With And Without

Max Serna

Ms. Williams

English 1A

October 8 2013

With And Without

A child is affected in various ways when it comes to not having the materials, or resources that other wealthy schools are lucky enough to have, they get the feeling they are being pushed aside because they aren't capable of handling these resources. A poorly funded school with thousands of students, more than it should have requires much more than what a private school has to offer. Since these schools are surrounded by poverty and there really isn't much to be done in order to provide more resources, the students take the effect by feeling unworthy and like they can not succeed in school. With no materials for students, they can't possibly learn at the pace they are supposed to be at, making it take way longer to reach the standard skills that schools aim for. Slowly falling behind more and more each time, a student feels like they can't learn and feel very unsuccessful in school, “Slow readers in an eighth grade history class are taught from 15-year-old textbooks in which Richard Nixon is still president. There are no science labs, no art or music teachers.” (J. Kozol 77.), nobody can be expected to learn up to date events or read better with books that are way past due, the text of the book could be much more complicated than in the present, and at the level they are reading would not be so helpful. With the resources these students have anybody would feel pretty much helpless in school, having to struggle twice as much as wealthy students would. The problem here is that the students are just trying to catch up to where they are supposed to be, rather than also learning from what they read and incorporating it as part of their everyday dialect.

The following outcome of these materials not being present for the students, especially when they are already feeling discouraged of success in their education is missing school. Children are unaware of how to deal with these things, in their head its best to not show up in class, they feel like they shouldn't bother since nothing has changed and they are already failing. They feel like the easy way out of dealing with this is to simply give up on their education since nobody will help them or offer anything to them in order to motivate them to keep going. After constant truancy in school with no excuse or any notice it is safe to say that the student will drop out if it hasn't already happened. As drastic as it may appear, it is actually a big consequence of schools not having what the students require in order to be successful and move forward in their educational career. These signs all start in early ages, its not like they all happen during high school like we would imagine, many students who attend very poor schools with nothing but the walls holding the building up tend to start the signs that lead to dropping out, “By fifth or sixth grade, many children demonstrate their loss of faith by staying out of school.” (J. Kozol 70), students who have not even had a chance to experience school properly the way they should drop out, they make their new lives on the street uneducated. The fact that 12 year old's are already thinking so negative about themselves reflects how bad the conditions in middle schools are, with no way to help these poor helpless children. The presence of materials in schools actually do matter when it comes to keeping students focused on their education, and also in providing the help they need to improve weather in reading, or math, dropping out shouldn't be a solution to consider especially from young middle schoolers.

Another possible effect of not having the necessary resources can be that the students feel like they are unworthy of having more things in order to succeed, as if they did not deserve such resources because they are not at the same academic level that the rest of the wealthy suburb schools are at. Since these schools are located in cities full of poverty the students may figure that they will not get any better materials than what they have because none of the rich schools want to get involved with the poor schools, so they may feel that they are not considered important just because of living conditions. The reactions of parents say a lot of when it comes to being asked to help fund the less fortunate district schools. These parents do not realize how they affect the students, “By a nine-to-one ratio, according to a recent survey, suburban residents resist all efforts to provide more money for Chicago’s schools.” (J. Kozol 83), selfishness roams around those neighborhoods, keeping all their money in order to give only to the schools which actually have good reputations and isolating the fact that other schools need the funds much more. The students take this as them not being good enough to receive help from people in the suburbs, therefore making them feel like they don't deserve it. The way the districts see the children that live in poverty affects how the students think of themselves, so when they notice that the wealthy don't think they are capable of ever improving, the students themselves start to think the same way and begin to bring themselves down as well.

In comparison to how students feel without the resources they should have in school, students like the wealthy who do have these resources feel way more positive than ever in school, with all the technology and new books who could blame them. In the case that students in poverty did obtain these materials they need and had more money for books, computers, and more classes to add to their schedule, there would be a great gain in confidence from these students. There would be no reason to drop out if they were to have everything they need. There would be a great amount of improvement in the academics of the students, and a whole world of opportunities would open up for them with all the help they would receive. Most students that are actually committed to learning would walk with their heads up high after reaching the levels of the rich students, “By the time they enter ninth grade at New Trier High, they are in a world of academic possibilities that far exceed the hopes and dreams of most schoolchildren in Chicago.” (J. Kozol 79), students education would be good enough to make them attract four year colleges, rather than two year colleges which most students in poor neighborhoods can't get into. When schools have all these resources available, students do not have a reason not to succeed in school, other than it being their personal choice, but with help and all the materials needed at a students reach they can manage to make something of themselves.

