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Strapped for Cash: How to improve schools in impoverished areas
Duffel
jacobkoshRegistered User regular
jacobkoshRegistered User regular
I've been doing a lot of thinking about the dillema of school systems with poor funding due to their location in economically disadvantaged regions. I grew up and received my primary and secondary education in just a school system, so this OP will be heavily colored by my own experiences.
School systems in poor regions seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle. For areas with a very low average income (in my hometown the average was less than 20k/yr per household), there is virtually no local resources to draw from in terms of acquiring funding for schools. Just about everything has to either come from the state (which is also broke) or the federal government (which, although not broke, cannot afford to subsidize every such school system in the country without also going broke). Obviously, the federal funding was never enough, and the school system was both literally and figuratively poor. Everything from athletic equipment to computers to general infrastructure was always old and outdated; there was no funding for any off-campus trips, the teachers themselves had only a mediocre salary and as a result 90% of them were of a decidedly mediocre quality.
Also, while funding was a problem, it was closely related to larger cultural issues which ensured that things stayed the way they were. While a portion of graduating seniors went on to college, med/law school and what have you, very few of them had any reason to return back home after they were finished; money and opportunities were better elsewhere, and few want to raise their own children in such a deficient school system. As a result, the chronic brain drain on the county ensures that there's very few people in the county who have education of their children as a high priority, or who make a salary large enough to help the schools to get the funding they need. What's worse, there is very little motivation for anyone from the outside - the state, the federal government - to assist these regions; population is low and so are the votes they can gain from helping us, and because of the exodus of bright students from the county most of the people left don't really give a fuck anyway. Unfortunately, this results in a lot of bright and able students from impoverished families never getting the opportunity to achieve a higher education and standard of living that they deserve.
The town stagnates, the poverty rate stays high, and the snake bites itself on the tail and the whole thing starts again.
The purpose of this topic is this: how should we go about improving such poor school systems when funds are lacking and socioeconomic conditions are against us? How does the government go about improving these schools?
Note: This topic assumes that any solution will be achieved within the current system. If you want to talk about an objectivist approach to the school system there's already a topic for you, it will be considered off-topic in here.
School systems in poor regions seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle. For areas with a very low average income (in my hometown the average was less than 20k/yr per household), there is virtually no local resources to draw from in terms of acquiring funding for schools. Just about everything has to either come from the state (which is also broke) or the federal government (which, although not broke, cannot afford to subsidize every such school system in the country without also going broke). Obviously, the federal funding was never enough, and the school system was both literally and figuratively poor. Everything from athletic equipment to computers to general infrastructure was always old and outdated; there was no funding for any off-campus trips, the teachers themselves had only a mediocre salary and as a result 90% of them were of a decidedly mediocre quality.
Also, while funding was a problem, it was closely related to larger cultural issues which ensured that things stayed the way they were. While a portion of graduating seniors went on to college, med/law school and what have you, very few of them had any reason to return back home after they were finished; money and opportunities were better elsewhere, and few want to raise their own children in such a deficient school system. As a result, the chronic brain drain on the county ensures that there's very few people in the county who have education of their children as a high priority, or who make a salary large enough to help the schools to get the funding they need. What's worse, there is very little motivation for anyone from the outside - the state, the federal government - to assist these regions; population is low and so are the votes they can gain from helping us, and because of the exodus of bright students from the county most of the people left don't really give a fuck anyway. Unfortunately, this results in a lot of bright and able students from impoverished families never getting the opportunity to achieve a higher education and standard of living that they deserve.
The town stagnates, the poverty rate stays high, and the snake bites itself on the tail and the whole thing starts again.
The purpose of this topic is this: how should we go about improving such poor school systems when funds are lacking and socioeconomic conditions are against us? How does the government go about improving these schools?
Note: This topic assumes that any solution will be achieved within the current system. If you want to talk about an objectivist approach to the school system there's already a topic for you, it will be considered off-topic in here.
Duffel on
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Sadly, this is about as far as I've explored that idea. In my mind, I usually visualize more active classes where the students are learning more mundane topics such as home repair and upkeep. Usually by directly repairing and keeping up a place.
