Results and Discussion – My data analysis of racial demographics in the school district shows that the area is uniquely isolated – surrounded by communities that don’t look similar. At Palos Verdes Peninsula High, there are two primary ethnic groups that attend school – white students and Asian students. Combined, they make up over 75% of the high school population, while white students represent the largest overall at just over 40%. The third largest ethnic group represented is Hispanic or Latino students, of which there are only 262. This equals about one-tenth of the high school. The district overall has even higher percentages of white students, totaling almost 48%. Only 12% of the district’s students identify as either Hispanic or …show more content…
Times Data Desk, 2017). We can compare this data neighboring Long Beach just a few miles to the east of the peninsula. The median income there is $50,985 – about 40% of the Rancho Palos Verdes median. Similarly to the racial makeup within its schools, the percentages of Asian and white people are high for the county overall, in relation to others nearby (L.A. Times Data Desk, 2017). Historically, the United States has directly tied its public education system to income because “a substantial portion of school funding is raised through local tax revenue” (Owens, Reardon, & Jencks, 2016, p. 1161). Some states can help offset discrepancies, but others are completely dependent on the value of local property and income levels. Thus we find situations like Rancho Palos Verdes, where wealth is necessary to afford homes and the cost of living, and nearby Long Beach, where families are far more likely to be able to live within their means. Often, affluent counties claim that affordable housing “brings no net benefits to the community” and hurts property values (Mueller, 2007, p. 1). The benefits, however, are often overlooked and can be particularly impactful in educational spaces – without which would be severely lacking in an income-segregated system. Richards (2014) finds that “attendance zone boundaries” reinforce racial disparities in schools and can be manipulated by local officials in ways that disenfranchise or “zone out” certain students in favor of others to
Richer homeowners also get tax relief for paying their mortgages. Meanwhile, poor black areas are dumping grounds for toxic waste and garbage, which benefit the wealthier citizens, but they tend to be the only places poor non-whites can afford to live. Low properrty values result in badly funded, dangerous schools. Wealthier whites avoid these public schools and move to suburbs where their property taxes go toward building elegant public schools. Trier school is an example. It attracts a highly trained staff, and boasts an Olympic swimming pool as well as other luxuries. An article about this suburban school brags that most of the students in it are white.
I live at 383 East, 143rd street and my zip code is 10454. It is an area in which Latinos are the main population. This area is called Mott Haven in which there are many public housing projects. I live in one of the housing project in which my neighbors I can see they are mainly Hispanics and Blacks. Around my specific zip code area, there are different neighborhoods. In addition, even though these neighbourhood are very close to each other, there are still a lot of differences between them. I will focus on the varieties of people’s races that inhabit certain areas of the zip code 10454 and how certain areas have more schools while other areas have more businesses.
“When we can predict how well students will do in school by looking at their zip code, we know we have a serious systemic problem” (Gloria Ladson-Billings 20). When we are able to forecast how a child will perform by where the child resides, then how can we say that every child is receiving quality education. The unsuccessful educational system infused into the United States is affecting the majority of minorities. In the United States students due to their race and social class, suffer from underfunded public schools, inexperienced teachers, and housing segregation, which in turn inhibit their opportunity to succeed through education. These difficulties plaque students from the very beginning of their public school experience and follow them throughout their academic life. There are a few solutions to these issues but they have to be implemented and enforced with a slow integration.
In the United States of America, a child’s zip code often determines the quality of the child’s education. A myriad of social, economic, and political factors contributes to this tragic truth. This article, however, focuses on the staggering, discriminatory effect that Unequal School Funding has on our nation’s youth.
