Educational Inequalities in Washington D.C. and New Haven

Educational Inequalities in Washington D.C. and New Haven

Introduction

The American nation is the leading economic power in the world, and many countries look up to it for almost everything, especially policy development. Sadly, the nation faces shape inequalities that are rising every day, a problem that is no longer unique in developed economies. These disparities transcend all spheres like healthcare and education. This paper will address how education inequalities exist in New Haven, Connecticut, and Washington DC cities. In DC, the leading barrier toward achieving societal equity is economic disparity and discriminatory policies that rob citizens of the right to access available opportunities equally. The school funding for students and employment rewards disfavor low-income families. In New Haven, the limitation towards accessing equity in education is is largely political. The state’s requirement of a 44% contribution towards academic funding hardly suffices the needs of public schools. The collection of local property taxes by the city administration needs supplements to meet the demands of the city.

Similarities between Washington D.C. and New Haven

In both cities, public schools feel the pressure of federal under-budgeting since the recession of 2008. The public budget for K-12 public schools is lower than it used to be ten years ago for a majority of the states (Berliner & Glass, 2014). Unless the schools obtain alternative funding programs, more millions of students will suffer from reduced budgets. Another similarity between the two cities is the wide income gap. The problem, however, is more pronounced in DC than for New Haven. All over America, the nation is battling the undesirable consequences of burgeoning economic gaps.

Differences between Washington D.C. and New Haven

Washington DC, as the capital for the US, has a larger composition of the affluent community than the New Haven. Therefore, most public schools in the District of Columbia do not suffer from absolute poverty, but inequalities amongst the people. The problem for New Haven is adequate funds for running public schools (Antoninis, Delprato, & Benavot, 2016).  In Washington DC, the gravest contributor to educational inequalities is the ever-rising economic disparity. The policies and practices of hiring workers, education, and owning homes disfavor Black and Latin citizens. The Fiscal Policy Institute reported in 2016 that the average household for the Black DC citizens was $38,000 versus the white residents whose income was $126,000. The Latin families had an average of $65,000 or half the white residents. In Ward 7 and 8 of DC, the area that accommodates the highest number of Blacks, has the wages are the lowest wage figure. In these regions, residents have often suffered from stagnant wages, underemployment, and inadequate economic opportunities for all people. In the country’s capital, the sweltering discomfort renders low-income parents from providing for their children the learning resources.

Individuals working in the District of Columbia with a bachelor’s degree receive an average of $33 per hour, whereas high school degree workers get a median wage of $15 hourly. The past governments, including the leadership of Washington DC, entertained predatory lending and redlining, which barred Black families from accessing loans. Infrastructural barriers favored the whites at the expense of the Blacks in wealth accumulation. Economic mobility is fundamental in determining the quality of education the students will receive in school. The vicious cycle of poverty further indicates that due to the economic inequality in DC, the chances of a child from a low-income household in the fifth bottom category of the national wealth distribution ending up in the top five is only 9%. The probability for a child whose parents belong to the top fifth finally finding themselves in the same top fifth is 36%. Unless the disparities are addressed through austere polices, the situation will only worsen.

Factors Influencing Educational Inequalities

Racial

Race and ethnic histories are partly responsible for the inequalities American schools experience. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the government-sanctioned the practice of discriminative policies, which allowed students of color to be segregated in the learning facilities. Up to the 1950s, the white students used to receive more funding of up to 17-70% than their fellow black students (Antoninis, Delprato, & Benavot, 2016). Historically, the disadvantaged races settled in neighborhoods that were less affluent. In recent years, the situation of education apps has improved due to diversity placement programs like management leadership for tomorrow (MLT) and seizing every opportunity (SEO).

Socioeconomic

Socioeconomic status heavily impacts the psychological health of the students and consequently determines how they will perform in class. Parents with a high socioeconomic class have the ability to provide for their child all the needs for schooling. Socioeconomic factors involve two wide areas—the environment and resources. Wealthy families can afford to purchase enough books, possess laptops for the children in the home, among other privileges. The mathematical and vocabulary skills of children from less wealthy families cannot fairly compete in a class with their counterparts. Children of richer parents have many forums for learning like excellent teachers, nutrition choices, sports, and clubs.

