Why do you think school systems in the United States have failed to provide equal opportunity for a high-quality education to all the students?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

An egalitarian society has a responsibility to provide equal opportunity for a high-quality education to all its citizens. Our society has generally failed to meet this responsibility, especially with respect to minority groups and the poor. School systems in the United States are primarily geared for educating middle- and upper-class students. Youngsters who live in wealthy tax districts benefit from having more money spent on their schools than students who live in poorer districts. About 40% of the funds for public schools in the United States come from local school district taxes. Because most of this money is derived from property taxes, school districts with numerous expensive homes have much more revenue for their schools. The educational reformer Jonathon Kozol says in Savage Inequalities that the United States maintains two separate and unequal school systems, one for poor minority inner-city children and another for the more affluent. Poor children sometimes attend Third-World-condition schools with poorly qualified teachers, while a bus ride away there are well-equipped schools with highly qualified teachers.
Most teachers have middle-class backgrounds, which may mean they are better able to establish relationships with middle- and upper-income children, with whom they have more in common. There is also evidence that teachers expect less of poor children academically and behaviorally than they expect of middle- and upper-class children. In turn, low-income students tend to respond to such expectations by underachieving and misbehaving. Thus, the expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Many school systems place students in one of several different tracks or ability groups. In high school, the so-called most promising are placed in college preparatory courses, whereas others go into "basic" or vocational classes. Lower-class and minority students are much more likely to be placed in the basic or vocational track and are not exposed to college-oriented math, science, and literature. In addition, because such students have little contact with college-bound students, they are less likely to aspire to a college education. Without a vocational or 4-year college education, they have very limited opportunities to obtain high-paying jobs. The small proportion of low-income and minority students who do pursue a college education generally do not have the financial resources to attend prestigious colleges and universities. Also, they have greater difficulty competing academically with wealthier students, partly because they have to work (at least part time) to offset some of their expenses.