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Inequalities in Public Education Funding Inequalities of the public school funding in the United States had become one of the most important social issues. It is very significant to offer to all the people equal rights in education. However, there are many vivid examples of inadequate funding of public education in different cities across the nation. This paper is aimed to discuss and to research the inequalities of education funding in the state of New York and especially in the New York City.
New York City can be described as the city of contrasts. Here along with rich people there is a big number of poor. The territorial distribution of the population according to income level becomes the primary reason for unfair distribution of the funds for education. A strong public understanding of all the negative aspects of inadequate and unequal school funding and of its influence on the education level of students had created a number of disputes over the financing of educational institutions. In the state of New York, community-based organizations had been pursuing the building of the public knowledge on this issue by using school finance lawsuits. These public organizations are demanding to create specific strategies, which should reduce huge gap in educational quality.
The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) was engaging citizens and advocates in New York City for the seven-year equity lawsuit. It was aimed at attracting the attention of wealthy suburbs and of other parts of the state for helping to develop a definition of sound, basic education. The definition that was created by citizens, greatly helped to make sure that the public would support the court with its favorable decision in Campaign for Fiscal Equity. Public would be responsible for holding the state accountable for implementing new approaches. In January 2001, the New York State Supreme Court had ordered the state to develop new cost-based school finance system in order to ensure a sound, basic education principles for all the students. Besides, there was supposed to be effective accountability system aimed at ensuring that the resources are properly used in providing education.
CFE in cooperation with League of Women Voters continues to discuss enlisting New York citizens help in designing the court-ordered accountability system. What is the actual distribution of the funds aimed designated on the education and what areas have better resources available to provide better levels of education? Statistics shows that small schools mainly in urban areas offer many advantages. The level of education in these schools is quite high. Despite the belief that such kinds of schools are financially not effective to run had been proved otherwise by recent researches. The benefits include lower dropout rates and higher rates of postsecondary enrollment (Funk & Bailey Small schools, big results: Nebraska high school completion and post-secondary enrollment rates by size of school district, Nebraska Alliance for Rural Education, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1999).
Besides, small schools also reduce harmful effects of poverty on student achievement (Howley & Bickel, The Matthew Project: National Report, Rural Challenge Policy Program, Randolph, VT, 1999). The researchers had proved that students perform better and acquire more knowledge in intimate settings, where their attention is aimed mainly on education and is not disturbed that much by issues not related to studies. It also becomes possible for teachers to pay more attention to each student, which makes teachers able to boost students academic achievement, curiosity, raise self-esteem, and promote interest in education, which is also a very important part in gaining knowledge. In contrast to schools with the big number of students, such a special attention towards each student is not possible.
Besides, social factors (family income level) play also an important role. The reason for this is the desire of a student to be socially acceptable, and to be noticed, which is a normal thing. However, it all becomes harder to do in the place with a big concentration of people, such as huge urban school. Unfortunately, each year it becomes harder to find small public school. Since the beginning of the century, the number of small schools had dropped significantly. The reason for this was the growth of population in urban areas.
I think that there is not need to accent on the growth of population in the New York City, where even today it is continuing to increase. Small public school started to be less effective in providing education, especially in the highly populated areas. This was primarily due to their disability to give a place for studying for too many students. After this, the projects of development of education were aimed on the building of new big schools.
Basically, the industrial principle the bigger the better drove consolidation efforts that eliminated thousands of small schools being replaced with big ones. School funding policies with the common view on the effectiveness of small schools were supporting more funding of big schools and this had caused smaller portions of financial support to small schools to be issued. Current funding does not meet the demands of these small schools, which eventually results into inadequate level of education among students of these schools. However, today across the nation small schools are returning. They exist in every state in rural, urban, and suburban areas. There had been many ideas presented on how to improve funding of small schools.
The need to change unequal funding had been of a great importance. The basic strategies for improving the financial situation at small rural and urban schools are: increasing of the basic budget along with changing the state funding formula, using already existing resources more effectively, and capturing new funds from alternative sources. The first strategy is very effective, however it requires the longest time and needs to change many minds, while working at a distance. The second approach is the most popular, because it is much easier to rethink, how the work had been accomplished and what positive effects it had made. The third strategy takes the shortest amount of time, but it cannot be considered as the main trait to success and will not result into continuous improvement, because it only may solve problems on local level.
Despite the differences in purpose and payoff, each of before mentioned strategies works the best when the responsibility for securing the resources is widely shared, inside and outside the school. How it is possible to increase state funding? In each state funds are located according to dollar amount per student for operating expenses. This system appears to be fair, indeed in New York City the salary for qualified teachers should be bigger than in other places. Besides, the facility maintenance costs are also higher than in rural areas. When state per pupil investment is stretched over these comparatively higher costs, there are fewer dollars to invest in salaries, materials, and equipment.
This causes the lack of funds for sufficient maintenance and small salary for teachers is not attracting qualified professionals. Local districts have a permission to tax themselves to add-on to state funding, however, inequities can be found here as well. For instance, the amount of money available from local taxes depends on the local tax base and on the level to which people vote to tax themselves. However, if to take urban area with low-income population, certainly the taxes cannot be raised. This is the primary reason for low funding of schools in these areas.
Another factor is the assessment value of property. Resort areas, retirement communities, and expensive second homes sit on land assessed at a higher value than agricultural land. In Vermont, for example, schools in districts with a large tax base, such as in a wealthy suburb or near a ski resort, may invest $ 11, 000 of state and local funds in each student every year and still have a relatively low tax levy. Residents in a poorer, neighboring urban or small-town district could tax themselves more heavily (set a higher mill rate) but have as little as $ 2, 500 invested per student.
This is because their property valuations are lower. Variations among regions and states can be even more dramatic, a result of long-standing public policies. In the West, much of the land is public and generates very small payments to support schools. In much of the South, the land is planted in timber and traditionally assessed at a trifling rate. In New York City, the value of land is quite high, but not everywhere good business infrastructure is present, especially in low-income areas, which makes it hard to assign adequate financial support. If to look from the ethical point of view, it absolutely should make no difference where the child lives.
Each child definitely deserves high quality education, because for many education can be the single key to success. Therefore, community leaders should be aware of the importance of education for each member of the society. Equal opportunities should be provided for every student, who desires to acquire knowledge. The researches had shown that small schools actually provide better education, which actually cause good returns on education investments.
Evaluations based on the cost per graduate rather than cost per student prove that small schools are...
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Research essay sample on Inequalities In Public Education Part 1
