Blog Stage Five

As someone who grew up in a white suburbia bubble I took for granted the public schooling I was privileged to attend. I assumed that because I went to good schools then that must mean every public school was just as good. As I grew older and saw on the news that inner city schools were failing or doing poorly I naively assumed that had to be the result of the personal failings of the students. I definitely did not see it as a problem that the government had a hand in nor a problem that needed fixing by the government. It wasn't until I heard a segment on NPR's This American Life called "The Problem We All Live With" that I realized exactly what was wrong.

If you asked the average American today if they believed segregation still existed they most likely would say no or that it was done away with after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. While technically this is true, unfortunately statistics show us that it is not reality. If you were to look at a ranking of the schools doing the most poorly in this country you will see that almost all have something in common...the majority of students in these schools are poor minorities. In the same vain, if you were to look at a list of the best schools in the country you would see that their commonality is a majority of middle-class/upper class white students. Why is this?

To put it bluntly it is the result of a government that is still steeped in systemic racism. While there is a law on the books stating segregation is illegal in practice segregation is almost as bad as it was before the civil rights movement. According to an article written by Ian Millhiser called "American Schools Are More Segregated Now Than They Were In 1968..." the percentage of black students attending majority white schools has been on the decline since 1988. So what are the solutions?

First, I believe a solution to the problem is funding. The way public schools are set up to receive funding it is no wonder that the poorer inner city schools are failing. Schools cannot function well if they do not have the money to hire qualified teachers and staff. They cannot function if they don't have money for updated lesson plans and textbooks. They cannot function if their buildings are falling apart. The government needs to find a way in which all public schools get the same amount of funding. Unfortunately, with the current administration that won't be likely, but hopefully in the future the government will pay more attention to improving public education. If we continue to contact our politicians perhaps they will start taking notice as well.

The other solution, which the NPR podcast I mentioned above has suggested and seems the most common sense, is that we simply start integrating schools again. Studies have shown that when this happens all students involved start improving in school, even if they came from a lower rated school before integrating. The government needs to look for solutions to making this possible. A big part of that solution, I believe, is the government actively changing racist ideals and policies within itself, and asking itself why it believes poor minorities do not deserve the same benefits as wealthy white children.