Equal Education: Fact or Fiction

                               
 By Joshua Lynch
                                       Equal Education: Fact or Fiction?

    The lesser more detached minds would argue that "the level of education that a child receives is solely their responsibility." As ridiculous as that statement is in and of itself, they would justify this argument with an all too familiar defense, "it's all about equal opportunity, not equal results. Well, there are many things clearly wrong with these two arguments. One being that how could we expect a child to grasp the responsibility of its future, when their brains aren't even mentally developed enough to do all of their times tables! The second rebuttal requires a more in-depth look, "Is education really equal?  " The answer to that is "NO".

There are many factors that a little too conveniently cause some children to receive a lesser quality education. One of the biggest factors are that we rely on property tax to fund our schools. Well, if property tax varies from location to location, and property tax funds school(which means funding varies), well how exactly can educations be equal? It can't, because the amount of funding a school receives directly determines the amount of resources available to these children. so if a school can't afford up to date books and students are required to learn from books that are no longer relevant, which ultimately means that that the sum of their knowledge is not relevant. Thus increasing the gap between them and their competition. One of the major and most important resources that these inner city, low funded schools often lack is access to good teachers. The job of a teacher requires that they enjoy their job. Because if a teacher is interested in these children and their education then that allows the kids to feel a sense of worth. And if a teacher isn't being paid enough,and is struggling to make ends meet, then how on earth can they enjoy their job. And if they can't provide that caring intimacy between teacher and student, then that deprives the child of feeling self worth. And I know from personal experience, that when a teacher shows that they care, it can push even the most lost child to do better for themselves. So not only does a lack of money effect the material resources of a child, but it also deprives them of important emotional resources that are a major part of the educational process.

Another factor that comes into play when having the conversation of equal education is a child's home environment. It's hard for a child to go to school and concentrate if he hasn't eaten a meal last night, or the morning of. Also looking at the system of values that often come with living in an impoverished inner city neighborhood. Due to the lack of return from a poor education, people often cling to the material. Because that is more immediate, it can be touched, so it's hard for a kid who is being picked with to worry about school when his peers are telling him he just needs to be fly. This can cause a young, pressured mind to stop school and resort to other means to make money.

There are so many socio-economic factors that come into play when talking about educational inequality. The argument equal opportunity not equal results is complete nonsense and is just the lazy way out of dealing with our problems as a nation. The problem is that we as a nation are so fixated on race that we see education as a competition. We see it as a means of affirming which race is more intelligent the the next. But, the sad thing is that as we deprive others, in the end we deprive ourselves because we're a nation first. Our country is like a centipede, we're all legs, if one fails, then the others have to pick up the slack. So it's mutually beneficial if we made an effort to educate EVERYONE. If we continue down the path that we're headed, then we will continue to fall behind as a nation globally