The article for next weeks reading regarding the Maytag factory closing in Illinois and moving production to Mexico caught my eye and in the closing paragraph the author quotes, "Globalization is such a fraud. It's just a rush to the bottom for cheap labor. Instead of reducing United States to the Third World we should be elevating the standards of those countries."
This quote reminded me of what Rob said in class on Friday when we were in our stakeholders and policy makers groups. It was mentioned that taking away resources from the affluent or middle class schools to to distribute to working class or poor schools might create more equity, but middle class families would probably be angry or resentful and may think it unfair and that they are being punished for their social/class standings. Why should we take away from the affluent, or lower standards in one place to raise standards in another? Can our nation's education dilemma relate to the Maytag article quotation? Is it possible, and if yes, rather than reducing some schools standards, how can we elevate less affluent school districts to the same level?
Whilst I don't entirely agree that this is possible, or that reducing superfluous resources from affluent schools to provide more equity and basic necessities to poor schools is unfair, I am curious what other people think.
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I personally think that it would be very hard to be able to raise the lower class schools up to a higher level. It would be difficult to do because I personally believe that fundraising for lower class schools will not be accepted by the rest of society at a level that will actually make a difference. People are not going to want to give up their money that they worked hard for to try and raise the lower class schools up to a hgher level. Also, higher class schools are not going to want to give lower class schools money. They may do things like volunteer to help out the other schools with things, but none of it will really involve money becuase they want to use their money for things that will benefit their school. It is something that really needs to be changed, but I am not sure of how this would happen.
ReplyDeleteI think this issue is a tough one to crack. Everything we have been discussing in class recently has been revolving in a circle. Yes it would be amazing to have equalization of schools in America, but to come about this has been deemed impossible thus far.
ReplyDeleteWhen we did the stockholder and policy maker exercise in class last week, a majority of the policies showcased involved equal distribution...one idea was to pool in all the tax money and distribute it accordingly. This would probably pose a problem for those of the middle and upper class. To see their money go to a different school, even if that school desperately needed it, would not go over well.
The question posed is hard to answer. Solutions are hard to come by...lowering affluent school standards or raising poorer school's standards?
What if the answer was both...what if instead of "lowering" affluent standards we made clauses that would not let unnecessary budgetary expensive fly? If money was more watched over, not necessarily split evenly, but distributed based on necessity.
It seems like a school in an upper or middle class district would have more means of fund raising, but a school in a poor district, not so much. I agree with Mitch's statement on fund raising.
This topic is so hard to mend...maybe that's why it has been such a prominent issue of today's society
I think that educational dilemma today can definitely relate to the Maytag article comment. I believe that we are in dire need of getting better funding to schools in need, but like Mitch and Stef said, keeping the schools who are flourishing where they are at AND getting poorer schools up to the level that they need to be is a huge step. While I don't think that lowering funding in those schools who are doing well, and pushing it towards those of lower funding would help much (not to mention the parent's outrage when they found out that their money was going to a different school), I do think that the funding aspects of education needs to be revised. Although raising taxes seems like a good idea, raising taxes in a poor school district wouldn't bring in the funding that they need. I know that this has been a debate for a long time, but what about taxes on cigarettes or tobacco in general? I know that a lot of the population purchases these items, and even if it was a very small percentage, that might be able to generate at least a little funding.
ReplyDeleteAlso mentioned in class on thursday, I think that timing has a huge impact on getting the funds where they need to be, and implementing in a speedy fashion. While bills and laws may be passed to help out this funding crisis, they also take a while to have any effects. Although quick-fixes do not help boost education in the long run, maybe people should not only consider rethinking the financial budget, but the timing of these new implementations?
I agree with what you three have said on many aspects. I would personally argue that putting a face on an issue makes it much more salient, especially if teachers, poor or working class parents, school administrators etc. were going to policy makers or government leaders to state their cause.
ReplyDeleteIf case studies were used, or we were to raise some poor/working class children up on a pedestal to show the sheer inequity in the system, perhaps this would garner more attention than simply throwing around statistics. Without exploiting the children, use examples like the success of the boys in the all male class (from the film I am a promise) to exemplify the positive effects of minor change- noting the possibilities if these schools were provided equal resources.
