Kibbel 1
Hailey Kibbel
Professor Giracca
Writing and Critical Inquiry
Thursday, April27th
Education: Grand Equalizer or Frontier Between the Privileged and Underprivileged?
In westernized societies, there is a stressed importance of education as a potential "savior", or as the grand equalizer in the minds of professors and scholars who value it. However, how strong of a role do privileges play in the success of individual learners? In the story “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”, by Sherman Alexie, the author insinuates that education can save anyone from the situation they are in and lift them to a better standing in society with an apparently brighter future. In the writing, Alexie details how learning to read through Superman transformed his life and fostered a prosperous and accepted lifestyle that was vastly different from the fate of the nonconforming Spokane Indians. However, it’s clear that Alexie may have overlooked the advantages that he had growing up and the affect that they had on his opportunities and accomplishments. Through “Superman and Me”, the concept of privilege can be seen as a heavy divider. With this in mind, is education really an equalizer with the ability to "save" anyone if it isn't equally distributed and encouraged? Does education have the ability to lead to further discrimination when it's quality varies based on location and economic stance? By using Alexie’s piece as well as various similar pieces from relevant authors, the privilege that is bound to come along with advanced support and educational funding can be studied in order to examine its effect on student success.
There are many ways in which our country may foster inequality. It's arguable that one way in which this occurs is through disparities in public school funding. However, it's a complicated and demanding task in order to attempt to understand why these disparities occur. Are they because of race, socioeconomic stance, or simply test results? Also, what is the affect that these disparities will have? In “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”, the author’sunique advantages and privilege were made very obvious to the reader. These circumstances are made clear when Alexie details that, because his family is considered middle class on his reservation for “find[ing] some minimum-wage job or another”, he had the privilege of his father “[buying] books by the pound at Dutch’s Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Value Village” (15-16). Although this is expected, or even considered a struggle, in middle-class westernized society, this was an advantage to Alexie because the other kids in his society didn’t have this opportunity. Instead, the authors peerswere forced to “[fail in non-Indian society and be] ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians” (Alexie 17). Although this fate didn’t lead to the westernized success that Alexie experience, it allowed for Native Americans to live the life that was forced upon them,starting when they were just children, without the resources and motivation to teach themselves to read in the way that the author did. While Alexie acknowledges that he is “smart… arrogant… [and trying] to save [his] life [through the opportunities provided by literature]”, he is more accurate when he describes himself as “lucky” (17-18). Sherman Alexie’s luck comes in many different forms, but it’s solely based on the favorable chances provided to him as a young child. He has access to books, literate parents, and he is considered middle-class by reservation standards.
While some may argue that Alexie is aware of the narrative that he’s creating and he’s actually writing in this way because he actually disagrees with the idea that everyone can be saved by reading and education, there isn’t enough evidence in the text to support this conclusion. Alexie does acknowledge the fact that his people were discriminated against by saying that they were “expected to be stupid” and also seems to understand that education isn’t for everyone, and that the people who failed to assimilate into the society of the United States would be further indulged in and accepted by their own culture (17). Strangely he doesn’t stray away from the idea that he “refused to fail” enough to acknowledge the fact that rejecting education in itself isn’t a failure. Although Alexie claims to “throw [his] weight against [the stubborn children’s’] locked doors”, he spends no time addressing the fact that the materials they are provided and the resources they have at home also have a monumental effect on the way that they are shaped.Alexie’s privilege was easy to outline. However, such privilege is hard to detect, trace, and analyze in scenarios as complicated as the public school system- an institution which affects the vast majority of the population. Not everyone has the chance to write professionally about circumstances that gave them advanced opportunities, but it can be understood that the money invested into a child will strongly affect the results of their education. So, because this situation is far more opaque in nature, how can we conclude that educational funding is unequal and that this disparity changes academic results?
