Where’s the Money?

I will be sharing my reaction to the following Washington Post article by Theola Labbe and Dan T. Keating, entitled “Modest Gains In D.C. Schools,” found here: <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701363.html>.
Traditionally, illiteracy and poor performance in school has been related to a lack of money. The deficit can be either personal or organizational. With the former, a family is too impoverished to live in a school district where good teachers (and subsequently good academic performance) can be expected. The latter, as its title implies, is the direct impact that a school district or government which lacks funding has on its students. In the United States, inner city schools and the students whom attend those schools, are hurt because of a lack of funding from either of the above to sources. Both are just as common in this country, but abroad, poor governmental infrastructure, and, therefore, an inefficient means of tax collection, leaves many students without even the availability of a school, nevertheless without pencils, books, and teachers.
The article I read began, “Most of the District’s public school children still have poor reading and math skills.” Now, right away I find myself quite befuddled. Having lived in the District for over a year now, I very well know that there are bad parts of town. However, this is the nation’s capital. I would assume that school children in the District would be the smartest in the country. My reasons are simple: We live in the most productive, and most powerful nation in the world, which has the means to do anything it wishes. Why is it that in the nation’s capital, school children receive such a poor quality of education as compared to much of the rest of the country, when just down the road our president is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a war that doesn’t even have a finite enemy? Education is finite. Actions can be taken which would affect finite matters, like teachers, facilities, and resources, and would produce finite results.
Our “low-performing urban school district,” as District Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee herself labels it, only saw 38 percent of elementary students attain the level of “proficiency” in reading on standardized testing this past year. Math is even worse: Only 30.5% of this same demographic of students was able to call themselves “proficient” in mathematics. Given that Washington, D.C. is the center of the country that gives backing to the most powerful currency in the world, I do not understand why D.C. schools are so deprived. This deprivation, as the article I read, suggests, may be due largely to under-funding of the education system in D.C.
Personally, I believe that impoverished families in general fail to place a particular emphasis on studies and schoolwork. I think that this may be due mostly or in part to the fact that parents of lower-income families must work many more hours per week than a standard middle income family. As a result, they are not always around to provide the nurturing and responsible environment that their children need in order succeed in school. Likewise, most low income families are low income because the primary bread winners of those families do not have much education themselves, and as a result cannot or do not want to necessarily help their children with school work. Children need a nurturing and encouraging environment if they are to succeed in school. One thing that can help in this regard, which is a direct result of funding, is the availability of after-school programs for grade school students. Extracurricular activities generally provide students the extra help and focus they need to do their work, while simultaneously keeping them off the streets, and out of unattended homes. The Washington Post article makes mention to this notion, and in fact, officials of the D.C. school system have conceded that more after school programs are needed. These programs, however, require funding that D.C. schools right now just don’t have.
I volunteered at a Southeast D.C. elementary/middle school a year ago, and not only were the facilities dilapidated, but there was a major lack of furniture, including very few books in the library, as compared to what I would expect to find in an elementary school. It was a sad find, but I was glad to be there helping move some new (donated) furniture in. Essentially, the feeling I got from performing this type of help is the reason for my taking KSB-252. I feel that I, like most students at AU, am very lucky to have been born into the life I now lead, and it only feels right to give some of that back to those less fortunate.

Works Cited

Labbe, Theola and Dan T. Keating. "Modest Gains in D.C. Schools." The Washington Post 18 Aug 2007 1-2. 16 Sep 2007.