Challenges of Educational Equality

Education can significantly empower the members of our society, for receiving a high-quality education can increase our knowledge of the world, enable us to achieve greatness at various crafts, and prepare us to obtain financial success and to flourish with prolific careers in a wide range of fields. Thus, education is often perceived as an equalizer that can prepare every member of our society with the opportunities and resources required to achieve professional and financial success, regardless of the backgrounds of each person. However, the imbalanced distribution of educational resources and the inferior condition of education that many children receive impair the equal opportunity qualities that the educational systems are intended to facilitate. Although education can be a great equalizer, the cultural problems of poverty, racism, gender inequality and immigration in education prevent the educational system of our culture from being able to serve as an equalizer or maximize the opportunities of success for many members of society.

A significant problem that prevents our education system from serving as an equalizer is the dramatic poverty levels that challenge many communities and that diminish the quality of the education that members of those communities can receive. Education can only exert a maximum benefit and provide children with opportunities for success if the schools that the children attend possess the advanced conditions and superior resources required to enhance the knowledge and develop the skills of the children. Although the school systems for wealthy and affluent neighborhoods tend to be equipped with high quality school systems, many research studies demonstrate that neighborhoods that are stricken with high poverty levels contain inferior school systems, and the lack of resources prevents the schools from being capable of preparing the students for opportunities of success. For instance, reports indicate that many schools located in impoverished communities are dramatically overcrowded with students, which diminishes the attention and resources that each student in the school can obtain. The schools also feature dilapidated classrooms with uncomfortable conditions that further diminish the quality of the educational experience for these kids. Additionally, the schools in poverty-stricken neighborhoods tend to possess old and obsolete textbooks, an insufficient amount of textbooks, inferior or non-existent libraries, and subpar teachers that are not equipped with the exceptional knowledge and experience required to effectively teach the students and to successfully inspire the students regarding the importance of knowledge acquisition (Kozol, 2013). Thus, education is failing to serve as an equalizer because schools in impoverished communities are hampered by a significant lack of resources that prevents them from providing the students with a high-quality education.

A primary reason why the school systems in these neighborhoods are in such inferior conditions is that the government has ignored and neglected the financial needs of the neighborhoods and of the schools. Federal, state and local governments have failed to provide adequate funding for these school systems, and without proper funding, the administrators of the schools are completely unable to correct the many institutional problems and lack or resource challenges that impair the educational quality of the schools (Kozol, 2013). The failure of our government to address the dramatic needs of these school systems has directly prevented education from serving as an equalizer. The students in impoverished neighborhoods desperately require a high-quality education so they can achieve greatness at a craft, obtain financial success and ensure that their respective families are able to enjoy the financial stability that they were not able to during their childhood. Thus, exceptional educational systems in poverty-stricken neighborhoods can help facilitate upward mobility and can help minimize the poverty rates for the succeeding generation. However, the subpar condition of the schools prevents the kids in impoverished neighborhoods from appreciating the importance of education, from obtaining the knowledge required to attend college, or from acquiring the skills needed to fulfill prestigious employment opportunities. Furthermore, the lack of resources in the impoverished neighborhoods also prevents the children from being able to afford or receive grants to attend college, and the inability to receive a college degree further discourages the children in impoverished neighborhoods from perceiving education as an equalizer that can help them achieve greatness within our society.

The division of labor and power among genders is another societal problem that hinders the status of education as a great equalizer. In a scholarly article written by Michael Messner, titled the Barbie Girls Versus Sea Monsters, Messner observes how the social construct of our society has established very distinct and different roles for both men and women. Messner utilizes the example of a soccer program and explains how the imbalanced gender roles of the program symbolize the division of labor and power among the two genders throughout our society. For instance, while the boy’s teams in the soccer league were often provided with very aggressive team names that indicated superior prowess and powerful abilities, the girl's teams are often provided with gentle and innocent names that indicate small stature and vulnerable cuteness. Additionally, the vast majority of the leaders in the organization were all men, while women fulfilled only the supportive motherly roles of the organization (Messner, 2000). This is a message that has been artificially constructed by our culture and that permeates through the power structures of our society in which men obtain dramatically more leadership positions than women in the sports community, the business industry, and the political system. Messner further argues that Barbie dolls further establish the division of labor and power within our society by instilling girls with the message that their only purpose or benefit to society is to be beautiful, to possess the correct physical proportions and to perpetuate feminine characteristics. Furthermore, the educational system and the parenting trends in our society also fulfill this societal construct by reinforcing the division of social roles for boys and girls (Messner, 2000). As a result, the social construct that we have established through our parenting and our educational system has facilitated a division of labor in which men are granted more powerful and prestigious positions than women, as women are often delegated to more supportive and motherly roles, and this cultural construct significantly impairs the ability of education to equalize the expectations and opportunities for all citizens.