Cultural

Most of the times, educators treat students in the same way without appreciating the unique cultural values they may exhibit. Culture goes beyond the celebrations for national holidays or religious affiliations. Teachers are to assess the behavior of their students without basing their opinions on prior conceptions on race and ethnic grouping. The culture of students can be divided into two broad types—individualist and collectivist. Teachers with a partial understanding of how these two operate may treat some students scornfully. Understanding culture crucial in the teacher-student relationships and performance will reflect how effective the relationships are. For instance, Asian students hail from a community that considers the act of looking straight into the eye of the teacher as a rude gesture (Berliner & Glass, 2014). Native Americans and those from Europe associate attention and interest in looking directly at the teacher. Thus, culture is a factor that determines the quality of education through the nature of relations at school.

Political

Discrepancies in education in America have a lot of trace to the political structures running academic activities. The US economy is improving, but the K-12 public school budget has stagnated since the recession of 2008. According to the report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the per head student funding allocation in 34 states is lower than it used to be before 2008. It is political forces that pump billions of dollars every year to the military sectors at the expense of other sectors. The state funding towards educational programs is 44%, and when the contribution from government machinery is low, the total funding will have to dwindle.

The Philadelphia and Chicago have had worst experiences where the districts sometimes resort to other reserves to meet the essentials of public education. In states like Connecticut, most public school districts are under the governance of cities and towns, which implies that their operations are limited to the amount of local property taxes. New Haven, Bridgeport, and New Britain often collect less taxes, and the home values are very low. Exception urban centers like Greenwich have homes worth millions of dollars. The government should reconsider the source of funding the public schools because hard-working teachers cannot achieve much without the input from the government.

Economic

A lot is said about the academic performance of the students in the urban minority in the past decades, but the conversations need to focus on the challenges facing this particular group. On average, the population of students who receive reduced or free lunches in schools stands at 64% nationally in America. The federal line poverty is at around $24,000 for families with four family members, and the government considers families having a gross income of less than $30,615 as the eligibility factor for free breakfast and lunch programs. The government, however, considers families with up to $43,568 income for the reduced-price lunch and breakfast program.

Measuring Inequalities in Education

The World Social Science report details how education is crucial in reducing economic growth of a community, eradicating poverty, improving public report, and resolving conflicts. When it comes to the low-income community, establishing the precise quality of education students receive is laborious work. It is nevertheless critical to measure the inequalities in education to ensure that education is producing equitable societies. The factors that can be used include the number of people who have attained a particular level of education and the number of years which people spend in school. The second factor of measurement could be the dispersion of particular indicators of education like the trends of gaps between demographic groups. The third measure can be the individual characteristics of variance like gender, geographical location, disability, and income of households.

Urban Schools with High-Poverty Communities

The American mythology that links education to success still exists. It teaches that for the communities which are struggling with poverty, education stands as the keyway of moving to the middle class of society. Unfortunately, the quality of education the poor students receive in urban schools is hardly sufficient in preparing them for competing with other students from affluent families. All over the country, there is a lot of emphasis on STEM-based courses and how they can empower the young generation for future America. Educators and policymakers acknowledge the value of STEM disciplines, but the probability of getting a teacher without mathematical credentials teaching math is twice as high in poor communities than for middle or high-income areas. For science courses, the ratio disadvantage is even worse; credentialed teachers handling science are likely to be insufficient by a factor of three in poor schools.

Teachers in high-poverty schools often report concerns that are not common in middle or high-income schools, irrespective of their credentials. These problems or challenges include outdated textbooks that are more than ten years old, outdated computer technologies, and inadequate equipment for science. Science labs, in most cases, have little resources and funding to enrich students with necessary STEM skills that the government and educators advocate for widely. The amount of funding for schools in poor communities is also low compared to other schools. The combination of several factors like inadequate resources, debilitated science laboratories, and insufficient learning opportunities reduce the potential of student performance and engagement.

Structural conditions like substandard bathrooms, which the theories of stress and coping describe usually make the students lose concentration in class. Every time students lack concentration, it shows that they have low engagement and motivation for their studies. Factors that rob the ability of students to concentrate include are a shortage of textbooks, labs, teachers, and unaffordable or unfinanced food programs.  On the contrary, when students receive the support they need from their institutions, they will explore their potential and intellectual abilities (Berliner & Glass, 2014). For instance, providing laptops to students in this era enhances their learning experience in classrooms. Research has shown how the initiative to have laptops in schools with wireless internet access for urban schools increases performance in adolescent students. Their standardized score tests increase as technological literacy increases, and they possess the much-needed student motivation. When engaging topics are taught like concepts of physics, the use of video technology is classrooms improve the rate of reception, but such opportunities are limited for low-income urban school.

