Essay over education

Researched Paper Education is the gateway to success. At least, that is what I believe. Education is what enables me to write this paper in proper form, punctuation, and verb tense. Education is the X-factor that can decide how someone lives in their life as a totality. Unfortunately for us in the U.S.A., education comes at a price. And that price comes directly out as a percentage of the taxpayer’s dollar in their local area. To simplify that even further, the money that an adult pays as taxes, directly correlates to the amount of money spent on educating their student. To many that is the problem, how is it that the state legislation allows one area of a city submerged in poverty to receive maybe ½ of the money a school in another district that has an average income twice the poverty line, how is that fair. Truth is, it is far from fair. A study by ASCD found that in 1998, the annual cost of education per child in New Jersey ($8,801) was more than twice the cost of a child in Utah ($3,804), “This means that the typical student attending a public school in New Jersey was provided more than twice the fiscal resources allocated to his or her counterpart in Utah.” This only proves that American education system is biased to those well-off. There are so many politics that go into an education reform that trying to remove the policy is too overwhelming and congress just pumps more money into a system that has no idea what to do. The even bigger problem is how this threatens the quality of education that affects a child’s future. Education is a right and it should be equal throughout the country, especially in public schools. In the book, “Lives on the boundary”, author Mike Rose, describes his experience growing up in poverty and how it affected his view on life. Mike grew up in southern L.A. and his dad died at an early age, leaving just him and his mom, along with a family friend helping them out throughout the way. In school, he described how he believed that he was better than the school thought he was, but he could not progress to the level he wanted to because he was really only expected to be average. Throughout the book, that is a main focus, about how school in low-income areas, teachers and schools expect their “regular” students to only pass and not exceed. This is a major problem throughout the country, because students are generally young when the go through high school, and are going through a momentous change physically as well as mentally, so if no one pushes them, they only think it is normal to do nothing more than they are asked. Also, it is not just the schools fault, but the parents as well. Sometimes the parents just don’t have the time or effort to push their children hard enough to get them off the ground, and so what this creates is almost a type of cycle, where the student is not pushed or given the proper tools to succeed, so he/she just passes as expected, then can only go so far with their high school record, in terms of college, leading them to find a job which approves their level of education (probably minimum wage), where they can only find a residence that fits their budget, landing them in the same type of neighborhood in which they grew up, with that same school which is underfunded. Now depending on their social abilities, they may marry or not, and may or may not have kids, starting the cycle over. What I just stated here might be a stretch, but it is not that far from the truth. In an article by the Huffington post, the author states that schools have a poverty crisis, not an education crisis, “At nearly 22 percent and rising, the child poverty rate in the United States is the highest among wealthy nations in the world… We estimate that it would cost 4,200 annually per disadvantaged student (above current educational costs) over the 18.5 years from birth through high school to provide the full array.” That is not a lot compared our current expenditures on education, especially if we put what we already paying into focus, instead of trying to spend it all on arbitrary accessories to the school, so that their state funding is not cut further than it already might be cut. Mike rose talks about his early high school career, and how on one day, he was startled by the fact that one of his classmates, only wanted to be “average”. “ ‘I just wanna be average.’ That woke me up. Average?!? Who wants to be average?.. But his sentence stayed with me all these years, and I think I am beginning to understand it” He later explains the situation he and his classmates found himself in, which is that they were “gasping for air”. They simply were trying to keep up with passing the class, which what the teachers expected of them and nothing more. Although this will happen in all schools no matter the quality or record, trying to fit in and doing at least O.K is a challenge to a higher degree in those who live in low income areas. Now, I’m not saying that all teachers don’t push their teachers, but some teachers are simply discouraged by what they have to work with in terms of fiscal resources and simply how hard they try the results of the standardized test only prove more discouraging. Another flaw in the system that affects students is the mark the state set for them. In the article, “Toward a Better Education System”, Jeb Bush says that a big problem is the redundant system of standardized testing. “But I cannot tolerate the watered-down standards and expectations that exist for far too many students today… You drive results not by dollars, but by child-centered policies and the courage to stick with them.” He explains over the course of the article, that keep lowering standards so that the state’s budget won’t get cut is bad since students and teachers will teach to the test and not beyond in low-income areas. We need to raise expectations not lower them to see improvement in results. I believe that the United States has the resources and the teachers to improve the education system as a whole, but we need to put faith in them a try to strip the system down and see what we really need to focus on instead of worrying about politics or what might come and just sit there and decide to do nothing, but just increase the budget. Making the education system more efficient would really benefit low-income areas to where the students will grow up to break the poverty cycle and lead healthy, successful lives.