School District Funding and the Problem Of Charter Schools
Have you ever wondered why some schools are better funded than others?
My middle school was held together with duct tape, chewing gum and a prayer. Quite literally- the walls were on rails so they could be rolled back for maintenance crew, so I got a good look at some of the construction whenever they came in to work on something.
A lot of those pipes and panels were taped in place. Duct tape and gorilla glue was the name of the game when it came to repairs, as far as I could tell.
I wasn't exactly shocked when I found out the place was being torn town a few years after I went to High School. The whole building has since been rebuilt from the ground up.
My middle school sat in the mid-town residential area, and most of the kids attending came from poorer families who lived in rougher neighborhoods. We had a friendly rivalry going with the school from downtown, where the higher end apartment buildings and small city houses were.
Their school was small, but it certainly had better construction than ours. At least their playground wasn't built on uneven ground, and their sports field was a whole other lot with way more space.
Ours was at the bottom of a steep hill, and I lost count of how many kids went flying down that cliff and got hurt while I was there.
They even had a fence around the area where the kids play. Anyone could walk on or off of our grounds with nobody being the wiser.
Why was the situation so different between our two schools? I'll tell you why; funding for schools is partially derived from property taxes. The nicer the neighborhood, the more funding they get.
The Provincial government fills in the shortfall to ensure that the schools stay open, but when it comes to amenities and the functioning of the building, kids on the shitty side of town are shit out of luck.
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This is true on both sides of the border, except American schools are even worse off. If you've ever wondered why kids on the poor side of town have poorer academic outcomes than the rich kids, this is a huge part of why.
Schools built in communities of color are even worse off, and that's largely due to the historical practice of Redlining, which I've discussed in detail in previous articles.
Sam W.
Public schools in poorer neighborhoods, especially those predominantly inhabited by people of color, often struggle to make ends meet.
It's hard to keep teachers– who are already horribly underpaid, burnt out and left to purchase their own classroom supplies out of pocket– when you can't even guarantee that the school building won't collapse.
Think I'm exaggerating? Sorry, I'm being very literal.
Stephen Stock
Quoting from the above article:
"Chronic under-investment left school buildings and facilities there in disrepair. The problem got national attention after a video the students posted to social media went viral.
In the video, one student shows walls peeling from water damage. Another points to holes in the ceiling. One shows a sign warning students not to touch a metal pole in a classroom because of the risk of electrocution."
That article is from September of last year. One year ago. That's the state of these schools, not just in the past, but now.
Imagine working in a building like that. What would your productivity look like? Do you think you would be able to focus? Do you think you would be able to do a good job?
Now imagine children trying to learn in those conditions. Especially kids from poorer neighborhoods, who might be hungry and skipping meals, even finding work after school to try and help make ends meet.
Think they're doing well? Think their test scores are on par with the kids from the well-funded schools around them? According to studies like this one, we can safely say that this is not the case.
Socioeconomic status is one of the biggest indicators of what a child's educational standing will look like as they go through public school. This is not to say that kids from poor homes are less intelligent, but rather that kids from poorer backgrounds are lacking in support.
These schools need assistance, and they aren't getting it. Some parents are desperately searching for alternatives, and you can't blame them for it.
But you can damn sure blame the private entities that try to make a buck off of their desperation.
Have you ever heard of Charter Schools?
They're a nifty trick of labeling. See, on paper, they're counted as a cross between public and private schools. They're funded entirely by government money and do not request tuition for their students, which makes them public.
But they're organized and run by private organizations, whether for-profit or non-profit.
On paper they sound great; a lot of politicians push for Charter schools over public schools as a solution to a lot of these problems I've been talking about. Lots of them – like Betsy DeVos, head of Education under Donald Trump– are involved in Charter school initiatives and actively profit from running them.
Essentially, these are private schools that are entirely subsidized by taxpayer money.
Is it legal to run a for-profit Charter school? Hell no. But do you really think that stops people in reality? There are more loopholes than you can shake a stick at. One of the biggest is by operating a for-profit management company that can run the school on behalf of a non-profit.
They use as little of the money as possible on the students and pocket the rest. They recieve money based on enrollment, so they love to pack their classes with as many kids as possible to pull in the largest payout.
Some of them don't even bother taking attendance; all that matters is that the kid's name is on the roll. They get to claim cash as long as they're fully booked.
Cutting corners can look as simple as running the school purely online, negating the cost of a building, or renting out shitty cheap accomodations. Cut paychecks, use sub-standard teaching supplies, whatever they can do.
Anything to save the cash, even at the expense of the kids. Take a look at this list of stories to see what I mean:
Public education is a miracle. It wasn't that long ago that kids from poor families didn't have a prayer of getting an education; literacy was a skill that only the rich could develop.
The right for every child in North America to be educated and learn and have a basis of knowledge from which to build a career and be successful– that's an amazing thing, and it should be treated as such.
But our systems are failing our kids, and we have to do better.
Public schools are underfunded, understaffed, and under-emphasized. The poor are ignored and the rich are given a leg up, just like in every other facet of our society.
We let ghouls steal money out of the pockets of the taxpayers and treat kids as expendable money machines. We can do better than that.
We need to demand better than that.
Solidarity wins.
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