The lingering perpetuation of racism that still permeates through society also prevents the educational system from serving as an equalizer. For instance, the development of abstract liberalism has facilitated a subtle and yet detrimental form of modern racism that is disguised and justified with political liberalism. For instance, abstract liberalist racism manifests itself with the politically liberal ideas of equal opportunity and capitalistic freedom of the market, which in turn encourages some white individuals to oppose affirmative action and to condone unbridled freedom of choice within society. However, the attempts to eliminate affirmative action further hamper the ability of minorities to enjoy the same impressive level of opportunities that white people can enjoy (Bonilla-Silva, 2005). Because unconscious and conscious racism still challenge our society, it can be very difficult for minority individuals to obtain college degrees and employment positions at the same rate as white individuals. Because affirmative action and the legal requirement for schools and companies to hire a sufficient amount of minorities and to facilitate diversity within the respective organizations, the attempts to reduce or eliminate affirmative action laws diminish the diversity of the organizations and makes it much more difficult for minorities to ascertain certain educational or professional positions. Thus, the modern form of racism that is encouraging people to utilize liberal notions of freedom to eliminate affirmative action laws further intensifies the imbalance among the races and further impairs the ability of the educational system to truly establish equal opportunity for the minority groups of our society.

Immigration is another example of how the educational system fails to function as a great equalizer for minorities. Studies indicate that many immigrant women are working as nannies to earn an income, and many of the women are working to feed their children either back in foreign countries or right here in the US. However, the reports also demonstrate that immigrant mothers must work for extremely low wages that prevent their families from obtaining financial stability and impair the ability of their immigrant children to receive a high-quality education (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, 1997). Thus, the low wages that many immigrants receive prevent their children from being able to attend college or obtain the knowledge and skills required to achieve success and fulfill successful careers.

For instance, many Mexican or Latino immigrants are working as street vendors. Of the approximately 10,000 street vendors in the Los Angeles area, the overwhelming majority of the street vendors are Latino immigrants (Estrada, 2012). Cultural inequality is a primary factor the requires immigrants to fulfill informal jobs such as street vendor operations, for the lack of educational skills and professional experience prevents the immigrants from being able to participate in the formal national economic system and obtain traditional occupations. Although the children of many immigrants are often more knowledge and often possess better English language skills than their parents, studies indicate that many immigrant children are impelled to utilize their advanced knowledge and skills to help increase the financial success of the family street vending business instead of using their superior abilities to excel in advanced placement classes, attend college, or thrive in a wide range of prestigious professional occupations (Estrada, 2012). Despite the effective assimilation of many immigrant children into the values and customs of the US society, the extremely low wages that the immigrant families receive still prevent the children from being able to benefit from a high-quality education or enjoy equal opportunities for success that other groups enjoy. Additionally, the difficulties that many illegal immigrants experience trying to obtain legal citizenship further exasperate the cultural problem in which the children of immigrants struggle to acquire a high-quality education or utilize the same opportunities that are available for other individuals.

The exceptional diversity of the US culture is a very powerful benefit, for the diversity enhances the perspectives of our citizens, facilitates the development of innovative ideas, and increases the number of citizens who can develop great ideas and perform various skills at an excellent level. However, we can only maximize the diversity of the culture and the potential of each citizen to reach greatness if we provide educational systems that provide each member of society with the advanced knowledge and superior skills required to achieve excellence within society. Although education should serve as an equalizer that provides all members of society with the same chances to learn about the world and obtain opportunities of success, the imbalance of poverty, racism, gender roles, and immigration have all dramatically prevented every member of society from receiving a high-quality education, from fulfilling prestigious employment opportunities, and from achieving prolific careers to enjoy financial success.

References

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2005). Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 34(6), 640-641.

Estrada, E. (2012). Changing household dynamics: Children's American generational resources in the street vending market. SAGE: University of Southern California, 20, 51-65.

Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Avila, E. (1997). I’m here, but I’m there: The meanings of Latina transnational motherhood. Gender & Society, 11(5), 548-571.

Kozol, J. (2013, December 11). Hitting them hardest when they're small. University of Wisconsin Platteville. Retrieved July 15, 2005, from http://www.uwplatt.edu/library/ereserves/hitting%20them%20hardest0001.pdf

Messner, M. (2000). Barbie girls versus sea monsters: Children constructing gender. Gender and Society, 14(6), 765.