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Equal opportunity in gender equality
Equal opportunity in gender equality
Equal opportunity in gender equality
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Equal opportunity for all is a quote legislator and politicians often take for granted. Too often urban schools have been left behind even though there is funding available that could improve the quality of education for poor minority students. Every year during budget sessions, Politicians and lawmakers has used this platform for their political agenda. Yet, they continue to cut education funding, which affects inner city schools. This literature review will examine strategies that parents, teachers, administrator, school board members, civil servants and political leaders can implement to improve equitable funding in urban schools. Resolving this crisis is challenging, but with bipartisan support from legislation and concerned citizens, …show more content…
His views are to restructure the system from the inside out. The first approach should be extensive teacher training, over sees contracts and mandated bureaucracies. Profile of all public schools should be on the internet so that parents can be informed. With access to this information, concern citizens will be able to challenge the system spending and programs. Transparency is the main objective the Secretary of education is implying. And the focus is to encourage parents and students to be active participant in the state funding distributions in their schools. These strategies can give them a voices and demand funding equality and educational programs that meet the needs of their …show more content…
First the dissected the word to their own advantages. According to the article, Search of Equality in School Finance Reform (2011), economist realizes that improving the education barriers of the low income school, could adversely affect the wealthy educational advantages. Therefore, the meaning of the word equality took on a different definition such as, “equity”, “fairness” and “adequacy “which sounds like the equivalent, but had detrimental undertone (Walters, 2011, p.29). For example the author stated, these words were used as synonyms to depreciate their opponent’s oppositions. The end result was opponents who had a lot to lose with education reform, align themselves, with state and local government to detach them from equalizing reforms for urban
Arne Duncan is the current Secretary of Education in Washington and was the biggest architect of the Renaissance 2010 movement within the Chicago Public Schools. He has been an effective leader for the charter school movement, or “turn around” schools as they begin to shape the education systems of underprivileged cities in the rest of the United States of America. There are many people who are in favor of the charter schools coming up through the education system, but there are others who are seeing the negative impact on their families and children. This renaissance is good for creating a better education for students, but the scale is heavily tipped to one side that is harming people who are/have been involved in Chicago Public Schools
The first element of Kozol’s article is the reality of urban public schools and the isolation of their students. Jonathan Kozol illustrates a grim reality about the unequal attention given to urban and suburban schools. The article explains how Kozol specifically looks at how they reflect institutional discrimination and the failure to address the needs of minority children. The article notes that these are the inequalities of the title, seen in the way schools in predominantly white neighborhoods are more likely to have sufficient funding, while schools in poor and minority neighborhoods do not. Kozol shows everyone involved in the education system that public schools are still separate and, therefore, still unequal. Suburban schools, which are primarily made up of white students, are given a far superior better education than urban schools. These urban schools are primarily made up of Hispanics and African Americans.
Detroit is a story of a once flourishing city that has been on a long downslide for decades. There are miles of unoccupied homes and buildings, and crimes and unemployment are at an all-time high. Many aspects of the city are breaking down, including the school system. The Detroit Public School System has lost over eighty thousand students due to high enrollment in charter schools, the large economic decline, and the departure of residents. For many years no one has taken responsibility for the public school system. However, for Detroit to rise again, it is necessary for someone to take responsibility, make a plan, and make sure that children are safe, well cared for, and are receiving a high quality education when going to school each day. In 2016, schools are low-performing with poor test scores, are falling apart, and teachers and parents have decided to take a stand.
The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the reality of inner-city public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems.
Through programs that directly fuel desegregation in schools, our educational systems have become a melting pot of different races, languages, economic status, and abilities. Programs have been in place for the past fifty years to bring students that live in school districts that lack quality educational choices, to schools that are capable of providing quality education to all who attend. Typically the trend appears to show that the schools of higher quality are located in suburban areas, leaving children who live in “black” inner-city areas to abandon the failing school systems of their neighborhoods for transportation to these suburban, “white” schools. (Angrist & Lang, 2004). This mix of inner-city and suburban cultures creates new challenges for students and teachers alike.
In America, the idea of equality between people is important, it is in fact, written into the Constitution. However, for years the American educational system has operated in a completely inequitable manner due, in part, to the way that schools are funded, mostly through local or property taxes. The differences between schools in wealthy neighborhoods and those in poor neighborhoods are, many times, reminiscent of the differences between white schools and black schools before the end of segregation. While there is a desperate need to fix this broken system, there has been little progress. The issue is so divisive and the problem so big and entrenched in American laws, many politicians refuse to even attempt to come up with a solution. The answer lies with the federal government. To make American public schools equitable the federal government needs to step up its role in funding and administering the schools.
