Lack of Education Funding and Related Inequality: Essay
School inequality is a very vast, well-known issue in the United States. People who live in poor neighborhoods typically do not go to high-quality schools. Fixing this problem, or at least trying to fix it, can improve education all around and give children a better chance in their academic careers. Not only in their educational careers but in life in general as it gives them stability and something to work at. Not fixing this problem will result in more children not receiving the education they need to attend a college and not receiving as many job opportunities as other children with a better education. This could affect how children grow up and tamper with their ability to reach their full potential. Children’s education and opportunities beyond their schooling are at stake if no one resolves this issue. Providing equal education for children in poor communities is a complicated issue to resolve because of the lack of government funding.
Many people believe that the government should improve the funding in these poor communities. “Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must be an escape from poverty”, said President Lyndon Johnson. Just because a student grows up in a poor neighborhood should not determine what type of education he receives. Their address should not limit their ability to earn a quality high school diploma. It should not also define who they are going to be when they are older. They should have the same expectations for themselves as people who have a higher status than them. Students should not have to think about how their family is in poverty and they should be able to focus on their schooling and education. Depending on the community’s property wealth, a school might struggle with the complication of outdated equipment and unpaid bills. The school will have its focus on the complications and not the quality of the children’s education. The state’s ‘funding formula’ is where the state gives funding to elementary and secondary schools. It is supposed to fill the gap when local property taxes fall short. A lot of students will drop out of school to work and help provide for their families. This is where they are lacking out of their education and holding back their full potential in the classroom.
If we do not fix this problem, many children around the United States will be missing out on educational opportunities. A majority of the money allocated to schools is from the state government. The state’s formula for funding public education is dissipating only seven years after Missouri lawmakers first calculated it. This does not help the issue because if the state runs out of money, schools will have less money than they currently do. In an article written by Elizabeth Hagedom, she talks about two very different schools in Missouri. The first school is “located in suburban St. Louis, Ladue Horton Watkins High School offers 26 MSHSAA sports and activities, maintains state-of-the-art facilities, and has some of the nation’s highest Advanced Placement college credit test scores”. The next school Hagedom discusses is Cabool High School in the Missouri Ozarks. A senior from Cabool says that “energy efficiency is awful, the windows are awful, the flooring is awful”. These quotes show just how much school districts can differ even if they are only a few hours away. Ladue has a more prominent school and is allocated a larger amount of funding than Cabool, so they have an educational advantage, whereas Cabool does not have as much funding and is struggling to keep a positive school.
If the government would provide more funding in poor communities, then providing adequate education for children in different school districts would not be so difficult. Although it takes the government a great deal of money to fund all of the schools, funding them more equally will lessen the gap between school districts. The government should improve funding in poor communities so that everyone has an equal chance at education.