Building an unsustainable Democracy
In the state of Pennsylvania, 12% of the state’s children are educated in the School District of Philadelphia. Yet, for the last couple of years, Philadelphia has been received little funding from the state to educate these children. Many people explain that Philadelphia received more funding than other city in Pennsylvania. As true as this is, it isn’t enough.
The ratio of money spent on each child in Philadelphia is dramatically less than the money spent on each student in the outskirts of Philadelphia. In districts like Lower Merion and Radnor, property taxes are increased to go towards school funding. Adults in these towns can afford it. However, in a city like Philadelphia when over 40% of the population live under the poverty line, increasing the property tax isn’t an option.
However, Philadelphia isn’t the only urban district that has this problem. Chicago’s public school district is facing the same problem. Low-income communities in Chicago cannot close the funding disparity on their own. In fact, many low-income districts have higher tax rates than property-rich school districts. These underfunded districts are in areas so poor that, despite their high tax rates, they simply cannot raise enough money to improve education without more assistance from the state. Until education funding isn’t prioritized in Chicago, Chicago’s classrooms will continue to grow in size. Chicago's kindergarten class sizes in particular are larger than 95 percent of classes across the state. Sometimes students are sitting in classrooms with 40 students for months. However, right outside of Chicago, in the Matteson School District, the average class size is between 16 and 23 for most of a child's education. Students with the highest needs receive the fewest resources to prepare them to succeed.
Low-income school districts lack the resources, economically, to enable their students to meet state mandated standards, such as state-mandated exams. Over 50% of students in the the state of Pennsylvania are currently unable to pass the Keystone Exams. In Texas, over 100,000 students couldn’t pass the STAAR exams. Many of these students will drop out of high school without a diploma, stopping their ability to enter the workforce. The existing system of public education is not efficient and weakens our democracy as a whole.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 30 states are providing less funding per student for the 2014-15 school year than they did before the recession hit. Fourteen of these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent. Many states and school districts have undertaken important school reform initiatives to prepare children better for the future, but deep funding cuts hamper their ability to implement many of these reforms. At a time when producing workers with high-level technical and analytical skills is increasingly important to a country’s prosperity, large cuts in funding for basic education threaten to undermine the nation’s economic future.
The disparity in cuts based on race is even more dramatic. Race inequity may not be a deliberate goal of education reform, but neither is it accidental. In Pennsylvania, caucasian students lost on average only $366 per student while non-white students lost on average $728 per student, twice the amount of funding cut from the average Caucasian student. The impact of the inequitable cuts continues. The remaining cuts are still 188 percent greater for minority than white students.
This not only shows that this places a child’s education at risk but it shows that we, as country, are not investing in sustaining our democracy. We cannot expect to have a strong government and democracy if we do not have a strong base. That base being education. A weak education system promotes a weak democracy. To have equitable schools, there must be equal funding throughout, not only the state, but also the country.
The ratio of money spent on each child in Philadelphia is dramatically less than the money spent on each student in the outskirts of Philadelphia. In districts like Lower Merion and Radnor, property taxes are increased to go towards school funding. Adults in these towns can afford it. However, in a city like Philadelphia when over 40% of the population live under the poverty line, increasing the property tax isn’t an option.
However, Philadelphia isn’t the only urban district that has this problem. Chicago’s public school district is facing the same problem. Low-income communities in Chicago cannot close the funding disparity on their own. In fact, many low-income districts have higher tax rates than property-rich school districts. These underfunded districts are in areas so poor that, despite their high tax rates, they simply cannot raise enough money to improve education without more assistance from the state. Until education funding isn’t prioritized in Chicago, Chicago’s classrooms will continue to grow in size. Chicago's kindergarten class sizes in particular are larger than 95 percent of classes across the state. Sometimes students are sitting in classrooms with 40 students for months. However, right outside of Chicago, in the Matteson School District, the average class size is between 16 and 23 for most of a child's education. Students with the highest needs receive the fewest resources to prepare them to succeed.
Low-income school districts lack the resources, economically, to enable their students to meet state mandated standards, such as state-mandated exams. Over 50% of students in the the state of Pennsylvania are currently unable to pass the Keystone Exams. In Texas, over 100,000 students couldn’t pass the STAAR exams. Many of these students will drop out of high school without a diploma, stopping their ability to enter the workforce. The existing system of public education is not efficient and weakens our democracy as a whole.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 30 states are providing less funding per student for the 2014-15 school year than they did before the recession hit. Fourteen of these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent. Many states and school districts have undertaken important school reform initiatives to prepare children better for the future, but deep funding cuts hamper their ability to implement many of these reforms. At a time when producing workers with high-level technical and analytical skills is increasingly important to a country’s prosperity, large cuts in funding for basic education threaten to undermine the nation’s economic future.
The disparity in cuts based on race is even more dramatic. Race inequity may not be a deliberate goal of education reform, but neither is it accidental. In Pennsylvania, caucasian students lost on average only $366 per student while non-white students lost on average $728 per student, twice the amount of funding cut from the average Caucasian student. The impact of the inequitable cuts continues. The remaining cuts are still 188 percent greater for minority than white students.
This not only shows that this places a child’s education at risk but it shows that we, as country, are not investing in sustaining our democracy. We cannot expect to have a strong government and democracy if we do not have a strong base. That base being education. A weak education system promotes a weak democracy. To have equitable schools, there must be equal funding throughout, not only the state, but also the country.