Facing the Harrowing Socioeconomic Gap in American Public Schools
The concept of mandatory public schooling in the United States has been one of the founding ideals of our nation, emphasizing the importance of educating the youth and preparing each new generation with the basic knowledge that they need in order to keep the country thriving. In recent years, there has been a great push for new generations to enter the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. This is been highlighted as the new path to both financial and societal success. With this encouragement of STEM jobs, thorough and effective education has become much more widespread. High school students pursuing further education has become, in many cases, a norm. However, there are many communities where this trend is extremely unrealistic, due mainly to a lack of resources and opportunities to succeed in public school.
In these communities, public schools are severely underperforming in comparison to higher income areas. The difference in socioeconomic status in two towns can have a seriously troubling effect on the performance of their students. In 2015, 96.2% of fifth grade students in Farmington met standard on the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT, a standardized test that examines general science knowledge across the state of Connecticut), while only 48.7% of New Britain students met standard. These two districts border each other, and display wildly different levels of proficiency. If both Farmington and New Britain students are attending free public schools, why are 47% more of the Farmington students meeting standard? The answer to this question lies in the socioeconomic differences of these two communities.
The modern encouragement of higher education reinforces the intention of the American public school system: to give all students the preparation they need to succeed in adulthood, considering the improvement of society. In other words, the trend of pursuing further education after high school relies on the fact that all students across the United States receive a sufficient education through public schools. However, based on these statistics from Connecticut alone, it is very evident that the universal accessibility of a public education does not guarantee the same opportunities as other high-performing public schools.
The state of Connecticut has the highest achievement gap in the country, with an average score gap of 34 points between low-income area schools and higher-income area schools. Connecticut is (notoriously) composed of a few extremely wealthy towns, such as Greenwich and Avon. These areas are famed for their safety and well-funded, high quality schools, and have per capita incomes of as high as $105,846 (New Canaan). However, Connecticut is also home to lower-income cities such as Hartford and New Britain. These towns, despite being just minutes outside of several Farmington valley, wealthy suburbs, have an extremely less desirable reputation. Branded as dangerous, dirty and poor areas, these cities can have a per capita income of as low as $16,798 (Hartford). New Britain, for example, shares a border with Farmington, a town well known for exceptional public education and safe, family-friendly suburban neighborhoods. In order to explain this huge gap in scores, it must first be understood the extreme socioeconomic differences. These public schools are funded by the taxpayers of each town. Considering the extreme town to town economic differences in Connecticut, the funding for schools in Farmington would understandably be much higher than the funding for New Britain schools, based solely on the fact that Farmington taxpayers have generally higher salaries, with more of that money going into government regulated public education.
It doesn’t make sense at all for the quality of education to depend on how much each household pays in tax money. This would suggest that the students in Farmington are more entitled to high-funded materials, curriculum, and faculty than New Britain students because their families make more money. The original intent of the American public school system was to prepare all of our children with the skills and knowledge that they’ll need in their adult lives in order to further society. Twisting this definition to fit economic privilege and capitalism doesn’t reflect the standard that (surprisingly very commonly overlooked) “all men are created equal”, something that our country takes pride in representing. The famed campaign of “the American dream” insisted everyone have a fair chance at success. But how can we offer that if we don’t even give every child a fair chance at learning math?
In Connecticut, there are a number of Farmington High School students that live in Hartford that are bussed in each morning. These Hartford students are coming to Farmington each day due to the Open Choice program, an inter-district school choice opportunity in Connecticut. The Open Choice program allows urban students to attend public schools in nearby suburban towns. While this program was implemented in hopes of leveling out the school systems in Connecticut, it again highlights our failure to comply with the original concept of public schools. If all public schools are free and accessible in the United States, why are some better than others? Why are urban students traveling to suburban high schools to increase their quality of education when they have a public school of their own?
The quality of education in a certain school depends on many different variables, whether it be the effectiveness of teachers, materials, or the effectiveness of the curriculum altogether. In order to close this gap and allow for American public education to provide equal (and adequate) opportunities to all public school students, educational administrators and lawmakers must focus their attention on these variables. This much needed education reform will provide all children in the United States with the opportunities that they deserve to succeed in school, regardless of where they come from. Creating programs to move students of “potential” to higher performing public schools is not a permanent solution. All students have the potential to succeed when given good quality education, and all students have the potential to utilize the many opportunities that come from a high-quality public school education.
An extremely overlooked factor in the score gap that should be considered more often is the student’s life outside school. Students in low income areas are often missing out on important resources like tutors, Internet access, help from parents, college advisors, and so forth. With some parents working two or more jobs to make ends meet, these kids don’t always have access to educated and attentive parents to help them with homework or projects. In fact, some older kids may even sacrifice studying time to work to support their own households. It’s dangerously easy to ignore the prevalence of these families if you are lucky enough to have grown up in one of the “Farmingtons” of the world. Some may even put this off as “bad parenting”, when, in reality, these people are more focused on surviving than making sure their kids will pass a test. Their children’s performance in school has, understandably, fallen second to the priority of getting dinner on the table.
Having such a difficult life at home demands not only lots of time and energy from these children, but often ignites significant emotional stress. This means that even with excellent effort and time dedication, low income children face another serious disadvantage. These problems with mental health can easily go ignored and untreated (psychologists and therapists are remarkably unaffordable from the perspective of many struggling families) despite their extremely consequential and severe effect on educational achievement and general functionality. According to a study highlighting the correlation between low-income children and their mental health, “research indicates that, compared with children of higher socioeconomic status (SES), children of low SES experience higher rates of parent-reported mental health problems and higher rates of unmet mental health needs.”
Considering both the lack of funding to low-income town public schools, and the impact of a student’s life can have on their academic performance, it is evident that our current system makes it exceptionally difficult for a child coming from a low-income family to move up in the world economically and intellectually. Providing an accessible and adequate education to all children should have been established much earlier in our nation’s history. In order to prepare each generation for success in terms of socially equality and understanding, there are vital changes we need to make to our education system. These changes require more support to all students, which should be found within course design and classwork. Education systems should be reworked to ensure that students with less home support and resources have a fair chance at success. According to an article regarding educational theory from the National Association of Independent Schools, curriculum change is vital in making the most of the time students spend in the classroom. “Schools that place a high value on curriculum review and professional dialogue about instruction build it into the workday, rather than adding more meetings during the afternoons, evenings, or weekends.” (Jorgenson) Allotting time for course review during the school day is a way of ensuring that students are developing the skills necessary for independent review in the future, as well as reinforcing what they have learned throughout the day. This establishes a baseline amount of test preparation and study time for those students who may not have much time at home to review the material.
Schools around the country are testing out new ways to level the playing field and fix this serious issue in hopes of significantly improving America’s social environment in the future. It is vital that we continue encouraging these changes if we want to to reduce the stigma that surrounds low-income families and the potential their children undoubtedly possess.
