Montgomery County.
In 2007 the expenditures per pupil for Baltimore County, Baltimore City, and Montgomery County were $10,079, $10,974, and $12,647 respectively. Although there was a difference of about $1600 dollars between Baltimore City and Montgomery County, Baltimore County’s schools were allotted less per student than the inner city kids. According to the Maryland Report Card in 2009, 87.5% of 11th graders in Baltimore County had met High School Assessment requirements where as only 69.8% of students had in city schools. Baltimore County was graduating 83.6% of their seniors and in the city only 63.7% received high school diplomas. In comparison Montgomery County had 93% of juniors who had met HSA requirements and 87.3% of seniors graduated on time.
I tried to think of explanations for why even in Baltimore City where funding is higher for students than in the county, tests scores were still much lower. Something in the post resonated with me, and the truth of the matter is students in inner city Baltimore have so many more obstacles holding them behind. No matter the money, our students are lacking a drive for quality education that I feel other students have had taught to them. Not that our children do not want to learn, but I feel in so many cases have been held to lower standards. I think that money will help, but motivating our youth is just as important for quality education. To fix the educational gap, we as educators have a lot of work ahead of us to undo so much of the perceptions of urban education. Until all of our parents and students want a change in their quality of education, I fear not much will be done to increase the expectations.
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