Justin Westdyke
- Form: Compare this to the more”home-made” podcast. What about the Ira Glass podcast makes it compelling?
In the Ira Glass podcast, one of the first things I noticed in comparison to the Education Radio podcast was its lack of slightly cheesy intro music. The podcast just started right up with the narrators commentaries and then went right into Jada’s story. Jada’s story was broken up by short comments from the initial narrator, which definitely helped to chop up Jada’s speaking very effectively, while also reiterating and introducing new points to Jada’s story that the authors of the podcast clearly wanted to capitalize on and stress.
Another aspect that definitely proved to be compelling was the fact that the introduction focused on a personal narrative. It is always much more intriguing to hear someone’s personal account, rather than to hear from the same qualified experts who restate points that we can easily reread in a book. With a proper combination of narrator commentary and personal account reflection, the introduction effectively captivated the audience while explaining some of the main points of their argument about the differences between one student’s experiences with public and charter schools.
- Content: Reflect on Jada’s experience switching from a poorly funded inner-city school to a well-funded suburban school. What kind of reforms might help address this problem?
Jada’s experience switching from a poorly funded public school to a better-funded suburban school was not all that surprising, unfortunately. Jada’s account of daily class structure was revealing of some of the major difference between the two schools she attended. The suburban school offered more opportunities for hands-on learning, and more opportunities for creative expression.
In terms of reform possibilities, one of the major issues might be the fact that school budgets are primarily controlled by property taxes. Local property tax rates essentially determine the funding a school will receive. In an already poorer inner-city area, therefore, the school will receive less money based on its student demography. In the suburban area, with houses that are valued greater, the suburban school will receive more money to work with. As has been argued by some reformers, this may lead to further devaluation of an area’s property worth, which then leads to a downward cycle and the ultimate failure of the inner-city school. If property taxes of a whole district or even state area were allocated into one major fund and then distributed out equally throughout the schools in that area or state, it might be easier to ensure that schools located in poorer areas were not being under-funded and were receiving the resources that other schools were receiving.
Comments
3 responses to “Ira Glass’ Podcast- Inner-city vs. Suburban Schools”
Justin,
I really liked your point about property-taxes being a perpetuating cycle of creating poor performing schools and keeping them from improving. I agree that property-tax is an area of reform that would need addressing.
However, I wonder if splitting up property taxes evenly among districts in the state would be a viable solution. It might be more realistic that poorer areas get more funding. I’m stereotyping here, but poorer students often need more from schools to “catch them up” to a level that parents have already achieved with more-well off students (i.e. parents increase literacy, vocabulary, etc.).
Regardless, of this difference in need, splitting up property taxes unevenly would still lead to unfairness between schools. Would this unfairness be more warranted that the current unfairness seen in schools with simply using property tax?
I find your idea for creating a “pooled” property tax fund interesting – as it is something I have never thought of. However, there would definitely need to be some adjustments for each school: for example, the size of the school. One way this might be averted could be to take those pooled funds and divide them amongst the total number of students planning on being enrolled, and then distributing the funds to each school within the state based on the number of students they plan to have enrolled. This way each school is (at least from the local tax fund) receiving an equitable amount per student. Obviously this is a very socialist policy, and probably wouldn’t bode very well for policymakers and the people in charge who are likely benefiting from the way the system currently works. It is, however, an interesting concept, and I’d be curious to learn more about if it has ever been proposed, if there are reasons why it might be ineffective, etc.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he just bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!