Pamela A. Brann
English Argument
December 8, 1995
Inequality in Today's Classrooms
To many, the United States appears to be a rapidly growing country - advanced in technology, politics, and economy. In a country with such a reputation, it would not be expected that there would be a low literacy rate among its citizens. Yet, in the US, there is. Statistics show that the literacy rate in this country is not only low, but falling. The statistics also show that the literacy rates are lower among black and hispanic students than they are amongst white students. (See Table 1 and Table 2) Why are our literacy rates dropping even though our country is progressing? Also, why are the literacy rates amongst minorities significantly lower even though affirmative action and equal rights advocation are present today? People have been trying to answer this and other questions about literacy for a while now, yet no one has found an easy nor agreed upon answer. However, several theories have been proposed.A commonly proposed explanation for illiteracy among minorities is that these students often come from bad homes or bad neighborhoods and therefore have less of a drive to learn. Often, the lifestyles of these youths involve activities that children outside of the ghetto do not have to deal with as much, such as drug activity, abusive families, gang activities, and so on. Mike Davis discusses the lifestyles of urban children in his book City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angelos. These children are often brought up in bad neighborhoods, surrounded by crime, poverty, and prejudice. Due to exposure to such mature experiences, these children are forced to mature prematurely, and often angry. In Davis's essay, he discusses how authorities such as the Los Angelos Police Department see these children as "the enemy" and treat them accordingly-creating tasks forces to suppress them and keep them from participating in illegal activities. These officers even harass innocent children, sometimes even after they have discovered that they are indeed not guilty of any crime. This activity often breeds anger and resentment towards any authority in the minds of the youth. A combination of these negative attitudes and complicated lifestyles often create youth who are unconcerned with school. For inner city youth in especially dangerous neighborhoods, the desire to survive is often more prominent than the desire to learn. These children often end up either doing poorly in or drop out of, school, thus limiting how literate they are.
This argument neglects a few important points. For example, Davis is primarily discussing young gang members from L.A.. His arguments do not discuss other cities, though it seems that he assumes that the situations are similar everywhere. He also does not say much about those urban youth who do not become involved in gangs. Some youth get past their problems and use education as a way out of their situation. Davis's argument seems correct in that it discusses how negative attitudes towards minorities can affect their education.
In this paper I intend to show that the literacy rate in this country is low not because of bad neighborhoods, bad parents, or other outside experiences that students might have, rather it is because they may not be receiving equal opportunities for a good education. The opportunities that students have varies depending on race, gender, and socio-economic background. In several situations, minorities are not exposed to the same educational opportunities as the majority. This primarily exists as unconscious discrimination, though in some cases, the exclusion is blatantly obvious and intended. Some of the inequalities that exist are differences in attitudes towards particular students, lack of basic education materials such as books, computers, and competent teachers, and unfair tracking placement and admission to particular classes.
A major contribution to the inequality in education is due to the negative attitudes of teachers, administrators, parents, and any other adults who may be involved with the responsibility of educating children. I will exclude the attitudes of the students for now. It is true that many students, especially those from minorities as Davis has described, often have negative attitudes about education. However, unless the attitudes of the educators are supportive and helpful, those of the students may never change.
Another contributor to the inequality in our education system is the inconsistency in the distribution of materials and funds. Public schools are funded by the towns or districts which they are located in. Special programs such as bilingual education and special education also receive some money from the Federal government, but as Table 3 shows, this money is often distributed unevenly. Currently, there is no set amount which town must spend on the upkeep of their schools. The amount of money that a school receives varies depending on the wealth of the town. It seems safe to assume that primarily upper-class, white neighborhoods have more money than urban neighborhoods primarily occupied by low-income minority families. Therefore it is safe to assume that the schools in the upper-class districts receive more funding and more materials than a school in a poor section of a city.
Several independent and long-term studies have been conducted to evaluate the education of minority students. I researched two of them for this paper. The first is John U. Ogbu's study of black Americans. The second is Flora Ida Ortiz's study of Hispanic students. Both studies show that attitudes towards these minority students were often negative. They continue to show that these attitudes generally lead to unequal education. The two studies also document that minorities are neglected when it comes to the distribution of materials, opportunities, and well-trained teachers.
In Literacy and Schooling in Subordinate Cultures: The Case of Black Americans Ogbu categorizes blacks and Chicanos as subordinate and castelike minorities. These two categories include those who are "generally regarded as inferior by the dominant group." (Ogbu 6) He goes on to state that "the access of castelike minorities [blacks] and their perceptions of and responses to schooling have historically been shaped by the job ceiling and related barriers." (Ogbu 17) That is, the job ceiling and other racial barriers affect the education which blacks will receive. Efforts have been made since the 1960's to raise the job ceiling and eliminate racial barriers, however they still exist today. (Ogbu 8) These barriers are based on prejudice and negative opinions of blacks, and therefore will exist as long as these opinions do. These barriers have significant educational consequences. Ogbu states that "The perceptions of whites have led them to provide blacks with inadequate schooling and to communicate attitudes in school settings that do not encourage blacks to maximum efforts." (Ogbu 17) Ogbu also mentions that blacks have a strong mistrust towards schools, and that they doubt the school's ability to "understand black children and their needs." (Ogbu 13) This mistrust rises from the belief by blacks that schools are using various devices to keep them suppressed. Some of these devices include biased testing, tracking, and biased materials. (Ogbu 13)
In "A Comparison between Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Children" Flora Ortiz shows how Hispanic-American children are slighted in education. The first barrier that Hispanic American children come to arises when they first enter school. Once the student has been identified as Hispanic (generally through the recognition of a Spanish surname), "many school districts have been directed to assess this group's proficiency in English." (Ortiz 67) The critical question used is whether English is spoken in the home. The response to this determines whether the student is placed in a bilingual education program. (Ortiz 67) This immediate assumption that Hispanic means illiterate generally sets the students up for a rough educational career.
