To the editor,
Despite the idealistic notion that racism and classism don’t persist in 2016, it is an ongoing issue that is problematic in the education system. There have been studies showing that a child’s socioeconomic status is a major predictor of academic success. On the American Psychological Association education and socioeconomic status factsheet, it explained research which showed that school conditions contribute more to SES differences in learning than family characteristics. This is largely due to the fact that schools in low-income communities suffer from a lack of well-qualified teachers, and therefore low educational achievement (APA). The less-qualified teachers tend to be placed in high-need areas because of the low-income school’s lack of resources. More qualified teachers tend to move to suburban or high-income schools because of the higher pay and easier work environment. Low-income schools have a difficult time coming up with packages that are appealing to more highly qualified teachers. Since a teacher’s quality of training and years of experience correlate with academic achievement, children with less-qualified teachers in low-SES communities have lower academic success rates (APA).
Furthermore, high school dropout rates tend to correlate with higher incarceration rates. By 2008, 37 percent of African-American men who dropped out of high school were in prison or jail. Among white male dropouts, the rate increased to around one in eight in prison by 2008 (Western, 2010). We are not doing right by our kids.
In a data collection survey from the U.S. Census, it was shown that it costs significantly less to put a child through a full education (prekindergarten through 12th grade) than to keep an inmate imprisoned (Money CNN). So why are we punishing the children we didn’t provide for? By perpetuating the mass incarceration issue, we are actively participating in the disruption of resources. By allocating money to prisons, we are taking away money that could be provided to getting better resources for our kids.
We need to find a way to do better by our kids. The current funding system (largely based off of property taxes) doesn’t account for low-income areas. It’s creating a gap across race and class. From a financial perspective, it’s costing our country more money to keep inmates imprisoned than it would to give them a complete education and create productive members of society.
We need to consider where our priorities lie as a country and where we should be distributing our resources. Do we want to increase our global competitiveness by producing educated, informed citizens? Or do we want to be content with mediocrity and continue to maintain our broken system as is. We need to do better by our kids and make school into what it is supposed to be — an environment of opportunity.
Sources:
Association, A. P. (n.d.). Education and Socioeconomic Status Factsheet. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-education.aspx
Money, C. (n.d.). Education vs prison costs. Retrieved April 23, 2016, from http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/education...
Western, B., & Pettit, B. (2010). Incarceration & social inequality. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://www.amacad.org/content/publications/pubContent.aspx?d=808
