A
child who lives in an affluent community with sufficient amount of funding and
greatly amounts of materials, text and resources in general, which is being
supported through their schools, is generating a sense of greed and ignorance
within the students. These are students who initially have superfluous amounts
of school resources and are extremely flourished with great campuses. These
rich children views their advantage of being provided with a great education
and abundant resources as an inheritance, for their parents invested highly
into their educations, whereas they begin to “get used to what they have, They
think its theirs by rights because they had it from the start. So it leaves
those children with a legacy of greed. I don’t think most people understand
this” (Kozol 127). This demonstrates where children of affluent schools
originate their sense of ignorance and greed within education, making it
extremely impossible to fit in any changes or aiding poor urban schools due to the
tremendous amount of pride they take within their own education, which gives
these children the ultimate power of knowledge upon the unfortunate students of
the urban public schools.
These children from affluent
schools, whom are greatly funded with great resources, views aiding the
children of poor public schools is an utterly waste of effort and money. They
believe that it would “probably make no major difference since poor children
still would lack the motivation and would probably fail in any case because of
other problems” (Kozol 153). This signifies their utmost belief upon why
investing into the children of urban areas will not be effective at all when it
comes to their education. They feel that these students lack motivation,
determination and are prone to failure due to the environment they live in, so
investing in their education is a waste of their time. These rich children are
so easy to judge and carry a sense of power due to their flourishing education,
making them the ones to indicate the fate and the future of the children who
attends poor public schools. Most agree that helping the poor school’s funding
would be “like giving charity and charitable things have never worked…Charity
will not instill the poor with self-respect” (Kozol 157). The affluent children
do not understand the unfairness of what the children of poorer areas are
experiencing with their education, for they were never put in that particular
position. They view any type of aid towards the poorer public schools is similar
to a charity, which in their perspectives is nowhere near effectiveness.
These children who inherited sufficient
schools that provides them with great resources are dismissing the idea of
desegregating the schools. They believe that it should be “separate but equal”
(Kozol 154) basically meaning to “keep them where they are but make it equal”
(Kozol 155). They do not realize the reality of what the children are
experiencing with their public schools, lack of resources, due to their poor
community; so in regards to the equality of education from the suburban areas
to the urban areas, there is no possibilities of having equal educational
opportunities without proper funding within both districts. Some also believe
“that you cannot give an equal chance to every single person. If you did it,
you’d be changing the whole economic system. If you equalize the money,
someone’s got to be shortchanged” (Kozol 156). This implies that in order to
keep the economic system in its proper manner, there cannot be equalization
between the rich and the poor. There has to be some type of order of what the
rich benefits from education and what the poor does. It should not be
equalized.
The types of citizens that are
produced from a lack of materials in poorly funded public schools are citizens
who lack a high school diploma which are forced to work entry-level jobs.
Realistically, the students of the poor public schools are unable to provide
students with proper education due to the lack of resources which leads to
students either dropping out of high school or even gain a high school diploma,
in reality is not worth much. “Inevitable this thinking must diminish the
horizons and the aspirations of poor children, locking them at a very early age
into the slots that are regarded as appropriate to their societal position. If
we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and
maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the most they can hope for” (Kozol 93). This
realistically states that the poor children of urban areas are not sufficed to
a successful future with education and basically their likeliness of making
money in the future, would be through bottom-level jobs, due to their education
levels. This factor truly regulates the economic order; poor students are not
provided with efficient education and resources due to the poor funding and are
forced into working entry-level jobs, restricting them from becoming anything
else career-wise.
Another type of citizen that may be
created from the lack of resources from their poorly funded schools could be
individuals that are disastrous to their community or ever our nation as a
whole. Due to the shortage of being properly educated through the lack of
school resources, a sense of bitterness could be created within these individuals,
for they possibly are not successful, financially unstable and lacks basic
knowledge to gain a job beyond entry-level. This could be devastating to our
nation for this sense bitterness could result into violence within these poor
communities, disregarding the utmost fact that our future nation is not being
properly education could be extremely harmful towards our nation entirely.
Kozol reports, “ if they [the state] do not give these children a sufficient
education to lead healthy and productive lives, we will become their victims
later on” (108).
