The education system is very unjust and unfair to the lower class citizens of America. Schools in lower class neighborhoods are getting extremely underfunded which as a direct correlation to how students are doing in school. With a shifted focus toward standardized testing students are receiving a less engaging education. America is doing nothing to help these students get more resources to help them succeed on more than just tests.
Neoliberalism is taking over the education system and turning it into a business. A big part of this is the no student left behind act. Hannah Arendt sums up neoliberalism with the following;
As a result, purveyors of neoliberal ideology and policy have been working relentlessly to undermine public education in order to define it in strictly economic terms. Taking an instrumentalist approach obsessed with measurement and quantification, they have aggressively attempted to turn education into a business, faculty into devalued clerks and students into consumers.
Teachers are just teaching for the test, to pass the regions test or whatever it is, schools are ignoring social issues. If the students don’t do well on the exams, the school looses funding, students will get grant money to privet schools, and the school will eventually go out of business. I believe testing is a very poor way of seeing ones potential or intelligence. The first test that comes to mind is the ACT or SAT. Many people do not like these tests because their future depends on how well you do. If you don’t reach a certain score you cant go to a certain college. People realize this and get very nervous and start second guessing themselves and end up not doing very well. Another part of these tests is most of them are timed. Timing them puts a whole different spin on things because you have to answer a certain amount of questions in a certain amount of time. This gives you limited time to work on a problem which is a problem for people who are not as fast as the others. Growing up I always had extra time for tests, but when it came to the ACT I did not which affected me. You can also pay for tutoring and to take it multiple times. This is a privilege for the upper class people and is very unfair to the people who cant afford this. Every time I took the ACT I did better. If someone can only afford to take it once, they are at a disadvantage. So there is a lot more than intelligence that goes into these tests.
Public schools are funded off of property taxes. A school in an upper class neighborhood, is going to have more funding because the houses are bigger. A public school in a lower class neighborhood is going to have significantly less funding because the houses are smaller. This leads to a very big difference in funding for resources. The school in the upper class neighborhood is going to have a lot more funding for resources such as a higher salary’s for teachers, food, construction for new facilities, transportation, and operation and maintenance fees. But in reality the school the most likely needs more funding is going is the school in the lower class neighborhood. Schools that don’t do well on testing become charter schools for lower class citizens. So say the school in the lower class neighborhood hasn’t tested well and is now giving grants for the students to go to a different school, the family might not use that money for school. They might use it to pay off bills or for food. I believe a good idea to fix this would be to still tax on property but everything goes to the state government and is dispersed equally through all the public schools in the state. This would provide equal funding for all the public schools in the state which would provide equal opportunity’s and and equal education for everyone.
This has not gone unnoticed In our society. On January 14th 2020 in Los Angeles 33,000 teachers took action and protested against the destruction of public schools. They protested for higher salaries, higher funding for resources, and less testing. Instead of teaching for the test, teachers need to be teaching about community they are apart of. These protest’s have started more protests around the country. When people are moving they look at the local public education systems to dictate where they move to. They shouldn’t have to do this. All public education systems should be equal.
Works cited
Rodriguez, Jared, et al. “Teachers Are Rising Up to Resist Neoliberal Attacks on Education.” Truthout, Truthout, 22 Jan. 2019, truthout.org/articles/teachers-are-rising-up-to-resist-neoliberal-attacks-on-education/.
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