While this would do some good for the community, it would be of limited utility; real improvement is going to come through skilled labor, which groups of high school kids are unable to give.
The real goal I want to discuss is to find some way to raise the educational standards of these sorts of communities, who have no money and few educated citizens of their own to draw from. Obviously, intervention is going to have to come from the outside, but it has to be done very economically. The question is, how? Perhaps some sort of permanent auditor position at chronically underperforming schools? Incentives that encourage educated natives of a region to return back home to their birth communities? Government-sponsored public outreach and involvement programs?
For my outreach, I would probably destroy the false ceiling on education that exists at 12th grade. Sort of merge standard k-12 education with trade schools to make sure things are moving in a consistent direction to get people managing things around the community.
Up here in Canada, education is a provincial responsibility and so most of the funding goes directly to the individual school boards and then onward to individual schools. There may be discrepencies in quality based on the size of the school (less courses, teachers), but they still receive funding and operate under the general curriculum.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
There was recently federal infrastructure funding here, and one of the focuses was drinking water. The small communities doing the best focused on tourism: hunting, hiking, fishing, camping, golfing etc. Good leadership, clean drinking water and some small tourism related investments have paid huge dividends for these rural areas.
I don't think there is anything specifically wrong with rural schools, they are just underfunded, so there isn't really anything I'd suggest the school do to change....it's more the community as a whole needs to change from "have nots" to "haves".
Edit: obviously location is critical for tourism but even a tiny lake can be enough.
I will say that No Child Left Behind is, probably, the most damaging bill passed during the Bush Administration. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to name something even more long-term catastrophic than NCLB passed in the last 30 years.
I came from a Catholic private school into a public junior, and then high school. It was the private, Catholic school that did not understand how to handle me as a student. There were no AP classes, no college courses at the local Catholic high school, no real rewards for being particularly intelligent. There was, in fact, active punishment of intelligence there.
I went from that system to an urban junior high and high school, and the difference was dramatic. I qualified, based on some standardized test scores, for entry into their higher level English and History courses and immediately my whole demeanor improved. Grades shot up, all that good stuff.
Basically, even though I went to an Ohio urban school system, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about that system. Students were challenged according to level, but still had plenty of opportunities to be friends and encounter other people.
I can say that there are some reforms I'd like to see, though. I am a firm believer that several senior-level AP courses could be and should be taught at colleges for college credit, because students at the AP level are most definitely on track for the college course. Some schools do this already, but I'd like to see it more widespread. On top of that, I would like to see a federally oversighted, but state-implemented, school monitoring system to replace NCLB.
Essentially, the idea is that NCLB sucks as a metric for schools. In fact, things outside of classroom observation are all basically untenable as performance metrics. I'd like to see a group that can sit in on several classes at a school as well as interview a subsection of students at that school to see if they're happy, while at the same time looking into their grades and taking that into account. This group would then make advisory suggestions to the school administration based on that feedback, and compile the results from several schools in one district to present to the local school board. This information should then be made public on a government website or a requestable government document (something as easy or easier to obtain than a copy of the social security card, I think) so that prospective parents can view it as well.
It should provide information like average GPA at the different grades (with notes on outliers), a summary of classes offered, thigns like that, but should also have notes based on observation by agents as well as a report on overall student happiness with the school.
Most importantly, it should NOT be tied to school-funding. NCLB was a fine idea until it created the death-spiral of funding, and I absolutely could not be more pissed with Ted Kennedy for allowing that to pass. NCLB is a HUGE detriment to actual education because of test scores being tied to funding. I believe that letting parents know how a school scores out and providing information in that regard can be a hundred times more useful for making sure a child gets educated than standard test scores.
Regardless, I know that my idea is totally out there, but I honestly think it's the best way for the school system to improve as a whole.
Random anecdote time: As much as we say that our system needs to function more like the Japanese system, I was struck by a somewhat sad realization while I lived in Japan itself. Most educators in Japan want their system to be more like the American one, offering students more freedom and choices and less pressure. I'm sure it's a case of grass is always greener, but at the same time Japan is a fantastic example of what overemphasis on standardized test scores can do to a society.
