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Alexis Cooper

Professor Noone

ENGW 103

The Public Education System Has Failed Minorities

The confidence in the United States' public-school system has dramatically declined. For

the most part, the public still supports the education system, but there is no doubt that criticism

exists. Public education is essentially the idea that all students should have access to a quality

education at the public's expense. How do we define this "quality education" for all students? It

does not stop at just providing a building for students to receive an education; it requires access

to key educational resources, including experienced teachers and valuable curriculum. We have

inner-city schools that lack many resources that their suburban counterparts acquire. The public-

school system is poorly constructed, unconstitutional, unequally funded, and this list could go

on. Students of lower socioeconomic status are being groomed to fail and this is not acceptable.

The school system is not up to par, specifically relating to inner-city schools. Officials

place schools in inner-cities and forget about the effects that the neighborhood would have on the

school. The biggest issue is the violence rate in these schools. Many underperforming schools

have high levels of school violence. Julia Burdick-Will, a sociologist, who received a James

Coleman Award for her article on school violence, conducted research on the impact of school

violence. Burdick finds “Even when students are not the direct victims of violent conflict,

attending a school with a high violent crime rate increases the probability that they will witness

violence or will know of someone who was involved in a violent incident. This exposure to

violence can have psychological consequences for learning even if there are no noticeable

changes in their reports of physical safety.” With the violent environment, students will then
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become less interested in school, more attracted in destructive behavior, which will then lead to

poor performance in school.

Problems like poverty are one of the biggest factors that impact the lives of these

children. In a study "The Challenge of Location and Poverty" conducted by the National Center

for Education Statistics, they reported “previous research suggests that both students from

schools with high concentrations of low-income students and those from urban schools would be

expected to have less successful education outcomes, home environments that are less

supportive, and less positive school experiences than students from other schools." The research

shows how having low-income or attending these urban schools impact the success rate of the

students. Poverty and violence directly affect a student’s education in inner-city schools. Without

a safe and stable community, students struggle throughout the years and ultimately fail to

complete high school because of the distractions within their community. Inner-city schools need

support from the government to create a safer environment and implant more programs that

promote safety and avoidance of drugs and crime. Programs like The Boys and Girls Club, the

YMCA, Big Brothers Big Sisters, have been shown in multiple studies to have helped inner-city

youth. According to Laura Lippman and the National Dropout Prevention Center, there was “A

recent report on California’s after-school programs that found many positive impacts that

resulted from the programs (Department of Education, 2002). Participating students

demonstrated increased achievement, regular attendance, good behavior, and a reduction in grade

retention.” A study like this is just one example of many, but it does provide evidence of how

programs can be beneficial to the youth. The programs may be the only opportunity for at-risk

students have quality field trips, tutoring, academic advancement or enrichment activities such as
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dance and music. Programs would help students find activities that they are interested in and

prevent them from falling into the holes and loops of failure.

In some states like Texas, students typically have to pay an out-of-district transfer fee.

Hallsville Independent School District, located in Hallsville, Texas, has “an Out of District

Transfer Application fee of $50.00 per student; $75 per family with more than one child will be

payable at the time of application. The application fee is non-refundable if the student is not

accepted or chooses not to enroll. The application fee will be applied to tuition upon acceptance

and enrollment of student(s).” (HISD.com) Parents have to take the risk of wasting their money,

which might not seem like a lot but could be a lot to them, and if their children are accepted, they

would then be required to pay a yearly tuition, if the students will continue their education at the

school. The Hallsville ISD transfer “Tuition is $1,000 for the first child in a family, $500 for the

second child in a family, and caps at $1,500 per family.”(HISD.com) If the students are not able

to afford the fees and tuition, they are not able to receive the same education that the students at

these “better schools” receive. Chances to exercise school choice are very limited unless students

can afford to or fall into certain education categories. Ultimately, families end up paying tuition

for school choice, move into a different public-school district where schools are considered

decent, or lie about residency.

Poverty has a strong connection with race and social class, as minorities are usually

living in poverty and are ranked low in the social economy. Students regularly receive intensely

different learning opportunities based on their social status. What can be done to guarantee that

low-income schools are developed to support successful teaching and learning? Tarsi Dunlop,

most recognized for her work with Learning First Alliance (LFA), a national partnership of

education associations committed to strengthening public schools for all children, points out that
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“driving reforms…are slowly eroding our public school system and creating an even wider and

more troubling achievement gap; ensuring that more affluent students have access to better

schools and more resources, while low-income students receive a second-class education.” In

other words, there is a system that prolongs inequality between upper and lower class students.

