Why do we tolerate bad schools in the US?

Great Debates
1

I am sooo glad my sons attend good schools here in Overland Park Kansas. For example the school has a theater department which produces several high quality musicals and plays every year. Every day after school probbaly 50 or more teens go to the theater area and work on all parts - costumes, performing, sets, props, sound, lighting, etc… And the thing is while yes, a couple of adults are around, the kids basically police themselves in the numerous rooms. Its the same in other departments - band, choir, sports, clubs, etc… lots of kids doing numerous activities with little or no trouble. Most of all, kids actually LEARN.

Now contrast that with Kansas City Missouri schools that are so awful! Most havent had a school play since the 70’s. Most dont have yearbooks. Almost no clubs. They pretty much have to kick the kids out of school at the end of the day to avoid trouble. If left alone their is trouble. Kids fail miserably and most of that is due to they just wont do any homework and have too many absences. They dont even have any good sports teams. They are barely accredited.

But why is that? What would it take to bring up these poor schools? It is so wrong that each kid in the US cannot get a good education.

Any ideas? I’m sure many of you all also know of some bad schools.

2

We tolerate bad schools because we tolerate homelessness and poverty, because we tolerate a justice system that overrelies on prison time, because our culture is fundamentally jacked in a way that means a lot of kids grow up with PTSD and other issues that make it incredibly hard for them to sit still and learn in the way that schools are set up for them to learn. We tolerate bad schools because we tolerate a school funding model in which rich kids get to go to well-funded schools, and poor kids don’t. We tolerate bad schools because we tolerate a federal system that overemphasizes standardized tests and corporate textbooks, and schools spend too much money and energy on these dreadful pedagogical approaches, especially struggling schools who are likely to be penalized for having impoverished students.

There are a lot of reasons we tolerate bad schools. Improving our educational system isn’t a quick fix; it’s a thorough revamping of many social structures.

3

AIUI, many bad schools are able to continue existing because they are able to “hold hostages” in terms of using a false-dichotomy argument: Either allow us to continue to exist (and, in fact, give us MORE funding,) or else think of all of these kids who will be forced to go without an education! (Ignoring the fact that most if not all of those kids could get an education elsewhere.)

It would be like trying to close a bad hospital - “think of all the patients who need healthcare!” When you provide a highly important service - be it education, healthcare, or whatnot - you can hold the public hostage with your demands. Give us this, this, and that (funding or whatnot) - or else you and your kids go without the services you need.

4

I think ultimately, most Americans just don’t value schools the same way people in Europe, Japan, etc do. We worship entrepreneurs who drop out of school to start their own businesses. There is no widespread sense of “if you do well in school, you’re set for life.”

And as already mentioned, families who do value education can send their children to private school.

Another issue I see is that school funding is local, and there is a lot of disparity on education spending per student.

5

Money. Time. Effort. Involved parents. Opportunity. Planning.

6

It’s very difficult to make everything equal. Humans aren’t all equal. Ever hear that joke about, “What do you call a doctor who graduated last in his class? Doctor.” Same’s true for teachers and school administrators.

Even barring that, you have the problem that we live in a free nation. We don’t have the draft for teachers. We have to be able to offer people salaries that are competitive. We don’t have assigned stations for teachers. Is your school in the worst, most inbred crazy-ville of drunk wifebeaters? Guess who wants to voluntarily move there: No one. Even if the state is willing to pay the same amount of money per student no matter where they live, economics demands that you have to pay significantly more to get average quality employees to move nearby and be willing to work in that location. If you can’t, then the only people you are going to get are the ones who can’t get work anywhere else.

Are the kids and their parents particularly interested in education? Is there any reasonable expectation that doing better or worse in school will really open up any prospects in their future? Are the students going to ignore your teachers and destroy the furniture for the lolz? Are the teachers allowed to punish the students for bad behavior or are they stuck teaching to the ones who care?

Ultimately, you have to pay significantly more for a school in a failed community just to make it up to snuff with everywhere else. And if you do that, what are you going to accomplish? Now we have a bunch of Native Americans out in the wilderness who are competitive with the national average and a bunch of inner-city youth who can do math but still distrust our financial institutions and who are going to have to deal with potentially racist employers. And, unless we have raised the budget across the nation, in order to spend more in bad places, we will have had to have lowered the amount that we are spending to help kids with better prospects, more interest in further education, and who are geographically in the right place.

The reality is that in a racist world or at least a world that still suffers the after-effects of racism, a world where there are places where your best hope in life is to take over your pappy’s liquor shop, etc. it’s a ‘misuse’ of resources to try and make schools better. There’s a correlation between the quality of a school and the view of the parents, the local community, and the county and state governments on the value of the students from that place. And that’s just a hard one to fight, since it’s sort of like gravity. People don’t want to pay taxes, so they’ll demand that the government spend frugally. In turn, the government is going to prioritize spending and administrative effort where there’s a sense of value. Economics and real-world considerations play in from there.