There's absolutely no good reason that the curriculum, policies, or funding for a school should be determined below the county level. It creates vicious cycles like the one described in the OP, increases the odds of fringe movements doing something staggeringly stupid, and there's simply no upside. Little Johnny doesn't need a different education in the country versus the suburbs versus the cities.
School funding should be part of the states taxes, and distributed equitably on a per student basis. If anything underperforming or demographically disadvantaged areas need more resources, not less, and we'd all be better off if we used the excess funding from over funded areas to bring the poorer areas up to a level of bare minimum competence than getting diminishing returns on ever more useless perks in the richer areas.
It's pretty complicated and varies state-to-state. Usually the state is expected to fund most of their school systems with some assistance from the federal government, supplemented by local property taxes.
For people who live in poor states this usually means that there is very little money for schools, because the state itself doesn't have much money and property taxes are practically insignificant. These two situations often go hand-in-hand for obvious reasons.
In my home state of Kentucky, for instance, there's probably four cities I can think of which support a moderately well-off population (Louisville, Lexington, Owensboro, and Bowling Green - all of which, with the exception of Owensboro, are university towns) that could conceivably support a decent school system with taxes from local citizens.
Everywhere else consists of rural communities with varying degrees of poverty, but it's pretty low-income and low-education across the board. Thus, if you're from one of those four towns you've got a decent chance (but not a guarantee) of a good public education; everywhere else and you're at a disadvantage.
I want to agree with you on them needing more resources. I'm just not sure that is actually the case, as it does depend on what the desired result is. If we want the smartest people around, you are best spending money in places that are already performing well. If you want a more homogeneous base of intelligence, you are correct. At least, this would be my gut instinct. Are there studies that address this?
Edit: Not that I disagree with the point that this should be state level. It should. Possibly even fed level.
I'm 99% sure I've seen studies that show there's a extremely strong correlation between the amount of funding a school has and it's performance, in other words that the already good schools spend more per student than do the poorly performing schools. The only outliers I believe were some major metropolitan areas (NYC, Washington, Boston, etc) that spent more per student than average but had a worse overall performance, and I think if you accounted for demographics they were actually all overperforming (except for DC, which apparently sucks no matter how you look at it).
Not to say just blindly throwing money at the problem is the answer. But getting some sanity into the funding process and evening out the wild disparities is something of a precondition to actually working on improving things.
That doesn't address my question. If anything, it supports it. The money would be a fixed size pool, right? So, in order to increase the funding in one area, you would be necessity have to decrease it elsewhere.
So, my question is simply: Will the increase you see in performance in the places that now have more money be more than the offset of the decrease in performance you would have in places you spend less money now? (That make sense?)
Well, for me the goal would be homogeneity. Not of "intelligence", which is inborn and kind of intangible, but simply in quality of education.
As in, a child's residence/birthplace doesn't impact the objectively-measurable quality of education that they receive, where a kid born in a town of 1,500 gets the same quality of education as a kid born in a town of 150,000. This would also, of course, apply to underprivileged urban areas, but I can't speak on that with any firsthand experience. If there's anyone in this topic who can speak authoritatively on such issues I encourage them to do so.
This goal of homogeneity isn't simply for idealistic purposes either; as the cycle continues more and more places in America are slowly dying off. This creates a permanent underclass, along with all the social problems (crime, lack of access to health care, addictions, etc.) that such an underclass entails.
Hmmm, now that's an interesting question.
I'm inclined to say yes, both because the effort required to get a low performing student up to competent is probably less than it takes to get a competent student to exceptional, and because a lot of the big ticket items a rich school invests in have minimal impact on actual performance (football stadiums, exceptionally large selection of esoteric extracurricular, etc). In fairness I can't say any of that is anything other than deduction and general impressions though, since I don't have any hard numbers of budget breakdowns in hand.
It would be interesting to see something like that though.
I don't necessarily disagree. However, I want my daughter to have the best damned education she can. Period. I don't care if that means she gets a slightly better one than someone else. So.... I support a homogeneous society in education, but I want the best one I can provide for my family and immediate community. I'm not sure how to balance those beliefs. (That make sense?)
When schools are allowed to set their own schedules, hiring practices, curriculums and requirements they often do phenomenally. Charter schools have the potential to be wildly successful, even in poor areas, and I'd love to see the program expanded. Schools have to be responsive to the needs of their own students, not to the needs of the average student state wide.