An extremely vital subject to address is where funding comes from and what it’s actually used for. The efficient example used by NPR puts this situation into perspective flawlessly. The authors bring the issue to light by asking “Say there's a check in the mail. It's meant to help you run your household. You can use it to keep the lights on, the water running and food on the table. Would you rather that check be for $9,794 or $28,639?” (NPR). When it comes to feeding your family the answer is quite clear. What about when it comes to the quality of the education of your child? Unsurprisingly, quotes such as “We don't have a lot of the extra things that other districts may have, simply because we can't afford them”, stated by Superintendent Kevin Russel of Ridge, aren’t uncommon (NPR). Maybe slightly more surprising, the reason that this school is working with the bare minimum isn’t because the students aren’t performing as well. Instead, funding in the United States is based on property taxes. This means that the reason Ridge doesn’t have any extra resources is because there isn’t much business in the area and, simply put, because the property value of the region is lower that other local schools. According to Findlaw, the funding that we use in our schools goes towards instruction (teachers), operation and maintenance, construction, pupil services such as libraries and nurses, food, administration, transportation, interest on debt, and extra educational equipment. Ask yourself, would you want all of your money for these resources to come from the $9,794 end of the spectrum, or would you prefer the benefits from the $28,639 end?
Speculation is speculation, but how do we know that there is a significant funding gap in the Unites States? According to ASCD learn, “Public schools in the United States receive sharply unequal funding. Among the nation's school districts, annual funding per student can range from less than $4,000 to more than $15,000, and although the “typical” school district with 1,000 or more students receives roughly $5,000 per year for each student, affluent districts may receive $10,000 per student or more.” (Biddle and Berliner).This difference in funding per student is so extreme that’s it’s almost to excess. Major discrepancies such as this are the reason for the variation in funding in our country, and may easily be the reason why one school may be littered with Smartboards while another is stuck with chalk boards and outdated textbooks. Many may argue that high-ranking overall performance of a state would lead to said state, deservingly, earning more funding. Contrastingly, Biddle and Berliner explain that
Disparities in per-student funding levels are actually greater within some states than among the states as a group. 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 average.
Is the tremendous difference of over $9,000 really necessary in order to provide the “equal” education that every individual child earns? According to Biddle and Berliner, differences in funding actually be originated with the intention to motivate educators,and eventually students, to perform more strongly, while considering the “welfare of children”. However, is this welfare of the children really the primary interest of the Department of Education?
Students from wealthy communities or neighborhoods within generous states attend public schools with funding of $15,000 or more per student… whereas some students from poor communities or neighborhoods within stingy or impoverished states attend schools that must make do with less than $4,000 per student per year (Biddle and Berliner).
If the best interest of the children is really the main priority of the individuals in charge of the distribution of academic funding, then why isn’t the environment for children who are domestically underprivileged more rewarding than children who maintain steady financial, emotional, and extracurricular support from their family unit? Could the answer actually be as simple as institutional discrimination seeping into our educational customs? Who decides how funding is dispersed and why it’s dispersed in this manner?
Why is it that schools with citizens whom can afford the care of their child more easily in turn get more funding for the aid of children? If, according to the U.S. Department of Education, there “were 98,373 operating public elementary/secondary schools in SY 2014-15”, who decides how the funding is dispersed between close to a million school districts (Glander)? Furthermore, if aid is going to be unequal, why don't the underprivileged get more of it? Well, as elaborated on in the Voice of San Diego article by Andy Hinds,
[School systems] are capable of improving outcomes for students at sites where the conditions and demographics allow foundations to flourish; but in schools where parents don’t have the time, skills or inclination to advocate and fundraise, and in neighborhoods that don’t include supportive and vibrant business communities, students are at the mercy of the district’s budget, the principal’s skill at deploying it and the overall school climate.
This quote explains how crucial budget dispersal is to students who cannot depend on alternative methods to get the resources they require, resourced readily provided to privileged demographics. Unfortunately, this tainted system should really be reversed to favor the children who cannot get extenuating attention, homework help, and nourishment and home need all of those things, as well as basic materials and school supplies, so much more than students who can get half of these results just from the resources they have at home. Because of all these facts, it isn't surprising that "higher family income is associated with a greater probability that a child will enter and will graduate from college" when they are the only children provided with the proper support needed to succeed (Martha JBailey and Susan M. Dynarski5). This cycle is seemingly unavoidable, and theeffectsof it are actually chartable through statistical and personal analysis of underprivileged children.