For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused elsewhere, particularly in the inner city schools.
Most educators and parents would desire an educational system where all students receive a balanced education that will afford all students the ability to compete in our ever changing society. This desire is great among students who live in economically challenged environments and those who attend poor schools. These students are at most risk of receiving a a proper education. This is partly due to lack of funding, and the inability for those poor schools to afford highly qualified teachers. Much controversy stems from this issue, poor schools not being able to afford highly trained teachers, students not having access to improved curriculums and extraordinary dropout rates. In an effort to combat these issues, the Bush administration implemented an act that purported to help schools to receive necessary funding for qualified teachers and to close the racial and ethnic gaps, known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA). However, the NCLBA failed to deliver on its promises and left already struggling schools and children in disarray attempting to reach government mandates rather than ensuring a balanced education for every student.
Education is an integral part of society, school helps children learn social norms as well as teach them how to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. These schools have lower test scores and high dropout rates. In Trenton Central High School West, there was an 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often from low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial reasons to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and further teacher education, urban schools can be transformed and be better equipped to prepare their students for the global stage.
Even in this time of struggle, with billions of dollars going towards various war efforts overseas, America still has managed to keep taxpayer investments in education higher than that of funds for national defense (U.S Department of Education). In the 2004-05 school year, there was an estimated amount of 536 billion dollars set aside from taxpayer investment for education purposes. Without a doubt, education is a priority for the American government, and if these funds are used in the correct way, there is no reason why each and every kid in the United States shouldn’t be getting a quality education. However, the organization of the financial system is flawed, funds are not handled proportionately at the state level; rather, this system favors the wealthier districts and hands more funds to them while the less wealthier districts are handed a smaller pool of funds. This really affects America’s quality of education, which also reflects upon how America fairs on the world stage when it comes to competition in education with other countries. The disorganization of funds in the United States can be seen in the Hoover City School district, which has bought every student in that district an iPad for use in school. The first problem with this is that this school district does not even have a viable bus system that can transport students to and from school. Secondly, not even 20 miles from this district lies the Birmingham City School district where a little more than half the students are graduating, compared to Hoover City Schools where a bit more than 90 percent of the students are graduating. If anything, the state should be working towards improving educational standards in lower-income communities rather than debating on the log...
Proper school funding is one of the keys to having a successful school. Americans believe that funding is the biggest problem in public schools. School improvements revolve around funding. There needs to be funding not only in the successful schools but also the schools that aren’t doing as well. In documentary, Waiting for Superman, it talks about how smaller class sizes will help students. Funding is what will help the smaller class sizes. State funding mechanisms are subject to intense political and economic scrutiny (Leonard). Studies have shown that funding is inversely related to accreditation levels (Leonard). School funding needs to be increased, but there must be accountability as well.
When all stakeholders share similar core values and agree on the aims of education, reform efforts stand a better chance for success. Knowledge, skills, critical thinking, and citizenship are core values found at the heart of my beliefs for education. I also believe it is the aim of education to prepare students as contributing members of society. In schools where core values and education aims are revisited due to reform implementation, strategies are identified along with a plan for implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The federal government, state, districts, school leadership, teachers, students and parents all have significant responsibilities to make reform efforts a success.
“Policies are thus dynamic and interactive and not merely a set of instructions or intentions. They represent political compromises between conflicting images of how educational change should proceed.” (Taylor, Rizvi, Lingard & Henry, 1997, pg. 15)
I used to think that urban education simply meant education that went on in the cities, but from what I have learned is that, yes education goes on in cities, but it goes beyond that. Urban education is not so simple due to all of the dynamics and subsections that fall under it, such as the students and how they are taught, how the teachers teach vs. how the school/state want them to teach, the students learning, school funding, and many other factors that I used to not be aware of. As a whole urban education is the education which many, like myself, have experienced; I have learned a new view to education, re-evaluated my own, changed my view on education, defined urban education in my own way, discovered the factors within it, and have some
To me, equality of opportunity in public education is where every single person deserves and is entitled to an equal chance to obtain a good education, grow and make positive progress throughout their time in school, and be successful in reaching their full potential later in life. These people should be treated identically, not differently due to their gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.