The second barrier for Hispanic students is the lack of materials. The study showed that many schools attended by Hispanic children are located in "run-down, poor and neglected neighborhoods," and that "these schools are held in low esteem by the school district" and therefore "their needs are not viewed as critical." (Ortiz 67-68) Bilingual programs are different from traditional classes in that they usually receive extra funding from both the federal and state governments. In the 1993 fiscal year, the U.S. Department of Education was obligated to spend $211,980 on bilingual programs. (Table 3) However, only some of the classrooms have audio-visual aids and there was an "absence of textbooks, workbooks, teacher manuals for teaching fundamental skills, and technological equipment such as computers." (Ortiz 68) The findings were similar in bilingual classrooms which were located within other schools, where the majority of students were non-Hispanic.
Teachers were evaluated in this study as well. The teachers in the bilingual classrooms were found to be frequently young and inexperienced. (Ortiz 68) Some teachers arrived at the schools with "high ideals and expectations. Other teachers had been rejected from regular classrooms due to some incompetence, often in classroom management." (Ortiz 68) Thus, teachers who did not prove competent enough to lead regular classrooms were competent enough to teach in bilingual classes. The incompetence of these teachers often resurfaced within the bilingual classrooms. Often the teachers of mixed classrooms dismiss the Hispanic children to the duty of a Spanish- speaking aide. These aides generally do not have any teaching degree or experience, yet they often become the students' primary instructor because the teacher does not want to deal with them. One teacher told researchers:
I know what I'm supposed to do in that classroom. But I can't help myself, those kids are dull, dirty and their parents don't care. Why should I? I can't teach them and I know it. I don't like them, and I wish I didn't have to teach so many of them. But this is a job and so I show up and give these kids a pencil to push. (Ortiz 76)Another teacher told a researcher just before dismissing her Hispanic students, "Ah, it is time for that group to go. Now, I can concentrate with this group in this science lesson. I look forward to this period, because then I can do exciting things with the students who are left." (Ortiz 74) This quote alone proves that in at least one classroom, Hispanic children are excluded from learning new and "exciting" things. Often, their lessons have two parts: first, they receive the material in Spanish by the aide; then, the primary instructor gives the same lesson in English. While the Hispanic children are receiving their first lesson, the other students are generally going ahead learning new information which the Hispanic students never see, automatically putting them at a disadvantage to the majority children. (Ortiz 80-81)When I claim that unequal education is a factor in the decay of the literacy rate in this country, I am not suggesting that we should create a system such as the one proposed by E.D. Hirsch. Hirsch also believes that American students are not receiving an equal education, however he is more concerned with exact subject matter, succession of classes, etc.( Hirsch) This solution only looks at a fraction of the problem, curriculum. It overlooks the main reason for the inequalities, discrimination.
One solution would be to retrain the teachers, especially those in bilingual classrooms. The earlier comments show how some teachers demonstrate prejudiced attitudes towards minority students. Teachers that plan to teach in bilingual situations should be fluent in any applicable languages. These teachers should plan their lessons so that the bilingual students receive the same information as the others in the classroom. If these children are not fluent enough in English to receive the lesson, then the aide should concentrate on helping the students to understand the material and to learn English. No student in an American public school should be able to graduate without being fluent in English. Therefore, they should be taught the language as early as possible, preferably during elementary school. The teachers' attitudes need to be positive. If a teacher is exhibiting behavior that can be detrimental to a student's future, such as exclusion because of race, or proclaiming resentment towards his/ her job and students, then that person should not be allowed to teach. It is true that such restrictions could lead to a shortage of educators in the country, but we should not have to settle for teachers who neglect their students.
We must find a way in which it can be ensured that materials and funds are evenly distributed throughout all schools. However, several problems arise when we attempt to create this equality. These problems arise because of the many ways in which the inequality is initially created. For example, most public schools are funded by local school districts with varying budgets.
Educational inequality facilitated by a system of local financing exists because of at least three factors: the self-interest of the privileged, their tendency to reside apart from the lower class, and the inability of the average person to assess the quality of education available to this child, much less know what is available elsewhere. (Wise, 197)Thus, these budgets are dependent upon who lives in the school district. Likewise, districts with wealthier citizens generally have more funds with which to run their schools. In the book Wise 196)
One solution to this problem could be to place the school budgets under the control of the state. Then it would be the responsibility of the state and federal government to equally distribute funds directly to various school districts. The "equal" amounts should be determined by the ratio of students per school. In this way, students could be assured that their schools are receiving the same materials as any other public school. Also, the federal and state governments should continue to fund major programs such as bilingual education, Indian education, and vocational education since these programs often require more money which should not be taken away from the general funds.
There is a great amount of inequality in today's classrooms. Much of this inequality stems from prejudice and stereotypes. In order for all of our youth to become educated enough to be successful in society, we must eliminate these inequalities and create some standards by which our schools should be run. Until these changes are made, minority students will continue to be discriminated against. This discrimination will negatively affect their ability to learn, and thus they will keep falling behind in education and in literacy.
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