Fine - you tell me what layers of the problem you would like to address.
I would- at a minimum- expect the children of the poor to get an adequate education, in adequate buildings, with adequate staff- the law requires them to be in school, and of course it isn't supposed to be separate and unequal- but right now, that's what we have.
So, since intermingling these children will never fly politically, and since no one is willing to pay for equality- how about Separate and Adequate to start with. I, personally, think that is setting the goal to low. but how could anyone disagree with that?
Just to do that will require money. Poor schools have old buildings, that require either large amounts of money for maintenance or they need new buildings. On average, in many urban areas, schools of poor children are as much as 30-40 years older than the schools for middle class and upper middle class children. There is no way- with the dismal property values around these inner city schools- for them to tax enough to fix these problems on their own. They already have taxes in these areas that far exceed taxes in the suburbs. But I'll give you an example from Texas- in one court case the children from a wealthy district EACH had 14 million in property behind them- in teh poor district that was suing each child represented only 20,000 of assessable property. That struck me as obscene. I don't know how it strikes you. |
