The Ira Glass podcast was a lot more organized and structured in comparison to the “home-made” podcast. The timing and sequencing was more intentional. Also, the home-made podcast did not have any real interviews for it’s own show. The home-made podcast had to pull scenes from different films such as “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” and other sources and add them into the radio show as snippets, whereas the “This American Life” podcast show was able to have actually people come and talk to them and share their experience. I assume because there was more establishment than the home-made radio show, they were able to pull together various resources and have individuals such as Jada represent themselves as first hand sources.
“This America Life” interview as student named Jada about her experience of transitioning amongst an inner-city school and a well funded suburban school. Jada’s experience was a great representation of difference amongst highly funded and poorly funded school districts. Jada was able to recognize how much “nicer” the suburban school was in comparison to her old school. She commented in the pod cast about how the new school was full of resources that her old school did not have. The suburban school had a computer lab and the classes she took were more interactive. Jada gave an example of her environmental class that led discussions outside on the grass so students could be more immersed in the learning process. Jada compared that experience to her old inner-city school that could only offer students pumpkin seeds to analyze and study as a part of their immersion into environmental studies. She noticed how much bigger the library was and felt that the students and the teachers took class time a lot more seriously. Jada added that she saw that “ it was more educational”. Jada was sent back to the inner-city school because the district found out that Jada was using her grandfather’s address to attend the suburban school. When Jada returned to the school in her community district, she recalls being bullied for using “proper” English and she felt that students were not as focused as they were in the suburban school district. Jada expresses how she sees the system to be a bit unfair to allow for her to receive a different quality of education in comparison to a school that is “3 miles away from me”. Ira Glass later explains how the way local and state taxes create an injustice amongst school districts that contain students from different socio-economic settings.
Jada’s experience really made me understand how segregation can successful exist if you apply just the right policies. It is upsetting to know that governments can legally segregate students but this time rather it be based off of your racial background, it is more so based off of income. I am still trying to understand how it is morally justified to tell a child that they are denied the right to a quality education because they are not wealthy enough. When Jada had to transfer back to her other school because of her geographical location, that made me upset and it made me question the moral argument behind excluding students that live within a certain radius. Having the opportunity to a great education is not the same as having an equal experience of quality education. I feel that this difference of funding amongst school districts needs to be readjusted in order for students to really gain from their academic settings. Some reforms that might assist students from all areas could focus changing the direction of taxes. One idea would be to allow the state government to distribute property taxes equally amongst schools so that way funding will not be based on the income of the community but more so the income of the entire state. This is an issue because historical culture in the United States has always been about Liberty from authoritative governments. There could be resistance from people who have the preconceived notions about private property and freedom to choose how taxes are spent. If people don’t like the idea that their taxes are not directly affecting their community, then this reform policy would have a difficult time being implemented. Another idea could extend diversity policies that colleges and universities use and apply them to grade schools. So perhaps a school district should take on a diversity council which analyzes various ways districts are perpetuating a lack of inclusivity in their schools. This reform could create more jobs and would hold employees within the school district more accountable.
Comments
5 responses to “Modern Day Segregation: The Poor Study in Another Corner”
I agree with the stance that poor education results from the poor being clustered together. However, I’m not so sure that it is the government’s fault or that establishing a diversity criterion for schools to meet is the right answer. The poor by definition are low-income families who can only afford a certain standard of living. A poorer person simply cannot buy a house in a nice area because it is too expensive for them. Therefore, they have to live in a place more financially feasible for them. Unless the government pays for them to live in a nice house, this will always be the case. So the case is not so much that they are being thrown together as it is that’s just how it works. In terms of establishing a diversity standard, that could make transportation more inefficient and possibly cost more overall to educate kids that are not from an areas close by. I just don’t think that this is so much a moral argument against the government as it is an issue of quality teachers not wanting to work for schools in poorer areas.
I agree with Bryson’s point that the reason for the tax discrepancies is the clustering of poor families in low-cost housing, which is “just how it works.” While I absolutely sympathize with Jada and feel that she (and the other students in the Akron public schools) should get as good an education as their neighbors, I understand the district’s decision to force Jada out. If every parent in Akron was unhappy with their child’s education and tried to enroll them in better districts, there simply would not be the space and resources. In addition, this would end up favoring the better off students in Akron, whose parents have the ability to drive them to and from a farther school every day (which includes having a car, paying for the extra gas, having a flexible work schedule to drop off/pick up, etc). The solution is not to move students around between schools, but to improve every school so that parents don’t feel the need to transfer their child (actually accomplishing this, however, is the challenge).
I think the problem is that people say that “it’s just the way it is” and then we stagnate and nothing happens. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Instead of having these two schools (3 miles away from each other!) be separate, why not have them collaborate with each other? On the Shanker Blog there was a post “Regular Public and Charter Schools: Is a Different Conversation Possible?” where the author brought up that in England, there is cooperation between nearby schools. Two Schools that have been judged of higher quality cooperate and mentor a school that has been struggling. The struggling schools send teachers to observe classrooms in the higher-performing school, and teachers from the higher quality school would go to the lower performing school and act as coaches and mentors. This way, the community wouldn’t be segregated across class lines, and they could work together to educate their kids better.
I would argue against the first two comments. If you continued to listen to the rest of the podcast, it went in deeper to talk about racial discrimination practiced amongst landowners and apartment managers. People who manage different neighbor hood buildings are more likely to offer housing to white female and white male buyers for reasonably affordable prices. It makes the neighborhood look better and the commodity value of the building rises when there are less people of color in homes. Also, there is a history in our country of discrimination towards people who live in “ghettos”. Red-lining was a common practice among banks in the 1960s which would deny people of financial loans if the bank saw that they lived in a low-income neighborhood. This was brought up in the podcast as a way to connect the similar act of denying a student from obtaining an education from a decent school if they live in a neighborhood to far off from that area. The issue is a lot deeper than saying “that is just the way it is” especially because of the history behind it. This is why I don’t agree with the argument that Bryson made stating, “the case is not so much that they are being thrown together as it is that’s just how it works”
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