Education Funding For Inner City Schools

Unfortunately, these children cannot complete their education because they have to travel with their family and learn to manage at a young age a life of hard labor. This however does not diminish their dreams of completing high school and some day attending a university so that they will not have to live the life of struggle their parents did to sustain the household. In cities like Detroit, MI there is a large population of low income Hispanic and African American families. The public school system unfortunately cannot potentially promote a high-quality education. The majority of these students do not receive an entrance level education simply because of living standards. Income plays an important role in education opportunities regarding the quality education each student can pertain. Since the minorities in that area are low-income they cannot afford to attend a private high school that can better prepare them for college. According to a research done at the University of Texas-Pan American, “certain racial or ethnicity factors should play a role in the admissions decision.” (Marklein)

In Underfunding for Public School by Marcial Macias, he specifically addresses how are schools going to provide the proper education to students if schools don’t have the proper funding? This question prompts a wide variety of answers and opinions due to the fact that everyone has their own opinion on this query. This question seems to interest the majority of people in the American society. Therefore, I can see many people such as parents reading Macias’s essay.

I was surprised to believe that as a whole, a significant portion of students came from low-income families, experienced homelessness at some point, were hungry, or suffered from trauma. For one student to experience any of these problems requires a number of resources for a school, but when the majority of students are facing these issues, schools need to be particularly well equipped. Adding to this the fact that Chicago public schools are seriously underfunded, this is a tragedy. Schools are forced to cut social workers, psychologists, and clinicians from their services and ultimately, students are left without help. In my Introduction to Poverty Studies class, we learned that in order to alleviate systemic poverty, part of the solution lies in focusing on children and providing them all the resources so that can be as well equipped for life as possible. Much of this responsibility falls on public schools, but without funds, this task is

Also, with most low income students coming from backgrounds of working parents, they are not given the privilege to see all the benefits of obtaining their education to build their life in a great career. As wonderfully stated by Bellin, “At a time when social mobility has stalled and the poorest are still suffering the effects of the last recession, investing in college access for students from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds should be a priority.” (134). When students are shown the importance of education, instead of just hearing about it, they are more likely to understand the benefits and continue on that path and pass their knowledge down to their children. All the lowest socioeconomic class needs is a boost in that positive direction to start the domino effect, so why do we choose to unethically give the cold shoulder to the class that currently has the most need for help and would benefit from it the

The authors say that students felt they were ignored and disregarded by schools that added pressure over time for their lack caused them to drop out (Stevenson and Ellsworth). In this article, I find two different views. First, the school missed its points, purpose to reach the students by not provide support when students were struggling with their personal and school problems. Second, the students didn’t have any motivation about their education. The different between the inner-city minority adolescents and the white suburban drop-out was that white suburban took the responsibly and the blame to themselves fully for their failure. While the inner-city minority take took a partial blame for their failure. After reading the article written

Education and economic justice were two forms of systemic inequalities that make inequality difficult to talk about. Education is a requirement if someone wishes to have a better life, but not everyone has access to quality education. In the U.S there has always been a battle, people of color have fought to be able to access quality education, (Philips, 2016: 130) they are constantly attending inferior and ineffective school where there are many distractions for students to be fully successful in the classrooms. Often these schools where children of color attend lack quality facilities, educational resources, and qualified teachers. Someone can’t help to notice that in general such unqualified schools are mostly in color people’s neighborhoods.

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

Children who live in large cities and cannot afford to go to private schools often will get passed along throughout the course of their education, even if they had not learned the material they needed to. These inner-city public schools are the root cause of why so many people in the U.S. live in poverty and struggle every day. These schools are overcrowded and understaffed, due to this, children fall behind and then do not get the opportunity to catch back up. These schools do not give children the tools they need to graduate or be successful in life. The school systems are not doing anything to improve their success rate either, they just continue to make new standardized tests and not teach the children who are going to be taking those tests.

1. Growing up I experience, and saw the struggle that my siblings and classmates faced in our community. In a community where resources were scarce and inadequate guidance was provided, pursuing higher education became a challenge. Four out of eight children in my family, including myself, were able to earn a high school diploma. The other four dropped out of high school due to a combination of language barrier and gang affiliation. My research papers sought to examine the reason why so many at risk youth end up dropping out of high school.

