USA: Education & Inequality

America -- a land of opportunity -- so the saying goes. But this is such a shallow phrase when you look into it deeper, right into the heart and core of the future of the US working class, which is the youth and education, where we see that the supposed “equality” is no where near being equal. In fact, it looks like American education is more based on keeping people poor and ignorant to keep a steady supply of cheap, unskilled labor to work the few jobs that are available, than actually providing a real education.

Social Darwinists argue that the reason people are poor is because they are genetically dumber and weaker than the rich. But they fail to see the contradictions that lie in their very argument. Someone born to a poor family will have to work exponentially more than someone born to a rich family to earn the same amount of wealth, not to mention that the poor person will not have the same amount of resources to begin with as an upper class child. Regardless of genetic makeup, the rich have the cards stacked in their favor. Currently, American education is based on the No Child Left Behind Act, which rewards schools that perform well on tests with more federal financing. This means that schools that are already doing poorly fall further behind, as they end up with even less funding. The No Child Left Behind Act is hurting American poor, while rewarding the American rich. It falls in line with how Capitalism works.

Since much school funding is derived from property taxes in each district, the rich who inhabit more expensive homes pay higher taxes, and in turn receive a better education. And the poor residing in lower quality homes and who often don’t own their own their homes end up going to lower quality schools. As a result, they will inevitably experience lower quality lives.

The No Child Left Behind Act also takes a Social Darwinistic approach to private schools. Students who work hard in their public school but are poor, can get vouchers to go to a private school. At first this may seem positive because they are rewarding someone who works hard. But at a second glance we realize they are taking away students who score high in their school’s standardized testing, making the school’s test scores on average lower. It is a vicious downward cycle. This is dooming our youth in poor neighborhoods!

Social Darwinists are almost always rich and it is easy to say “if you work hard you will be rewarded” when they never had to work hard to get anything. For example, the rich are able to afford private tutors and SAT tutors, while the poor can’t even afford computers that would make research easier. In theory, everyone is supposed to at least start on an equal basis to then pursue their own chance at the “American Dream,” but sadly the American Dream is a myth.

Imagine a ladder, and each rung of the ladder is a social class. Say the son of a rich family is born three rungs to the top of the ladder, and throughout the whole trip up he has his family pushing him up as he reaches the top, thus making it easier. And now there is a son of a poor family who is born at the very bottom of the ladder. And guess what? The rungs above him are old and crumbling and he always has the fear of someone stabbing him while he’s climbing and the guy on the edge of his rung always wants to get him high. Who do you think will have a harder time getting to the top?

The bottom line is that if you are born into wealth you are more likely to die with wealth, and if you are born into poverty you are almost certain to die in poverty. The solution is complicated, but to start, we need to fund the public schools massively and fundamentally change how school is taught. We must end public funding of privatize education and end the private financing of college which only the rich can afford without taking out massive debts that can take decades to repay. Quality education is not a commodity to be bought and sold. It should be available for free to all, regardless of income.

Source: Socialist Appeal - USA