The education system in America is suffering from inequality in the public school setup. The system is unequal and often school does not work out well for many students because they find it hard or are unable to keep up with the system. Therefore, there are certain elements in the school system all the way from Kindergarten to High school, which categorize the weaknesses of the public school system in America. There is a lot of diversity in the classrooms, which promotes a challenge to the school’s teaching methods. For example, San Francisco’s schools are facing the problem of diversity since 1960. However, the idea of resegregation in San Francisco’s schools is a challenge to the proper growth and mental as well as social development of children. Parents, as well as educators, believe that when children study in integrated classrooms, they have a better chance of overcoming racial biases and better mental development as well as harmony between one another. (Smith). Moreover, another famous issue that is being faced by students is that they are being divided as the rich and poor of the country. When the race was one issue which widened the achievement gap between students in the 1950s until desegregation, today, however, public schools are facing the problem of a wide achievement gap between rich and poor students. A lack of appropriate funding hampers the conditions of the schools, the seriousness of the teachers as well as the students and a general setback in education from the public schools that are present in the richer and urban areas of the country. (Anyon). Therefore, the public education in America suffers from a lack of funding, racial issues and the general distinction between the rich and poor that leads to widely different results between the students.
Parents in most of the States of America prefer public school education because they believe that it is affordable for them and that public schools will help their child produce good results as well. However, this is not the case where the schools in States such as San Francisco are moving towards resegregation which means that the students will be divided on the basis of their color and race. (Smith). Where this difference needs to be eliminated so that students grow up to be free of bias against other races and learn to assimilate in their environment with one another. When public schools move towards this trend again, the problem of the achievement gap between the races will rise again. The teachers and privileges allowed to the black race, for instance, were lesser than those for the white children in schools. This led to stark differences in their results and every year, black students scored less than the whites. (Smith). While this difference needs to be demolished in order to help students get back to a uniform method of education, public schools are moving towards it again in order to create more dissent and ruin the process of education for students.
Schools cannot be isolated from racial differences. Even though attempts have been made in the past to get the system rid of biases in letting every student belonging to any race attend any kind of school in the country, there are still barriers in allowing students to get into any school. The schools in San Francisco where Latinos, Hispanics and Blacks are in the majority are faced with teachers who lack the required experience in teaching and are yet qualified to teach students all the way up to high school. As compared to the teachers in California, their experience lacks to a large extent. (Smith). This in turns makes the racially segregated students to grow up in segregation and racially segregated neighborhoods.
Social class and income are major factors that influence public school education. In almost all areas of the country, the richer neighborhoods have good public schools with a better, richer class of students attending them. On the other hand, the less privileged neighborhoods of the country do not have public schools of the same level and students going to such schools belong to lower income homes. What happens at such a level is that there is a general divide between the students that are graduating from these schools. (Anyon). The schools in richer neighborhoods have better teachers; better equipment and facilities that make them become the future doctors, engineers and corporate giants of the future. On the hand there are the less privileged public schools where the equipment and staff are not up to the level to make the children competent enough for such occupations rather, they are prepared for manual and technical jobs.
The teaching methods at public schools that are divided by income are also varied. There are four kinds of schools defined by the background and income of people. There are the working class schools, middle-class schools, affluent professional schools and the executive elite schools. (Anyon). These are in order of the ranks of the parents who send their children to these schools and accordingly, the facilities available at these schools are present according to the same level. The least amount of educational facilities is available in working class schools and as the level proceeds, the facilities and level of an educational performance increase as well. This means that students and their grooming are equally determined by the income and jobs their parents have, and that becomes the determiner of the futures of these children as well.
Conclusively, it can be said that the main reasons for the problems in the public school education in America is the social inequality and income of the parents as well as the racial segregation and that becomes the sole reason why there is so much disparity between the occupations and future ventures of students that graduate from richer schools in better neighborhoods as compared to those graduating from less privileged neighborhoods. This debate is important because there needs to be awareness about this issue so that there can be educational equality between the richer and poorer students as every student deserves a quality education in the country.
Work Cited
Anyon, Jean. Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education. 1980.
Smith, Adam Jeremy. As Parents get more choice, S.F Schools Resegregate. San Francisco
Public Press. 2015. Web. 2 March 2016.