That said, the enormous disadvantage inherent in using local property taxation to fund schools needs to be addressed, and could easily be addressed by pooling that money at the state rather than county level and handing it out on a per-student basis.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Better asked... How much would we lose in cutting edge technology because he had oh so slightly lowered the highest level our smartest people can attain to? (That make sense?) Simply put, if you are running a team, you invest a ton of money in your most productive because they are the most likely to produce something for you.
Property tax reliance is a huge issue for communities, not just for education, and makes me wish there was more movement in relation to diversifying income supports for communities. The inflexible nature of property taxes hamstrings so many things.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
This, basically. A few years ago I was reading an article about how some of the better schools in suburban Chicago had taken steps to identify the most able students from failing inner-city schools and busing them into the better schools in the suburbs.
It's a good idea for a temporary measure, although obviously it would be better to solve the problem of the shitty inner-city schools in the first place. But even those programs become untenable in a rural area, where the nearest good school might be hours away, and individual students might live hours apart from each other.
Over society at large, the impact should be minimal. No one invents cutting edge technology or develops their full potential in high school, as long as those systems provide basic competence for all and opportunities to excel to those who can use them you can take advantage of differentiation in secondary education (college, grad school etc).
Basically, any school reform that focused on system wide equity in resources should still keep each school good enough the exceptional students aren't broken and are supported as much as possible, and then they can self select into the exclusive schools where resources can be disproportionally heaped on making them excel. The difference between Harvard and a state school is less detrimental to society than the difference between a magnet school in a rich suburb and a struggling urban or rural school are.
The thing to understand about Canadian education being funded provincially is equalization payments. We don't have them in the US. So, in Canada, they have a kind of de facto national funding.
What we need in the US is schools to be funded nationally and equally per capita.
but they're listening to every word I say
Yes, I mean, I say all this, but the very idea of trying to coordinate that transition on a state-wide level is basically unthinkable.
Some brave governor is going to have to destroy his hopes for re-election in order to get it done.
I think it's a matter of debate whether the charter school system can be more widely applied. While they've certainly had some (but not universal) success in improving success, there's a question of whether that's because of their attempts at policy innovation or whether it's a self selection issue, where if a kids parents care enough to jump through the current hoops to get them into what they think will be a better school are predisposed to either have smarter kids or push them harder, leading to better performance among the people in charter schools regardless of whether or not the school itself is actually better.
And there's no reason that the carter schools couldn't function as a parallel private system and any effective innovations be rolled into the public system from the the state level. I really simply don't think that there's a need for 500 odd different decision and policy making bodies in New York state alone for schools, and it radically raises the odds something stupid is going to be done. If there was some sort of track record for districts innovating really striving to improve education for their students there might be a case for it, but at this point we're two centuries into this system and I don't see much upside.
Bring back shop classes, but have students fix desks and chairs. Or if they are building things, build more desks or chairs, or basic shelves. That way, the students get training in a real skill - which if the school has shop anyway (mine didn't) they would be spending that money already, and what the students make, can then be used in the school without buying new things. Why does everything in a school have to be standard? Make a field trip for visiting the junkyard or Goodwill, and buy very cheap items that can be used for shop or art class. Less money spent on supplies, and you get more personalization out of it. For art, I'm sure a kid would much prefer to choose a lamp to paint or decorate and make their own, then whatever crappy supplies the teacher gives them. It could be cheaper, produce better items, and if they want, recycled to use in the school for lighting. Each room could then me more unique - for cheap. Customized lamps, refinished furniture and shelves, all worked on by students. This also can give a better sense of accomplishment - you made something that you know people in the future will use, that's there to stay.
Have a gardening class. Lot of schools have large, useless lots where there's. Plant stuff - this is a class right there, then have the cafeteria use the fresh fruit and vegetables that were produced.
Going back to computers - don't have enough to populate the school yet? - again, make one class out of it with one teacher who knows how to build a computer and install stuff, and get donations or again go to goodwill for computer parts. The students learn how to build, perform maintenance, and troubleshoot problems. All the fixed computers they worked on then get sent to the other classrooms to perform admirably.
