Education and American Poverty
Education and American Poverty
The Catholic Churych teaches that proper education and formation of every person should be a first priority of a society. Unfortunately, the way that education is provided in the U.S. today results in poorest children of the country pretty consistently receiving an education substantially worse to that which is available to those of our middle and upper classes. American funding for public primary and secondary schools is largely based off of property taxes collected from the area which results of course in less money available per student in poor school districts. The substandard funding received in poor school districts leaves poor children with schooling grounds that frankly promote failure. There is an undeniable disparity in high school graduation rates, and test scores between the general student population and those living beneath the poverty line. The poor education received by poor children in America is resulting in communities as a whole remaining in poverty over the course generations. The fact that the injustice of such poor opportunities being provided to these children says a lot about our society and none of it is good. The current system of providing children with free and open schools throughout the United States needs to be drastically changed insofar as eliminating the difference in opportunity provided for children of different economic classes.
Public school funding is different in every state since each one creates its own way of distributing money from various sources. That being said, every state in America leaves a large portion of public school funding to be dependent upon property taxes which vary very dramatically from district to district.
To illustrate, in 1998, public school districts in Alaska that were ranked at the 95th percentile for per-student funding received an average of $16,546 per student for the year, whereas school districts ranked at the 5th percentile received only $7,379 on
The Catholic Churych teaches that proper education and formation of every person should be a first priority of a society. Unfortunately, the way that education is provided in the U.S. today results in poorest children of the country pretty consistently receiving an education substantially worse to that which is available to those of our middle and upper classes. American funding for public primary and secondary schools is largely based off of property taxes collected from the area which results of course in less money available per student in poor school districts. The substandard funding received in poor school districts leaves poor children with schooling grounds that frankly promote failure. There is an undeniable disparity in high school graduation rates, and test scores between the general student population and those living beneath the poverty line. The poor education received by poor children in America is resulting in communities as a whole remaining in poverty over the course generations. The fact that the injustice of such poor opportunities being provided to these children says a lot about our society and none of it is good. The current system of providing children with free and open schools throughout the United States needs to be drastically changed insofar as eliminating the difference in opportunity provided for children of different economic classes.
Public school funding is different in every state since each one creates its own way of distributing money from various sources. That being said, every state in America leaves a large portion of public school funding to be dependent upon property taxes which vary very dramatically from district to district.
To illustrate, in 1998, public school districts in Alaska that were ranked at the 95th percentile for per-student funding received an average of $16,546 per student for the year, whereas school districts ranked at the 5th percentile received only $7,379 on
Cited: "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church." Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2013. Dillon, Sam. "Report: Districts Pay Less in Poor Schools." The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Dec. 2011. Web. 15 Jan. 2013. Friedman, Howard Steven. "America 's Poverty-Education Link." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Aug. 2012. Web. 15 Jan. 2013. "Membership." Educational Leadership:Beyond Instructional Leadership:Unequal School Funding in the United States. Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner, n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2013. Raudenbush, Stephen W. Schooling, Statistics, and Poverty: Can We Measure School Improvement? Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, Policy Evaluation and Research Center, Policy Information Center, 2004. Print. "Research Shows Poverty Creates the Biggest Achievement Gap of All." Cambridge Advanced Learning Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2013. "School Finance." Research Center:. N.p., 4 Aug. 2004. Web. 15 Jan. 2013. Bello, Marisol. "As Seniors Climb from Poverty, Young Fall In." USA TODAY. 16 Feb 2012: A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 Jan 2013. Walters, Pamela Barnhouse, Jean C. Robinson, and Julia C. Lamber. "In Search of Equality in School Finance Reform." Dissent. Fall 2011: 28-33. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 16 Jan 2013.