People from a racial minority group or a lower income family often do not have a family history

of higher education, which means parents will not have high expectations of their children nor

will they encourage productivity in school. Many of these families have generations that were

born into poverty due to institutional racism, and most are not able to move up in the economy.

According to the article "The Enduring Importance of Parental Involvement," the authors report

"Ongoing research shows that family engagement in schools improves student achievement,

reduces absenteeism, and restores parents’ confidence in their children’s education. Students

with involved parents…earn higher grades and test scores, have better social skills, and show

improved behavior." The research raises the question of how can parents actively be involved

when they often have to work multiple jobs just to support their family and simply do not have

time to monitor and participate in their children's school performance. Parental involvement does

play a large role in a child's school performance, but so does the role of the state and local

government. It is important to know that parental involvement and the role of government are not

equal in their influence of student progress, but the government should spend more time

adequately funding their schools. Funding these schools would lead to a better space for children

to actively learn.

There are multiple problems that inner-city schools have that government funding could

fix. There are multiple studies conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA)
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surrounding the idea of problems with inner-city schools. According to one study done by

Cynthia Hudley from the APA, these urban schools usually consist of:

 The overcrowding of students in every classroom

 Small staff of teachers with inadequate pay

 Teachers that are not very experienced in a subject/field

 Fewer counselors, programs, and mentoring groups to help students

 Poor environment conditions such as poor building infrastructure, dirty

bathrooms, mold, etc.

 Outdated and/or damaged textbooks, technology, teaching materials, etc.

 Limited course selection

These problems listed are only a small portion of the vast amounts of problems that exist in these

urban schools. With proper funding these inner-city schools could be properly renovated.

Considering the era that we live in today, schools that are not properly funded are not able to

supply their students with the very necessary materials and technology to adequately teach them.

Schools are also unable to afford to fix the decay of their buildings in order to create an

exceptional environment that will encourage learning. Tax-payers may argue, “Why should I pay

for students who do not seem to care about their education?” This is not really the problem.

Since these schools do not provide helpful resources for the students, they tend to believe that

they are not cared about. When teachers and faculty are not paid well enough or who aren’t well-

experienced, they do not expect much of the students, leading students to think they do not

matter. As shown by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation case studies, teachers

in urban school districts can feel overwhelmed by what they consider to be the high needs of

their students, which will lower their own expectations for student performance. If the students
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are given the opportunity and proper support, they will live up to the high expectations that are

set for them.

Education continues to be the basis of everyone's success and prosperity, but the public

education school system practices exclusion in many different ways. Since education is so

important to succeed in our society, the system must make extreme changes to accommodate the

drastic achievement gap between whites and non-Asian minorities. All of these factors discussed

are the principal reasons as to why these inner-city students are performing worse than others

and can be changed if officials attempted to care. Quality education resources would make a

difference, especially when funds are used for better-experienced teachers and high-quality

curriculum. Creating tailored learning communities in which children are not expected to

perform low will create space for the students to succeed. The local government needs to provide

an actual equal educational opportunity for all students of the nation.

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Works Cited

Burdick-Will, Julia. “School Violent Crime and Academic Achievement in Chicago.” Sociology

of Education 86.4 (2013): 10.1177/0038040713494225. PMC. Web. 1 Apr. 2018.

DUNLOP, TARSI. "Education Is a Common Good: There Should Be No Losers." Education

Digest, vol. 79, no. 1, Sept. 2013, pp. 18-21.

Garcia, Lily Eskelsen, and Otha Thornton. "The Enduring Importance of Parental

Involvement". NEA Today, 2014, http://neatoday.org/2014/11/18/the-enduring-

importance-of-parental-involvement-2/. Accessed 4 Mar 2018.

Hudley, Cynthia. "Education And Urban Schools". Http://Www.Apa.Org,

http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2013/05/urban-schools.aspx. Accessed 2 Apr

2018.

Lippman, Laura et al. Urban Schools. U.S. Dept. Of Education, Office Of Educational Research

And Improvement, National Center For Education Statistics, 1996, pp. 1-125.

MDRC. Case Studies Of How Urban School Systems Improve Student Achievement. 2002,

https://www.mdrc.org/publication/foundations-success. Accessed 5 Mar 2018.

"National Dropout Prevention Center". Dropoutprevention.Org,

http://dropoutprevention.org/effective-strategies/after-school-opportunities/. Accessed 1 Apr

2018.

"Out Of District Transfers / Transfer Process". Hisd.Com,

https://www.hisd.com/out_of_district_transfers. Accessed 1 Apr 2018.