Equitative Public Education

I figure I might as well update this blog with what I consider to be a real substantive reflection: What have I learned almost three weeks into my stay? This is not necessarily a personal reflection of life lessons I have learned, its too early to fully determine those. Rather, this is an account of what I have observed and read in respect to the relationship between education and equality.

The issue of equality has been a recurring theme in my research and observations. It has been present in the academic discourses and blogs I have had the pleasure to read, as well as been somewhat present in the observations I have made (although the observations have been more one sided than I would like...I need to fix that). The question I`ve been asking myself is simple: What does equality imply in an educational context? As humans, we are not equal by nature; each of us has a set of skills, traits, and experiences that differentiate us from other members of the human race. This inequality, according to Rawls (to whom I was introduced here), is one that is good for us to accept as necessary. For example, some people are natural born leaders because of their ability to shoulder great responsibility and, as such, they become more esteemed and set themselves apart from others. The point of equality is that, from the beginning, everybody has the option to be that person. Whether or not they have the traits to be such a leader will be determined by time, not by lack of opportunity.

That's the goal of equitative public education: to provide a level playing field, an equal starting point from which people are given the freedom to choose the path they want to take and deal with the consequences that arise from said path. The people who are able to disinguish themselves do so through personal effort and natural ability, not through unfair advantages. Yet, equitative systems of education are hard to find. The Chilean system suffers from an overall lack of quality, but it is often the case that members of the higher income groups tend to perform better on standardized tests. On the same note, the US system suffers a similar calamity. Due to the school district system, in which families pay taxes that are used as revenues by the school district to which they belong, schools located in areas with high incomes are often able to collect more revenue and spend more per student than schools in lower income districts. What results is that kids living in high income neighborhoods, who are most likely from proseperous families, tend to perform better in school than those from low income neighborhoods.