The educational gap between low-income children and the average American presents a serious problem that has only been perpetuated through government-funded public housing projects. Indeed, this divide eventually translates to a disparity of college acceptance rates and job placement rates. Thus, the academic success of children from low-income families directly threatens their upward mobility. A continued shift toward increased tenant-based housing would give families the opportunity to move out of their economically segregated neighborhoods and choose the neighborhood that best meets their children’s needs. Indeed, despite the Housing Choice voucher program’s current flaws, in each of the case studies, the housing choice vouchers have resulted
In this detailed and shocking book, Jonathan Kozol describes the horrific and unjust conditions in which many children in today’s society are forced to get their education. Kozol discusses three major reasons for the discrepancies in America’s schools today: disparities of property taxes, racism, and the conflict between state and local control. The first of these reasons is that of the differences of available property tax revenues. Kozol discusses the inconsistencies in property tax revenues and the problem that the poorer districts aren’t getting the same opportunities for education as the more affluent neighborhoods. He says the reason for this is that the
The educational funding problem in Michigan takes root back in 1809, when the first public school was founded. While funding was not an issue at the time, the way schools were funded through local property taxes eventually created a large problem. Fast forward to 1985, Michigan has long moved past the rural cities of the 1800’s and into affluent suburbs and cities. The size and taxation pools of cities have greatly changed from 1809 to 1985, but the way schools were funded remained exactly the same. This lack of change led to a large disparity in school funding from richer districts to poorer districts. Coupled together with local governments’ inability to convince citizens to vote in favor of millages and tax hikes, the disparity ballooned. In 1993, Bloomfield Hills ranked in the 99th percentile of Michigan schools, was spending on average $10,294 per-student, while Standish Sterling ranked in the bottom 1st percentile, spent $3,738 per-student, roughly a $6,500 difference per-student (Roy 2003). This inconsistency greatly disadvantaged students all the way to 95th percentile, where there
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
Back in the 1990’s white was the dominant race in Huntington Park, consisting of 52.87% white but slowly this changed and by 2010 Huntington Park was made up of 97.2% Hispanics whereas in 1990 there was 28% Hispanics. The changes in race have intersected with the changes class because before when the city was mostly white, the percentage of income for those who make less that $24,999 was about 35.52 and 7.86% made more than $100,000 yearly. Today, in Huntington Park 6.52% make more than $100,000 and 38.74% make less than $24,999. This reveals that as white people moved out and hispanic moved in, the income and class decreased. Considering families in my community are non english speaking immigrants, many of their children were tracked by being placed in ESL classes (English as Second Language).This was a disadvantage to them because they did not get the help that those speak the language attain. The high school in my city does not have many programs like AP or Honors courses available in comparison to other schools. The fact that we Latinos do not get the same benefits as others, affects us when applying and attending college because our education was “..hardly comparable to the education received by their white and Asian American counter parts in the state” (Hunter and Ramon). My community has gone though much change that has affected any of the residents living in
Unlike the Spanish Empire, America characterizes individuals commonly as black or white when that is not the case. An accurate description is required to distinguish the various ranges of racial mixtures. Since America only generalizes between the Europeans and the Africans, the blending of the minority are disregarded.
Today—nearly fifty years after the Brown decision—explicit endorsements of school segregation have been erased from all state and federal laws, yet the faces of American schools remain eerily similar to those of the 1950s. Current funding inequalities between poor and wealthy districts perpetuate the same inequalities between the races that state-sponsored segregation once did.
The average black house is found to have roughly 35,000 in income but reside in a neighborhood ranging about
California’s housing situation is severe compared to the rest of the United States. California is included in the top three states with the most “housing cost burdened individuals” (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2015). In a list of 20 cities where rents were highest compared to income, 10 of the 20 cities were in California with Los Angeles, CA topping the list (Dewan, 2014). Opponents might say that households in poverty could never afford housing due to their impoverished state but poverty measures of California show that the abnormally high cost of housing in California makes matters more severe and causes the amount of households that are severely cost afflicted to increase. Furthermore, when poverty measures take into account California’s uniquely expensive and insufficient housing supply, the results show that housing costs contribute significantly to poverty. For example, when housing costs were included in the California Poverty Measure as well as federal Supplemental Poverty Measure, the poverty rates rose substantially (Wimer, Mattingly, & Levin, 2013) (Short, 2015). And when high housing costs were artificially substituted with low housing costs, poverty rates significantly dropped (Bohn, Danielson, & Levin, 2013). And it’s not just the poor who are affected! Even those who are moderate income earners are becoming financially burdened by high housing costs. Those who are moderately well off compared to low income earners are financially burdened by rent costs in expensive cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University,
A review of school enrollment patterns allowed us answer our first research question - has State-level legislation and policy designed to address racial, ethnic and economic isolation of Connecticut public schools created a more diverse learning environment? In some instances, the creation of schools of choice and reliance on self-integration has improved the racial, ethnic and economic isolation experienced by the 49,254 public school students attending a school of choice during the 2012-13 school year. Of the 504,611 students attending traditional neighborhood schools in Connecticut during the 2012-13 school year, 95,127 attended a school that was hyper-segregated. We next turned our attention to the second research question: What local efforts to reduce racial, ethnic and socioeconomic isolation have
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