Ultimately, the best research that I have seen is to suggest integrating communities and breaking up ones that aren’t very good. Mix poor kids in with middle class ones and have them go to the same schools. Keep the community and schools averaged out within the cities. Unfortunately, that’s going to be impossible for the countryside. Eventually, we’ll have a sufficient population density that, like Japan and Europe, there’s no such thing as “the sticks”. But that might take another century or two to achieve.

7

It’s, like lots of the US systems, about worthiness, I think. Those kids live in poor areas where school boards don’t get enough money to have good schools. But in good neighbourhoods schools have stadiums, lights, bands and professional coaches. Those other kids are undeserving because they were born poor. Sucks to be them.

In other countries the money raised via taxes for schools is evenly distributed among the schools. So every student gets the same amount spent on them. It evens things out. Maybe no giant professional grade stadiums, or pro coaches. But EVERY kid in the state gets a solid education.

I honestly don’t think Americans are willing to make that ‘sacrifice’. The wealthy school’s parents won’t stand for one dime being diverted.

Not unlike the healthcare system, once you’re up the river, it’s kinda hard to reverse the flow.

8

I disagree. The sense of “if you do well in school, you’re set for life” is very strong but not achievable by many people for a variety of reasons. I would say it’s not widespread enough but entrepreneurs who drop out of school to start their own businesses are not worshiped unless they are successful. The successful ones may drop out of very good schools also. Sadly, there are plenty of parents who just don’t care enough, or when they do society doesn’t back up them up.

To the original question,** LHoD** summed it up pretty well. We have a short-sighted society with distorted priorities.

9

Because the Republican party has spent the last 40 insisting that taxes must never, ever, ever, ever be raised, especially if it would benefit poor people.

I mean, they aren’t really coy about it or anything. Just ask them.

10

Yet education spending has increased almost every one of those 40. Go figure.

Regards,
Shodan

11

By what measure?

12

Fortunately, the knowledge and skills that are needed haven’t changed any in the last 40 years either.

13

The people of an area have to make education a real priority. Not just say it is. If people are motivated enough they can learn in a cave or a hut. But how are you going to go into a poor and dysfunctional area and tell people that?

14

How are you measuring that increase? What are your cites?

15

Do you think the parents in the more well-to-do suburbs would tolerate bad schools? Of course not. It’s not “the US” since we have about 5,000 different schools systems in the country. Don’t expect the Dept of Education to do anything-- they amount to just a fraction of the spending on education in the country. This is, essentially, the same problem we have with Police Dept. It’s not something Washington can do much about because it’s a local issue. Generally not even a state issue, but a local school district issue.

16

In fact, they benefit from having “good schools” be a limited resource, because it makes their neighborhoods more valuable.

17

From what I’ve observed sending my own kid through public school, if the parents aren’t invested in their kid’s education you’re fighting a long hard battle.
You can have the best teachers, the best buildings, the best books, etc. but if the parents can’t be bothered to make their kids do homework, read on their own time, pay attention in class, and respect the faculty then you’re screwed.
Too many parents (if you want to call them that) are too busy with their own lives and believe that the responsibility of educating and disciplining their kids falls squarely on the school’s shoulders.
And if the parents don’t care then you’ve got a kid that sure as hell doesn’t care. And good luck teaching them anything.

18

Absofuckinglutely!

I don’t think it’s done on purpose, though, if that is what you are suggesting.

19

There’s this article about interviewing exchange schools about how US schools are different from their home countries:

20

I think you already covered this perfectly, but the thought that came to my mind when reading the OP was this:

Imagine you had a magic wand that could swap the student bodies from your typical Overland Park and Kansas City schools. All the facilities, services, funding, faculty, etc at the two schools remains as it is today, but the Overland Park students start attending a Kansas City school and vice versa. I suspect it would not take long for the Kansas City school to be perceived as the successful one and the Overland Park school to be seen as the failing one.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the previously-OP-and-now-KC student body did a little bit worse than before, with less funding for after-school programs, old textbooks, outdated facilities, etc (all problems that I imagine are routine in KC schools), but by and large many of them would still succeed. And the previously-KC-but-now-OP student body might get a few % points better with the gleaming facilities, modern textbooks, and abundance of after-school programs and caring teachers, but many of them would still “fail”.

All of that is to echo Hampshire’s post that, I believe the success / failure of students is often a product largely of their - and their parents’ - own making. The things that a government can fix are largely fiddling around the edges of that central driver of success / failure.