Thanks for your responses you three!
I agree with what everyone has said so far, and so it kinda leaves me left with nothing to say! This is a tough situation to come by, if it were easy, it would have already been taking care of. No matter how hard we try to make things more equal, there is always going to be some sort of factor that makes one thing better than the other. I think we need a better system of funding for schools besides taxes and using the lottery. A possible idea is using the money that the bank receives from overdraft fees. I read somewhere that banks receive somewhere around 28 billion annually from over draft fees!
ReplyDeleteI agree that this inequality in schools is particularly difficult to fix in our society. The only thing I can think of that hasn't been mentioned yet was when we looked at that pie graph in class that showed how many billions of dollars were expended to different institutions in the United Sates. I remember that the military was given over 700 billion in 2008. I would be interested in finding out if we could funnel some of the extra money in the militaries (or other institutions even) budget to help fix some of the educational problems in the United States. I'm not suggesting taking enough money to impact our armed forces in a negative way, but to look at a more fair distribution that meets more peoples needs. If we could distribute this on a need basis to schools in crisis I think it would help elevate the schools to a higher level of consistency in the United States. I'm sure this would make people upset because decreasing military funding can sound risky and also for parents whose children wouldn't receive funding from this.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Maytag factory situation and the equality of school systems situation is similar and agree with everything everyone has said. I feel as though we all have good intentions on helping the affluent schools or the more poor countries, but it seems as though many factors get in the way to make things equal. From the groups we got in during class on figuring out the school system equality, it doesn't seem realistic for higher classes to just willingly give the lower class schools money. I think that there are small things we can do that may elevate affluent schools or countries, but nothing enough to create equality.
ReplyDeleteThis may not work in practice, but I think how our class reacted to case studies such as Stanton elementary school is something to be considered. Many people commented that they had no idea of the extent to which some schools were disadvantaged. I believe that being informed is a vital component of facilitating change. If no one really knows how disadvantaged some schools are, trying to make people care about it is going to be really hard. Similar to what Evyan said about raising poorer children up on a pedestal to explicitly show the inequality, if people were better informed, finding funding for poorer schools would be easier. Maybe films like the ones we have seen in class could be broadcast as television specials. I know this is not a solution to the problem, but it's something to think about.
ReplyDeleteAs a Business Major, I don't see as much of an issue out of this.
ReplyDeleteLabout and insurance are the 2 largest expenses for any business. So trying to minimize those helps keeps product costs low for us too.
The issue is ensuring that working conditions are above 'tolerable'
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Regarding Schools. They are always underbudgeted and they have to stretch their dollars very far. I don't believe that cutting parts out to expand others is a good idea. From a Business plannng perspective, once something is gone I don't want to put it back until I can afford so. Thus removing an aspect would mean it would be gone for good becasue there is no money to replace it. Then this will lead to other programs budgets being overstretched and eventually cut too.
I also feel like this equality could not be reached or it would take a lot of time to be reached. The United States is a country that has developed so much and I find it almost impossible for a "third world" country to be able to reach a sort of financial equality with the US. I also feel like a lot of people/citizens from the US would not be very willing to just give up their money to help equalize a third world country. Several US citizens have a lot of pride as to how they got so rich and would not be willing to just give it up. A lot of the people have the "Why should I suffer in order to help others" mentality. It is sad to me because it would be nice to not see other countries suffering or struggling to just put food on their table but unfortunately we live in a very selfish world.
ReplyDeletewhat is it about our society that gives people the pride? why is that pride accepted for American citizens? what in society has produced that in us?
ReplyDeleteI would also agree with the rest of the class, it is difficult to have an equality within the school systems as for the Maytag factory situation as well. Which is interesting when it comes down to along the words of, the United States is not powerful and that our country is dumb. I feel like we as a whole would want to change this perception of how people view the U.S and make a difference, by funding the affluent schools enabling them to receive the same education as other schools; giving each student the opportunity of success and to make a difference in this country. However, we concentrate on funding the military over all matters. Although, I dont have any solutions to fix the problem I feel like something needs to change immediately, or things will start to fall apart.
ReplyDelete