Poverty leads to insufficient opportunities, especially in college education. For instance, according to U.S. Department of Education, students who do not enter college or drop out of their classes are “predominantly persons from low-income families.” In support of this argument, the article states that “only 21 percent of those with family income of less than $25,000 were highly qualified for admission at a four-year institution” compared to the 56 percent of students with family income above $75,000. Therefore, students with bad economic conditions struggle with attending university even after entering it. The problem is that the African Americans race gets the harshest disadvantage from their poor economic conditions. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services publishes that almost 40 percent of African Americans under 18 are below the national poverty line, which is three-times higher than their white counterparts. This explicitly proves that unequal economic conditions are the main reason for inequality in education; African Americans are the most disadvantaged. Furthermore, the correlation between poor economic conditions and a lack of education among African Americans creates a chain of inequality. The poor economic backgrounds of African Americans obstruct their children from attending colleges and subsequently, the lack of higher education makes

Incarceration has negative effects on the education of black students. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, it shows that elementary and high schools receive about 73 percent of their state funding from a discretionary fund, the exact same fund that colleges and universities count on for half of their budgets. However, $9 out of every $10 that support imprisonment come from the same pot of money. With tons of billions of dollars in prison spending annually, states are finding that there is simply less voluntary money available to invest in education, especially in these lean economic times. The school districts that are considered failing schools, which house a majority of minority students, are significantly impacted. Consequently, education systems for black students are designed to continue the school to prison pipeline. These despairing injustices do not end with the education systems, they are also prevalent in the job force.

The lack of basic skill then creates a huge divide between African American children and White children growing up with pre-determined factors. This then renders into those youths not graduating high school. According to a Policy Analyst Mary Clare Amselem (2014), “…public schools serving low-income communities—fail to develop [fundamental] skills leave their students with the option of dropping out or graduating with a meaningless diploma”. White students have a significantly higher graduation rate than African Americans. Programs that have been implemented to help combat these delinquency and violent problems are family strengthening, mentorships, and positive reinforcements in school.

Unfortunately, the school's lack of appropriate education results directly from poor government funding. So even with hard work, the lower-class student is still held down by his socio-economic status. Poverty-stricken parents are unable to offer their children the same attention and motivation as parents of a higher-class can, therefore never providing these children with the mindset that they are able to accomplish the American dream. According to Mantsios, 40 million Americans live in poverty, and the mental and physical affects the low standard of living has on them is undeniable (Mantsios 328). Citizens who live in poverty work long hours for little pay, yet return to a household that in no way symbolizes the hard work put forth. Within this environment, very few people have the positive outlook to mentor children successfully.

If the education system relies most of their funding from taxes, where do they end up getting the rest of the money. The government and administration grant more money to wealthier areas than low -income areas. Wealthier communities are granted more money because they have a higher percentage of funding coming from property taxes. This leaves the low-income students at a disadvantage. People living in low income areas mainly rent and don’t own their own property. As a result of not having a house or owning property, they have little property taxes. If low -income students are not given enough money for funding a school, the students are suffering. With the lack of money causes students to miss out on college prep classes such as AP classes and Honors classes. These classes are pivotal to the students that want to pursue higher education and a road to success. For example students in the low-income areas are given a poor education. They are not given the resources, or quality teachers in order to achieve success. According to George Miller House Education and the Workforce committee, many students are not educationally ready to graduate and attend higher education (Minority 1). This is another reason why low income students should be provided the same classes as a middle class or a wealthier community. In a study, 2 million students in 7,300 schools had no access to all calculus classes, a staple in many high – achieving high schools (Minority 2). Low-income

There is more to urban schooling than meets the eye. Often, urban schools and the families that rely upon them are portrayed as a stereotypical monolith. Biased new reporters, researchers, and educational leaders reinforce a narrative that draws on the deficit theory to avoid assigning any responsibility for the plight of people living in poverty and together work to create a culture of poverty. Introduced in the article by Gorski (2008), the culture of poverty that persists in the mindsets of Americans is “the idea that poor people share, more or less, monolithic and predictable beliefs, values, and behaviors.” This myth prevents society from challenging their understanding of class and how it affects all aspects of the lives of those who are of low socioeconomic status. Institutionalized classism and racism, perpetuated by public policy, continues to affect students in urban schooling, however many refuse to acknowledge this cause and effect relationship. Rather, they rely on tired stereotypes and the culture of poverty to justify the lack of access and equity allowed to those living in urban areas. While I already knew that these structural flaws existed in our society, ED 7438 has given me the research to back up my argument and the needed push to remain committed to incorporating a level of social justice in my classroom that will ensure I continue to push back on false notions about students living in urban areas around the country. In this reflection I will