With the availability of so many resources for students, the performance level expected is much greater, especially as students enter higher grades. Schools will always see that a student meets the expectations and once they have they set a higher goal for the students to reach. The resources available make students more competitive towards each other because they all want to prove who is more intelligent and of course they want to be rewarded. Since schools in the poor districts do not have any outstanding students because of their lack of materials, they are forced to compete with one another because they are already at high academic levels. With all the help provided these students gain knowledge that is beyond what they should know, competition within the school will increase the chances that a student will be granted scholarships and go straight to a university, “They will compete against each other and against the graduates of other schools attended by rich children.” (J. Kozol 82), these children are already on another level, they are competing for their future in order to keep obtaining all the help they are offered once they head to college. The more resources a school has to offer the better chances a student will have to go to a higher school with even more to offer, its like a cycle that only keeps improving and increasing the chances of a student being successful in the future. Simply having more books in a school can really change the performance in a child's academic skills, the wider the variety the wider the knowledge for the schools students.

Everything seems like it is positive when it comes to having all these resources, students feel more confident in their learning, the can trust the teachers to actually educate them with what they need to know, they have enough resources to outshine most schools and compete with one another in order to get into great colleges. To every good there is a bad, in this case it would be that with so many resources, funds and new materials the students may feel superior to the rest of the less fortunate schools. It can possibly get to their heads and make them feel like anyone below them is not worthy of having an education, or at least one as high as theirs. Its a big issue because if there were a student who came from the projects and attended one of the rich schools everyone would feel like the school is losing its value, “The parents from Dearborn Park insist that, if the school is attended by the children from the projects-these are the children who have lived there all along-the standards of the school will fall.” (J. Kozol 74), the parents as well as students don't believe that anyone besides the wealthy can be successful, and will go out of their way to make sure the children from the projects stay out of their schools. Since the wealthy kids have always been ahead in school from day one, they feel like they can simply treat students from the projects like they are nothing but poor, dumb kids, which is very ignorant because they all have the potential to overachieve if they simply had more funds to provide for materials. Sometimes having all these resources isn't as great as it seems due to the fact that students will let them get the best out of them instead of the students getting the best out of what they are offered.

Many people or schools will not worry about any other school rather than their own, or in the parents case the school their children attend. Wealthy schools funding money to low income schools is out of the picture, since they want to improve their own school of course they won't lend out a single sent for another school. It is up to the school itself to take action, together all poorly funded schools can demand that all schools should be equally funded, rather than giving out money based on scores for tests that do not prove anything. The Board of Educations may see everything just fine with the way schools are funded, but in reality it is only because they pay attention to the schools with the most potential rather than building the potential of another. The students are all capable of the same knowledge, so therefore they should all be given an equal chance, “ “Why...,” asks the city's Board of Education, “should our students receive less” than do “similar students” who live elsewhere? “The inequity is clear.” ” (J. Kozol 102), it is not fair that simply because of the area where the students come from they have to receive less money for their education, it should be the wealthy kids who should receive less since their parents have plenty of money. Equality in schools is what would need to occur in order to balance out the funding issue, and to do that all the schools who are in the projects would have to unite and make a statement, that they want to be able to achieve more and have more to offer their students in order to have them succeed.

Wealthy schools tend to have more than enough materials than they need, some which they do not use because they’ve replaced with newer materials. If they have no use to these resources, they can do a small good deed and donate what they do not need to schools who actually need materials. The idea is that instead of having greed in the education system there should be a connection, where the schools can help one another out rather than try and outdo each other for money that the government makes off of them. Simple donations of books could greatly help students who have very low reading skills, and no books that are academically fit for them to learn from, “While a suburban school library is likely to have 60000 volumes, a Chicago school library “is lucky to have 13000 volumes,” says the Sun-Times.” (J. Kozol 94), wealthy schools have an enormous amount of materials that they most likely won't use due to the fact that they frequently improve their materials. Wealthy schools can take all the old stuff they don't want and distribute it equally to the schools most in need, like computers that they don't have use for anymore, things that can definitely boost less fortunate schools. This solution would also put the wealthy school on a new level that doesn't involve high scores on tests or reading, but in a new level of kindness in a way, it would be more respected by those who do not live in the suburbs.

Further action to be taken which is quite more adequate for a situation like this is to simply show wealthy schools what its like to not receive any funds. It may seem unfair for the wealthy schools, but in reality it would be the best fit solution since the schools in the projects have always had nothing and still continue to have nothing, its only fair to do the same. Since parents already pay high amounts of money there may not be too much a difference in the schools performance or resources except that they would no longer receive aid from grants. Cutting aid for schools by the Government may have its toll on both ends of the schools, both rich and poor, but with time there would have to be a situation where the parents cannot keep funding and have to realize how other schools in poverty have had it and possibly requesting an equal fund for schools. The problem is that the parents pay for most of the schools expenses through taxes, “Nonetheless, Town and Country gives New Trier’s parents credit for a “willingness to pay enough . . . in taxes” to make this one of the state’s best-funded schools.” (J. Kozol 81), this could cause a downfall for other schools who have no funds besides that of the Government. Regardless it is worth a try to cut everyone off just so they can realize how much a struggle it is when there is no financial help to obtain the resources needed in school.