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1 School funding: Are all schools created equal?
2 Differnce between urban, rural and suburban
3 What is the governments role?
4 What is the future for education?
5 Application Questions and Answers
6 Essay question
7 References
8 Rating
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School funding inequalities affect people in areas like the inner city and rural areas. Students living in these areas of the United States exhibit lower educational achievement and a higher percentage of dropping out of high school than do their suburban counterparts (Crowley, Devey, Donald). The likelihood of dropping out of high school is twenty-eight percent higher than in rural areas, the percent for rural areas is only eighteen percent.
Family, class, background, capital income and parental education have a strong positive influence on achievement and decrease the dropping rate. Families and school sin America’s inner cities and rural places lack resources that promote educational achievement and attainment. Locales have lower family income, less parental education, and more siblings per household. Poorly performance schools tend to serve the most impoverished populations in the United States and are located in the most disadvantaged rural and urban areas of the country. Inner city and rural areas differ substantially from suburban places in the availability of resources, local economy, economic development and spatial stratification. Urban inner city areas have seen decentralization and capital flight since the 50’s. What remains is a poor and often minority population increasingly dependent on low wage and relatively unstable service sector jobs. Rural areas throughout the country too have been shaken by industrial restructuring, especially in agriculture, which has increased rates of unemployment, dependence on part time service sector work, and family economic vulnerability (Duncan 1996). Suburban neighborhoods on the other hand is populated by educated, two parent families and have lower rates of poverty. It has been said to be easier for a child to be educated in such context given the resource that both schools and families bring to bear on the educational process and on potentially influential investments (Roscigno 1999). Family socioeconomics status and the economic well being of children are depressed in inner city and rural areas, a condition that has only increased in the past decades. Socioeconomic status of a student’s household is consistently influential for both achievement and attainment. This may be part to influence of economic well being on cognitive development early in education. Middle and upper class parents can hire tutors and make time to meet with teachers; they are more likely to utilize proper English in the household, and they tend to structure their children’s leisure time in educationally meaningful ways (Lareau 2002). Family structure is also patterned by local economic opportunity. Rural families are more likely to have two parents, rural tends in a non marital childbearing and family dissolution now mirror those of inner city areas. All these statistics on students not being able to be educated because of what district they are in is just one of the problems. School funding is the main cost of children not being educated. Schools in the inner cities are nothing compared to those schools in suburban areas. The schools in the city are old buildings that do not get fixed at all. Student’s get old hand me down books, ruined desks, or even ugly old walls on the inside. These buildings that are considered schools for these children are outrages and disgusting. Compared to those in the suburban area, the schools might be new or renovated from ground up. Technology is better, reading material better, and the facility is better. Another example that is different from those students in inner city schools, they have different curriculums. The wealthier school might have better programs for students, while the cities have little programs and not enough resources to have any.
The total amount of money available to a school district for education is the sum of locally raised revenues, state aid, federal aid, and miscellaneous revenues. In the past most money that supported public elementary and secondary schools came from the local revenue sources and property taxes. An increase in state revenue has helped offset decreases in local funding of the schools. Currently states governments contribute about forty nine percent, local governments offer about forty three percent and the federal government provides about nine percent toward the financing of public schools. State leaders planned to use the self inflicted crisis to recast the existing school finance system, which left great gaps in spending power between wealthy and poor school districts. The quality of education in school districts with low property values, usually inner city and rural districts. Property tax funding systems mean that a school district in a well to do areas is able to raise and spend much more money per pupil than districts in poor areas can.
The future of education is left up with the states. States are left with few popular options when faced with court rulings that order them to eliminate disparities in education funding. The state also faces problems with bring the spending levels of poor and wealthy school districts closer together. A few states have raised income and sales taxes to provide catch up money to poorer districts. Others have found money in state budgets to increase spending on needy schools, and a few from wealthy districts to poorer ones. Critics of spending equity say that even though some school districts may benefit from increased funding, attempts to achieve equity are misguided. The central issue, they say, is whether the students are learning. While money may not be the only answer to improving education in poor school districts, it is certainly a good place to start. Students will never have an opportunity to meet higher standards unless their schools have adequate resources, they maintain.
Questions & Answers
1. Who are the wealthy?
A.urbans B.suburbans C.rural
2. Who are the poor?
A.suburbans B.urbans C.rural
3. What do suburban have that rural don't have?
A.better facilities B.great curriculum C.better technology D.All of the above
4. Do rural students usually have both parents educated?
A. yes B. No
5. Does the suburban students have one single parent?
A.No B. Yes
B,C,D,B,A
Essay Question:
If you could go switch schools, which one would you pick and why?
References:
Cooper, Ryan. "Those Who Can, Teach." Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
Roscigno, Vincent. "Education and the Inequalities of Place" Feburary 22, 2008.
Facts on File World News Digest (Feburary 26, 2008). "Public-School Funding."
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