Some sources may protest the notion that educational funding has a direct correlation with academic success. According to the Heritage Foundation, “Despite the lack of consistent findings, leading researchers in the area acknowledge that any effect of per-pupil expenditures on academic outcomes depends on how the money is spent, not on how much money is spent” (Lips and Watkins). This claim is truthful because quality definitely overpowers quantity when it comes to learning environment. However, there isn’t any research required to determine that the more money a school has available to them, the more money they can devote to different fields of funding that would better benefit their students. If a school district can only afford the necessary materials required for basic learning, that’s what they’ll provide their students. “Long-term measures of American students' academic achievement, such as long-term NAEP reading scale scores and high school graduation rates, show that the performance of American students has not improved dramatically in recent decades, despite substantial spending increases” (Lips and Watkins). Although this quote should be telling, it doesn’t have a huge statistical value because it considers overall achievement instead of individual success. As Lips and Watkins claim, “Since 1985, real federal spending on K-12 education has increased by 138 percent. On a per-student basis, federal spending on K-12 education has tripled since 1970. Yet, long-term measures of American students' academic achievement have not seen similar increases”. However, this statistic doesn’t take into consideration the achievement of low funded students verses high funded one. It also doesn’t consider the decreased in academic achievement that may have occurred in schools who are provided with less funding.
Although it’s arguable that unequal distribution of academic funding may have no effect on the self-esteem or success of an individual, the funding we put into a child is likely what they consider their “fiscal” value, and there for what they give back to the school system. Research shows that students with less funding are less successful in education endeavors. According the Biddle and Berliner, “Better-funded school districts can attract teachers with higher levels of education, more experience, and higher scores on competency tests; these teachers, in turn, seem to generate better achievement scores among students”. This is unsurprising, because school districts that can provide better resources for their community can be expected to provide stronger benefits for their educators. However, the education level isn’t the only benefit that higher funded school districts accomplish for themselves. “In addition [to superior teachers], better-funded schools are often able to reduce class sizes, and smaller classes seem to help generate better achievement among students” (Biddle and Berliner). This means that students who live in areas with more funding get more individualized attention just because of their location and the school district they attend. This cycle clearly proliferates itself because according to this evidence “it seems obvious that students from disadvantaged families will suffer the most from the U.S. system of unequal school funding because these students are more likely to attend poorly funded public schools” (Biddle and Berliner). The pattern isn’t hard to detect. When “differences in high school completion between children from low-income families and those from high-income families explain half of the gap in college entry,” it’s clear that these disparities have a massive effect on the future of underprivileged children (Martha J Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski 7).It’s uncertain whether this unequal funding is meant to target or detriment underprivilegedchildren, or intended to benefit privilege child in assumption that they are more likely to succeed. However, it is clear that there’s a correlation between higher quality education and higher funded school districts. Therefore, underprivileged students begin their educational journey at a disadvantage, and their potential for success is clearly damaged by this.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”.50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. Comp. Samuel S. Cohen. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014.
Hinds, Andy. "The Privilege and the Curse of School Foundations." Voice of San Diego. Ed. Scott Lewis. N.p., 1 Mar. 2017. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017.
Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner. "A Research Synthesis / Unequal School Funding in the United States." As viewed on ASCD. Adapted from the 59th volume of Beyond Instructional Leadership:Unequal School Funding in the United States. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017.
Bailey, Martha J., and Susan M. Dynarski. “Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion”. NBER. National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec. 2011. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017.
Glander, Mark. "Selected Statistics From the Public Elementary and Secondary Education Universe: School Year 2014–15." Introduction. N.p.,September 2016. Accessed 22 Apr. 2017.
Works Cited
Lips, Dan, and Shanea Watkins. "Does Spending More on Education Improve Academic Achievement?" The Heritage Foundation. N.p., 8 Sept. 2008. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.
Turner, Cory, Reema Khrais, Tim Lloyd, Alexandra Olgin, Laura Isensee, Becky Vevea, and Dan Carsen. "Why America's Schools Have a Money Problem." NPR. 18 Apr. 2016. Accessed 7 May 2017.
"How is Money Spent on Education Actually Used?" Findlaw. N.p. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Reflection
During this essay, I challenged myself to think and research in a way that I never had before. I am very passionate about this topic having come from the privileged end and come out of the system still aware of my privilege, the advantage it has given me, and the high quality of my education that outshine the education quality of children across the country. Although this is also a global issue, I decided to keep the issue local because it’s vital for us to acknowledge our faults as a community. I’m no genius and I cannot decipher our complicate solution enough in order to get the information I need out of it to formulate a solution for all of these dilemmas. However, I believe that acknowledging these issues is the first step. I wanted to learn more about this subject and build an understanding of why these disparities exist, as well as what their ultimate function ended up to be.