In this essay, I will be discussing the social effective of inequality in public schools. I will be looking at the uneven distributing of education in our schools; from one community to another. Looking at the perspective of inequality in the public schools on an institutional, individual and group level. We should all understand that public schools itself do not support the success of minority students. Many times, it takes the internal and external support (parents or guardians) and resources for students to succeed. In-most cases students of a less privileged background do not have those extra resources to succeed, especially the minority community – people of colors.
I was one of those minority students that attended one of the best public schools in the country. My family was new to the country when I started high school. My parents did not know where to start from, giving us, the opportunity we needed to be successful was a challenge. They did not know much about the public schools and how things were ran. That was one of the other challenges, plus they did not go far in school to guide us as much as they would; that was a struggle. During rest hour or recess, I used to see other students in higher education classes or groups that would better them after their high school education. According to Godsey (2015), honors students are engaged in a stimulating discussion until the bell rings. After lunch, a few of those students drive to their class at a local junior college, for which they will earn high-school and higher-education credits simultaneously. Some of these high-achievers might return home in the evening only to take another college course; this one a paid-online class—that their parents believe will help them get further ahead (pg. 1). Those little activities or exercises prep them for college or enable them to earn college credits while in high school.
Those little things do matter. Those students who parents are immigrant and do not know the school system well.
One would had imagined; how would they be able to success or prep to be successful after high school for instance earning a college credit why still in high school? Not to say that the opportunity was not there, but how will they know, especially being a refugee and new to the United States. That was a struggle and there was some form of inequality with that as well.
If you do not have the necessary resources to be able to do your school work at home because of lack of internet it could impact a student need to get homework done. Because lack of Internet at home and can’t watch the video lesson their math teacher posted for homework (Godsey, 2015, p. 1). Without some of the basic needs like internet, students who have homework that requires them to watches videos or research material for class may not be able to show or demonstrate their ability to apply the skills required to be successful in those classes. The result, those students might struggle and in worse cases fail the class.
The theory to this is that public school are not so bad, because there are some great public school out there, but if you need your child to be parents usually put in extra resources by enrolling their children to off campus extracurricular programs, for example, or private tutoring to improve their learning. According to Godsey (2015), popular approach among parents—enrolling a child in a public school while simultaneously investing time and money in extra programs to boost the child’s success and achievement—seems similar in its contribution to educational inequality (pg. 2). Blacks, Latinos are often victims of inequality in the public-school system. Research has shown that there is a big gap between white and blacks when it come-to getting a quality education.
According to Godsey (2015), most Black students were not receiving quality education; most White students were (Godsey, 2015, p. 2-3), reason to that had to do with segregation. Even though we are I in the 21st century, we still seeing race inequality and segregation in public school today as I speak. According to Norwood (2017), “Black, Asian, and non-White people of Latin American descent make up a majority of the students in public schools today, although this is also true” (pg. 1). We are looking at two major factors that led to that; one, it having to be that the enrollment of white students in public school has declined over the years. Two, over the past years we have witness a significantly declined of white births. Due to those factors we could say, it is an example of inequality with the institute – the schools.
Seeing inequality in the public schools on a group level is version of how school prepared their lesson curricular. Most time those lesson curricular do not benefits students who are from a poor neighborhood, most especially kids of colors. Many time our schools has fail us. Because the lesson they prepared for lecture many time are disadvantages to kids of colors, but advantages for the overall privileged kids; the white kids.
Reason for that has to do with the resources that are available to help prepare those kids for schools from a very early age, looking at on community to community basics. I am not saying that kids of colors most cases do not have those resources, but on a large scale not all have the resources to prepare them. Take for example pre-school. One would say we have free preschool available to all kids’ every child in the country. Yes, that may be true to some level, but not all of those kids that attend preschool have the resources available at home to practically apply it. Many times, the only practical and suitable place to learn would be at the school. We need to take that into consideration, and there are people that fall into that group; especially the community of colors.
Inequality on an individual level come down to the community and home we were born into. There is a common saying that goes like this, we do not choice the family to born to, but it is up to us to shape our destiny. Well it might be true to some extent, especially the part that says, “we do not choice the family we’re born to, but the fact to it is that it is not as easy to shape your future. To shape your future, there are many obstacles you had to faces, and they do not come as easy. That is how I picture inequality on an individual level. As stated on an online blog written by Marquis, (2012)” the extent to which schools that serve low-income and minority students do not receive an equitable share of state and local funding” (Marquis, 2012, pg. 1). So, you see, the distribution of public funding is not evenly distributed in school’s district. So how do you expect those kids in those low in-come communities to success?
In-conclusion, I would say that life is not fair to us all, especially people of colors. Neither the less, it doesn’t mean that life do not go on. We just have to keep pushing each day by day and hope for the best, because each day you wake up, try to be the best your where yesterday, the day before, and the day before, and the day before.
References
- Godsey, M. (2015). The Inequality in Public Schools. The Atlantic, 1-5. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/inequality-public-schools/395876/
- Hochschild, J.L. (2003). Social Class in Public Schools. Journal of Social Issues, 821-840
- Norwood, K.J. (2017). Racial Inequality in Public Schools. American Bar Association, 1-2. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/young_lawyers/publications/tyl/topics/access-to-education/racial_inequality_public_schools/
- Marquis, J. (2012, January). How Educational Inequality Affects Us All. Retrieved from Online Universities: https://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/01/how-educational-inequality-affects-us-all/