Consequences of Educational Inequality

Educational inequality propagates the historical injustices that existed in the 28^th and 19^th century. More problems of inequalities between the haves and have-nots can turn out to be catastrophic for the country. As more and more youths are denied the chance to pursue their dream careers, or locked out of opportunities, there is a likelihood of gangs developing in the low-income communities (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2016). Proper education is a determinant of the social order in society. Most of the time, illegal gangs that rise in urban centers do so because they lack opportunities where they can work like everyone else and get an income. Gangs are a group of potential people whose dreams have been crushed by the hash system of the government.

The second probable consequence is to reduce the quality of life. As future opportunities are taken away from the student, in their future, they shall not receive affordable quality healthcare, decent housing, and the ability to educate their children. The vicious cycle of poverty shall continue messing the society and widening the economic gaps of the rich and the less-wealthy communities. Social unless and tensions among different races is a possibility since the affected communities will be looking for a place to direct their blame.

For students who will experience the injustices of an unfair society will see their future taken away from them when they had all the right to enjoy their constitutional privileges. Able students will find it difficult to entertain the thought of having to drop their dream careers because of poverty. The psychological torture can cause some of them to be mentally disturbed. The bitter feelings of unfilled goals will translate to an unstable society and hash parents to future generations.

Poverty and Public Policy

Every concerned citizen must be worried about the standards of education in a country. Public policy is central in defining the trajectory of quality education in all public schools. In a world of competing for political agendas, establishing state-of-the-art schools in all urban and even the rural areas is a challenging task. Public resources are daily declining, and there is a lot political debates in many ideas, which makes the task improving the learning experience in public school a bureaucratic process (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2016). Notwithstanding, politicians and other lawmakers acknowledge that when nutrition, housing, social opportunities, and other factors need to be improved. Most of the solutions evolve around funding and political goodwill.

The first solution to the daunting difficulties for urban school-education is the elimination of structural barriers in attaining quality education. The income for poor families needs a supplement because they cannot afford some of the basic needs a student needs in their learning process. The policy sounds easy, but implementing it needs political goodwill and convincing all the involved stakeholders of education matters. One way of achieving a state of reduced structural barriers is by reviewing the minimum wage for federal line poverty. Alternatively, the government can increase the Earned Income Tax Credit. The approach of addressing the income levels is based on the assumption that if families are able to rise from their daily struggle of making ends meet, then they are empowered to provide for their children. There is a causal relationship between student performance and income supplements to families. The outcomes of such supplements reflect most for low-income and homes when females are heads.

The second policy that can help bridge the gap of poverty in schools investment in early childhood education. This law was discussed in the presidential State of the Union Address by Obama in 2013. The poor children in urban and rural schools have a high chance of succeeding in life if they receive proper foundations. Intellectual and academic gains are guaranteed for high quality early childhood instruction. Once the students from disadvantaged communities have reached high school, it becomes difficult to compensate for the gaps that exist between the children from able families and less-able backgrounds. Achieving this required financial allocation to equip schools with all they need for the classroom environments. The instructors should match the required teacher to student ratio, and with thorough training to handle the children.

The third policy that is significant in checking the economic gaps reflecting through the schools is supplying effective teachers to high-poverty schools. It is not an easy task to ensure this policy comes to fruition. Tools for assessing and empowering effectiveness in teaching is to use merit pays, teacher assessment forms, and student test scores. The challenge this approach shall immediately face is the political debates about the verity of the reports releases on the teacher and student assessment. It can, however, be demonstrated that highly qualified teachers are rarely found in high-poverty schools. The solution to the discrepancies of quality is to invest in the teaching profession, increased pay, and improving the support services for instructors. The problem of education can only be efficiently solved by engaging teachers who handle the students.

The Problem of Educational Inequality

Educational inequalities are a serious problem that calls for a radical change of tactics in corporate governance. Every caring citizen has all the reasons to worry about inequities that are existent in our society today. Policies and resources must be allocated to all citizens in equal measure. The challenge that arises with disparities is that the vicious cycle of poverty is likely to continue for low-income communities (Hadjar & Gross, 2016). Should the problem persist in future days, more children will be deprived of the right to pursue happiness and education. The problem is directly linked to policymakers of the Cities and the federal government at large. People in these leadership positions draft policies which govern their electorate. Therefore, when inequalities are arising, and the leadership is only watching, they should bear the blame.