Due to the insufficient amount of
materials and resources in the poorly funded schools, these individuals do not
believe in the freedom and prosperity of being an American. For instance, they
believe that “why should [they] go to war and fight for opportunities [they]
can’t enjoy– for things rich people value, for their freedom, but I do not have
that freedom and I can’t go to their schools?” (Kozol 127). This demonstrates
the sense of questioning the value of freedom of being an American, and the
irony of how the poor colored children are not able to attend the same schools
as the rich children, so where exactly is the term freedom determined in that
matter?
Despite the major issue of poor public schools that are in great shortage of supplies and resources, the poor urban communities should stand up and make a change in their failing children’s future path by involvement. Community organizing through school reform should take place, if they desire a greater, positive impact in their children’s future with education. In the article, Transforming Schools Through Community Organizing by M. Elena Lopez, Lopez demonstrates that with the proper aid of residents from the community and parents as well, coming together to with a similar motive– creating a greater outcome from the student’s learning ability through tutoring, after-school activities and monitoring the children’s homework can generate a positive educational outcome from these poorly funded schools. This does not only necessarily display parent involvement, for they are not focused on their own child but all the children and the school as a whole. The community organizing for school reform’s main intentions is that “they work to change public schools to make them more equitable and effective for all students.” (Lopez). They believe that it is every parent’s responsibility to support their child’s learning, but it is truly the schools’ responsibility to provide the children with a quality education. But due to the lack of proper funding and the unhelpful aid from their state; organizations like the community organizing for school reforms should highly take place in poorer communities, especially when their children’s education is on the line.
Despite the major issue of poor public schools that are in great shortage of supplies and resources, the poor urban communities should stand up and make a change in their failing children’s future path by involvement. Community organizing through school reform should take place, if they desire a greater, positive impact in their children’s future with education. In the article, Transforming Schools Through Community Organizing by M. Elena Lopez, Lopez demonstrates that with the proper aid of residents from the community and parents as well, coming together to with a similar motive– creating a greater outcome from the student’s learning ability through tutoring, after-school activities and monitoring the children’s homework can generate a positive educational outcome from these poorly funded schools. This does not only necessarily display parent involvement, for they are not focused on their own child but all the children and the school as a whole. The community organizing for school reform’s main intentions is that “they work to change public schools to make them more equitable and effective for all students.” (Lopez). They believe that it is every parent’s responsibility to support their child’s learning, but it is truly the schools’ responsibility to provide the children with a quality education. But due to the lack of proper funding and the unhelpful aid from their state; organizations like the community organizing for school reforms should highly take place in poorer communities, especially when their children’s education is on the line.
Another way to help out the public schools with poor
funding would be to redirect the funds. Most would disagree, which mainly would
be the rich, for they don’t believe in a change coming out of redirecting the
funds to the poorer schools, for they believe that they worked hard to achieve
their place in life and deserves their children to be attending superior
schools, but what about the children who do not have the willing power to
change their fate with attending poor public schools? The over-achieving
students of affluent areas believe that “taxing the rich to help the
poor––[would] be getting nothing out of it. [They] don’t understand how it
would make a better educational experience for [them]” (Kozol 157) but do not
understand that with the aid of taxing the rich to help the poor can actually
help the public school’s funding drastically. The rich is too naïve and highly
believe that the poor people’s issue with their education is not their burden
to deal with in the first place. With all honesty, using federal taxes for the
poor will highly benefit the public schools, putting them on a path of change,
improvement and growth within all the students.
An additional way to helping out poorly funded public
schools would to be create organizations and fundraisers that would help donate
money that could be used to purchase required texts and materials for the
schools that has a great shortage of them. For instance, there was an
organization that took place in 2011, which was combined by MSNBC’s Morning Joe
and Starbucks. In the article, Starbucks
and MSNBC Team Up and You Can Too by Nicole, demonstrated how the two organizations planned
to highlight examples of innovation and initiatives across communities where
education and support is critical and to provide proper aid
to the public schools that are in great need. Starbucks and local grocery
stores featured specially marked bags of Gold Coast Blend, Morning Joe edition that
had a $5 donation to the school of their pick to aid. “Through this effort, we
hope to inspire customers to take action and get involved in change for their
neighborhood public school” (Nicole). This is a perfect example of how simple organizations
like this could truly create a huge impact on the poor public schools. With the
help of these organizations, people becomes more aware of what is going on around
them nationwide within the public educational system, revealing the lack of
proper funding and how much that effects the children’s education.
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