Post 1: Topic Proposal

Owen Roberts

ENG 214

Professor Cox

23 September 2018

Classism in Education

Background:

A free public education gives everyone the ability to go to school and pursue their education to hopefully set them up for a future of success in the workforce. Although everyone in the United States of America is given a free public education, that does not mean the education system is fair to all the students, where young students experience racism and most importantly classism to separate the less fortunate students from the more fortunate ones. With racism slowly deteriorating in the education system, a new idea of classism, has been established to help hold down the less fortunate. Therefore classism is being established as early as in elementary education all the way up to college education. Young scholarly students have their dreams diminished at the start as they see the lesser of opportunities and resources they are presented with to help them further their education successfully. Unfortunately these students hit obstacles like lack of funding towards school districts of lower income, to certain courses requiring money and expensive resources to be used, to the fast development of expensive technology. These are all ways the education system uses the idea of classism to divide the students where the ones of lower income usually fail or become less successful due to the money restrictions that puts a strain on the educational opportunities that may present themselves. It is unfair to setup a free education that biasly provides opportunities to those of higher income.

My Reasoning:

Classism in education interests me due to many different personal and general reasons. Growing up I made friends with those who were usually less fortunate than me and I was able to observe how classism created these inequalities for them in the classroom. Some of these inequalities my friends and others from less fortunate families faced were; not having the necessary materials to perform in the classroom, not being able to go on field trips, and not being able to get certain homework done because of the lack of technology and internet at home. This later affected them in high school because most of the homework developed into being online homework that involves completing an assignment either by using the computer or internet. Also, my friends were not able to get certain books we had to read and did not have the money to buy certain materials like calculators. This topic angers me deeply as I believe that a lot of these students who come from less fortunate backgrounds are smart enough and have the capability to complete school at a high level but are held back by the financial disadvantages the education presents in its classism stricken system. My aunt was a teacher in a less fortunate school district in Los Angeles and at every Sunday dinner my aunt would express her anger about the lack of funding going towards her schools. She would often express how her school could barely even get more than 5 computers in a classroom. As my aunt continued to express her anger over the years, I finally understood and became aware junior year of high school on how classism was a serious issue that was destroying our education system along with many young students’ dreams. It is unfair for 40% of the schools in America to have technology like smart boards, chromebooks, ipads, tablets, while the other 60% barely has enough computers to share among the classroom for the students to get their schoolwork done. The lack of funding slows these kids educations down, setting them up to fail in the future as they are behind the rest of the majority of students going to public schools in the United States. I want to bring the attention to the lack of funding going towards these lower income schools because of the already high poverty rate in America correlating directly to the high school dropout rate increasing every year.

Evidence:

There are many different articles on how classism destroys our education system and how the poor usually struggle more often than those of higher income. In the first article I found, Poor Students Struggle, Jason DeParle discusses how the students of lower income struggle to make the leap from high school to college. Students that come from a lower income are usually less likely to graduate due to the pressures they face economically while in school. For example DeParle states in Poor Students Struggle, “Low-income strivers face uphill climbs, especially at Ball High School, where a third of the girls’ class failed to graduate on schedule.” This is a prime example of how students who come from a less fortunate background usually make up the majority of the students who do not graduate from each high school. As students try and make the jump from high school to college they either fail before the college acceptance happens or after. Students fail before being accepted to college because the costs of college applications are too expensive for these smart students to pay for, so they are discouraged to apply due to their financial situation. Once they are accepted the tuition is either too much or the fees of books and classes becomes too expensive for the less fortunate students. This results in them dropping out of college, failing the education system. In the second article, Education Gap by Sabrina Tavernise sheds light on the education gap between the poor and the rich. Sabrina Tavernise exposes the major educational gap that is going on in our country between the poor and the rich. Tavernise states in the article Education Gap, “researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.” This is a great example of how the racial barrier has been diminished in the education system which has led to the creation of classism in the education system to help keep the growing gap between the more fortunate and the less fortunate students. She expresses the need for change in all levels of our educational systems, a change that makes the education system fair and of equal opportunity by getting rid of the idea of classism. Without an equal education system the American dream will die as the rich continue to become more rich as the poor remain becoming more poor.

Works Cited

Deparle, Jason. “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Dec. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html.

Tavernise, Sabrina. “Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html.