Lessons Learned

From the exercise on educational inequalities, the most poignant issues that were identified is the systemic economic gap between the haves and the have-nots. The fate of a poor family is uncertain if the individual family members will commit themselves to changing their lives. The government is the biggest authority on land, and therefore, it has the power to eradicate poverty by changing structures through which wealth is earned. Things are easier said than done; however reasonable and impressionable a policy can be, it may prove very difficult when it comes to the implementation stage. From the conducted study above, it becomes clear that the critical issues behind the sad picture of discrepancies or inequalities are resource allocation and political goodwill. Through sound policy development, almost all human problems can be solved.

Consequences of Implementing the Policies

Washington, DC is the seat of the government and is home to several national figures of the federal government. The business class persons who belong to the top fifth in wealth distribution will not be comfortable with new policies. However, the primary goal is to ensure that those with low income or people living in poverty have access to affordable and quality education. Educational opportunity for all has always been used as a progressive metric where people are given an equal opportunity to succeed (Laird et al., 2016). Despite the challenges faced in different states, the American economy has become more knowledge-based. Statistics show that through the influence of education, the has country recorded an increase in the middle-class population in the last decade. As of 2015, more than half of the American population were middle-class individuals. The data shows that improving the quality of education also helps in fighting poverty.

The policies will also serve as standards for decisions making in the education sector. Policymakers and scholars have realized that ignoring the issue of discrimination and inequality in education is also influencing the gaps between race and economic groups in the country. Therefore, to be able to support education, the government must recognize students from low-income families and develop ways to support them. Research shows that diversity in education makes us better and smarter. In this case, the policies will help bring together people from different backgrounds who will share ideas, experiences, and knowledge to improve each other’s cognitive skills.

Future Trends

The history of DC shows a worrying trend of the upper class possessing more wealth per head than the lower classes. Should the policies be implemented, the income gaps will be reduced, but the gap will not be eliminated (Laird et al., 2016). In this case, the government should consider focusing on the methods that will also reduce the income gap. For both states, the standards-based reforms are among the strategies that can be used in the future. The approach has been in place since the early years of the 21^st century but has not been effectively applied. Regulations such as the policy of No Child Left Behind can be enhanced to improve educational outcomes (Hadjar & Gross, 2016). In New Haven, the program would be more effective in that the poverty level is higher as compared to DC. The policies would look into the issues of poor performance as a result of poverty for disadvantaged children. Another trend is the issue of developing partnership relationships between the schools and the researchers. The relationships will help in identifying approaches to reducing inequality in that research findings obtained will be implemented in the schools. Most public schools lack the capacity to conduct research despite the large access to information. Through these relationships, institutions will benefit from external research programs.

Conclusion

It seems unusual to go a day without a new report on the issue of inequality as it related to different social factors. Education is one of the primary needs that should be made accessible to all populations irrespective of their economic status. Americans are dissatisfied with how income and wealth are distributed across their sates. As a result, most people have embraced education as a tool for change. Inequality in education reflects on other issues outside the learning environment, such as discrimination at the workplace, unemployment, and unfairness in the justice system. The education departments in different states should consider investing in initiatives that promote innovation among the students without taking note of one’s background. The efforts towards reducing the income gap among the American populations should also be enhanced.

References

Antoninis, M., Delprato, M., & Benavot, A. (2016). 10. Inequality in education: the challenge of measurement. World social science report, 2016: Challenging inequalities; pathways to a just world, 63. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245937

Berliner, D. C., & Glass, G. V. (Eds.). (2014). 50 myths and lies that threaten America’s public schools: The real crisis in education. Teachers College Press.

Goldrick-Rab, S., Kelchen, R., Harris, D. N., & Benson, J. (2016). Reducing income inequality in educational attainment: Experimental evidence on the impact of financial aid on college completion. American Journal of Sociology, 121(6), 1762-1817.

Hadjar, A., & Gross, C. (Eds.). (2016). Education systems and inequalities: International comparisons. Policy Press. Retrieved from https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo23501017.html

Laird, J., Parolin, Z., Waldfogel, J., & Wimer, C. (2018). Poor State, Rich State: Understanding the Variability of Poverty Rates across US States. Sociological Science, 5, 628-652. Retrieved from https://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-v5-26-628/