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Show HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS SPRING 2001 schools at a greater disadvantage because most come from poor families where the parent has little education. For example, in Washington, DC almost half the black adults lack a high school diploma and unemployment is nearly four times greater in the highly segregated southwest region of the district than in the rest of the Washington area (Turner 1999). These outside factors take their toll in every aspect of inner city schools. Intense segregation and poverty are well connected with low academic achievement. Inner city schools have both higher and earlier drop out rates. In Philadelphia, for example, the drop out rate is four times higher in the city than in the surrounding suburbs. In Los Angeles, e.g., 55 percent of blacks drop out by the tenth grade, but the white suburban drop out rate is significantly lower (Orfield et al. 1996, 66-7). Inner city students also score much lower on standardized tests than their suburban counterparts. The National Assessment of Educational Progress found that 19 percent of disadvantaged inner city students had "adept" reading skills, but in suburban schools 50 to 55 percent of the students had "adept" skills. In math the difference in scores is even starker. In Chicago, the average suburban school had 35 to 40 percent of its students in the top quartile on nationally normed math tests. Chicago's inner city schools had a high of 22 percent for third graders and a high of 8 percent for tenth graders (Orfield et al. 1996, 65). It is difficult to decide which figure is more frightening, the gulf between suburban and inner city schools or the 14 percent drop from the third to tenth grades in the inner city schools. When comparing elementary schools, one finds that only 23 percent of students in low-income minority schools scored above the national median. However, 74 percent of suburban students scored above the national median (Orfield et al. 1996, 65). These tests scores make it evident that inner city students are not challenged or stimulated as much as their suburban counterparts. They are not given the same opportunity to succeed; rather, they are doomed to fail in such a school system. One may argue that segregated inner city school children's lower performance on standardized tests does not mean that they are receiving an unequal education or fewer opportunities. But one needs only to examine the curriculum and teachers to know that these students are receiving an inferior education. These students do not receive preparation for college. Inner city schools have trouble finding qualified teachers. For instance, 40 percent of inner city school principals have difficulty finding qualified science teachers, while only 15 percent of suburban principles have that problem (Orfield et al. 1996, 69). Suburban schools offer higher pay and mostly do not have the problems associated with poverty. For example, 16 percent of teachers at white affluent suburban schools said they did not have all the materials they needed to teach, compared to 59 percent of those in higher poverty, inner city schools. As a result of this and other problems, better-qualified teachers work in suburban schools, rather than inner city schools (Orfield et al. 1996, 68). When inner city schools do find more qualified teachers to teach higher-level classes, they do not have enough students who are prepared to take such courses. Thus, courses are either discontinued or "watered down" with unprepared students. It is not surprising that suburban high schools offer three times as many high-ability or advanced placement courses (Orfield et al. 1996, 68). In addition, schools plagued by poverty have to spend most of their money on remedial courses, teaching students in other languages, and combating outside problems associated with poverty such as crime, violence, and homelessness (Orfield et al. 1996, 67). There are few differences in elementary school curricula, but by middle school the inequalities between the two systems begin to emerge. Suburban middle schools are more than twice as likely to teach algebra and foreign languages (Orfield et al. 1996, 68). Both courses are necessary for adequate college preparation. Also, UCLA researcher Jeannie Oaks has found that 59 percent of predominately minority math and science classes are general level courses while 85 percent of predominately white classes are advanced or higher-ability courses (Orfield et al. 1996, 69). Segregated inner city schools are thus inferior in terms of their resources, the level of competition their students receive, quality or preparedness of their teachers, and in the curricula they offer (Orfield et al. 1996, 64-71). Jim Crow may be dead, but segregation and inequality still reign in the American public school system. When this nation offers its poor and minority people an inferior education, it is only perpetuating a violent cycle of joblessness, poverty, crime, and destitution. This cycle will only grow in severity as public schools enroll more and more poor minority students. This cycle can be broken through an equal and adequate education for all. An African-American or Latino student does not gain some marvelous benefit from sitting next to a white student, rather he gains access to the institutions and opportunities that were denied to him in a completely segregated school, such as adequate preparation for college (Orfield et al. 1996, xv). A college education would allow him to escape a life of poverty. This nation cannot raise tolerant responsible citizens, if it gives only some of its people a quality education. SEARGING FOR SOLUTIONS: FROM VOUCHERS TO MAGNET SCHOOLS Now that one knows what has been happening in America's public school system and why it needs to be fixed, one can examine the solutions. The solution that has thrust education onto the political center stage is vouchers. School vouchers are government grants to parents to send their children to private schools (Moe 1995, 1). They are proposed as the save all solution to failing inner city schools. In Cleveland, Ohio, "the city's voucher program allowed four thousand children to escape some of the worst public schools and instead attend private or parochial schools" (New Republic 1999, 11). The key word is "escape," that is exactly what vouchers are. 69 |