Schools
The schools in the lower income districts are characterized by overcrowding and lack of resources. This is because the funding of American public schools comes mostly from their district’s property taxes. Residential Segregation occurs when people segregate themselves based on class and race. This leaves schools in the low income school districts with little because those who are capable of paying higher property taxes move to districts where there are higher taxes and schools are receiving more. For example, in New York, where efforts are being made to level the playing field, students in the wealthiest school districts are given almost twice as much as students in the poorest district, an annual amount of $13,974 compared to $7,457. When schools lack funding, programs such as special education classes and extracurricular activities are cut back. This causes some working class children to not get the attention and help they require. When schools and teachers are not receiving the goods required to fulfill their duty, students cannot be expected to display the motivation to learn in a flawed system.
Read more about this topic: Working Class Education
Famous quotes containing the word schools:
“Good schools are schools for the development of the whole child. They seek to help children develop to their maximum their social powers and their intellectual powers, their emotional capacities, their physical powers.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“In schools all over the world, little boys learn that their country is the greatest in the world, and the highest honor that could befall them would be to defend it heroically someday. The fact that empathy has traditionally been conditioned out of boys facilitates their obedience to leaders who order them to kill strangers.”
—Myriam Miedzian, U.S. author. Boys Will Be Boys, ch. 3 (1991)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)