The school system is so antiquated, NCLB and standardized tests are a major problem. Too many times teachers teach to the test. The students need to branch out from just learning history, math, science, and english. They need that, but you need to make a student invested - nobody really enjoys learning english or that stuff, but they'll put up with it and be more receptive as they wait to get to art class, or shop.
Again, have a mechanic class, with junkyard parts, make projects the students are proud of, and put what they make to use at the school. Enough finished cars, you can do carpooling instead of busses (probably not feasible). One or two restored trucks - use it to haul other things around the school.
My post jumps all over the place I bet, but I think some of these things would improve education, give back to the school, make a better community, and everything would get better over time.
Edit: Oh, and for gym class, have machines like a cycle that ends up producing energy or running a generator. The students would need to exercise anyway ,and this again gives back to the school and saves money.
Do renovations that help in the future, large sky lighting areas that allow sunlight in, and use electric lighting only when necessary. Have a class for landscaping, and allow students to work on the school grounds.
I'm not saying they should be cheap labor - these would be elective courses, and in turn they get real training for jobs they may be interested in, or can at least fall back on. They get an education, and can be proud of what they can make.
I guess it depends on the state and the party/personal politics of the governor. A state with a small number of wildly above average property value communities and/or a governor who's run on populist measures could pull it off. Set a state wide property tax at some median rate and dump it into the state's general revenue stream, route some amount of money back to local governments on a per capita basis, and for kicks let the local governments refund the money directly back to their residents if they don't need to spend that amount on local governance. The rich communities would scream bloody murder, but I bet you could set things up so the majority of communities come out ahead and you stabilize things.
At an absolute bare minimum I could see this easily working for schools, if with more difficulty for all local revenue collection.
Also, any national politician proposing this can kiss his political career goodbye.
Rigorous Scholarship
I get the impression he wasn't saying that is a bad way to do it, necessarily. Just, practically speaking, it would be political suicide to push it.
But isn't this a large part of the problem?
Almost without a doubt, it is the problem.
And, the crappy thing, both of those statements are true at a superficial "right now" level. The system just plain has problems. Most of which are not the fault of anybody you can point at. And, worse, most people are fairly well removed from any individual community that however bad that community is right now, it isn't their problem.
Make a Public Education Tax (by State), and distribute those funds to schools based on number of children attending them. Allow tax breaks (not exemptions) for those sending their children to private schools.
Profit.
You wouldn't have to just have a flat rate of x per student- obviously a rural area with fewer students would need more per student, for example. That's the sort of thing that I'd like to be allocated by need, rather than just however much money the area has. DC is pretty exceptional, I don't think there's a lot of school systems that are both really bad and have tons of funding. And if they are, I don't think lack of funding is really the problem for them. On the other hand, I'd think that with an area as awful as inner city DC might benefit from having people outside the area running the schools, since clearly the local people that ARE in charge are not doing such a good job.
(theres a ID joke in here somwhere...)
First of all, churches in poor regions aren't going to have any more money than businesses or private individuals, and in all honesty they'll probably have considerably less. If you've ever lived in a rural region you'll know that they don't have the stadium-esque monstrosities that spring up in the suburbs of the Bible Belt. You'd be more likely to find a rather modest bricked building with ancient pews and an organ that hasn't worked in 30 years (or, in some cases, an actual wooden clapboard construction from the 19th century with no central heating or plumbing). Needless to say they don't have a lot of money to give in the first place because they, like their congregants, are poor.
Second of all, people are going to take it as an attack and it's not going to necessarily even benefit the taxed congregants in any tangible way, because church congregations tend to be disproportionally comprised of the elderly, who are of course on fixed incomes.
Finally, it's unconstitutional.
Unfortunately, we've ended up with some counties, like mine in SC (Newberry), who barely fund schools outside of the county seat anyway, despite having - I think - the highest property taxes in the state. If it were switched to any other system, I'd be afraid of the local schools getting any funding at all. It's just not something I would trust at a county level, at least in my personal case.
Then again, there's not an awful lot I'd trust to Columbia either, so I guess SC's just destined to circle the drain from now until the end of days.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)