Friday, February 10, 2012

Education, Rich v. Poor

I am a school board director for the William Penn School District. It's a job I was elected to do. It's the hardest job in the universe and it's the job, of all my "jobs" that I love the most. It unpaid, takes countless hours and lots of the time people complain, sometimes rightfully so, sometimes they are just mis or under informed.

We are not a wealthy school district (understatement) and things are made even worse by an archaic system of funding schools off of property taxes. Its simple math. You have a town with 10 houses worth $1,000,000 and town with 10 houses worth $100,000, guess which has to pay more "taxes" to raise $10,000? BINGO, the town with the $100,000 houses is paying more.

Okay, so taxes stink. We all get that.

What happens after that is actually criminal, or so I believe. The poor kids, the ones in the $100,000 house, get an inferior educational experience. The bells and whistles are missing, the options, the Latin, the Italian, Sushi Thursday. The $100,000 towns struggle over crushing property taxes and boards like mine have to make difficult financial decisions that affect the educational experience.

The educational gap is widening, if you don't believe me, believe the New York Times.

Again, the logic chip is missing. Why is Kid A in the $1,000,000 town entitled to a better educational experience that Kid A in the $100,000 town?

I am confident we can fix this problem if we work together but do we really want to fix it? Can we agree that every child is entitled to an equal education regardless of their zip code? So far, we do not agree. I hope that some day soon, we can.

Our future and ALL of our children depend on it.

2 comments:

  1. So, the problem as I see it is summed up in this interview:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9682626.stm

    Our capitalist based system doesn't generate the outcomes that society needs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How thick is your bubble?

    See the interview:
    http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12149

    Take the quiz:
    http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=how-thick-is-your-bubble

    ReplyDelete