Education system of the United States of America Essay

The education system of the United States of America is divided into four major categories; the children join primary school at the age of five years. Upon completion of the primary education the Americans join secondary school which consists of seven years. The students who are through with the secondary level are then enrolled in the undergraduate schools. Students in these schools are offered either with an associate degree which takes two years or a bachelor’s degree which normally takes four years. Finally for the students who have successfully completed their bachelor’s degree and wish to continue enroll in the graduate schools where they can either pursue either a master’s degree which normally takes a period of two years or a doctorate degree for those students who wish to advance their education. Depending on the course the student opts to take the doctorate degree can take as little as three years or as many as six years to complete (Bobo, pp 84). Inequality in the education system of US Inequality in education is said to occur when the education quality that is provided to students is highly related to their class or status. The education system in the United States of America have instead of reducing inequalities existing in the society, the schools together with other educational establishments have to some extent enhanced the perpetuation of race and class boundaries. The allocation of resources in an unfair and unequal manner, to students with diverse socio economic backgrounds, has largely contributed to lowering of test scores and low enrollments rates in colleges. In the United States of America, resources availability and quality is determined by the quantity of funding received by the schools. This funding is determined largely by the amount of taxes that the home owners pay; almost half of taxes collected from home owners are used in the funding of the schools at the district level (Ferguson, pp 77). Neighborhoods that are more affluent collect more property taxes which imply that the schools in these areas receive more funding. Despite the fact that this seems to be quite favorable a serious problem comes up when the circumstances are reversed. The neighborhoods that are predominantly inhabited by poor population, the properties are cheaper and thus the property taxes obtained from such neighborhoods are also less. This therefore means that the schools in these regions are poorly funded and yet they are the ones which the students from the poor families attend. This clearly shows a lot of inequality since the students from the rich families who will in most cases will be living in wealthy neighborhoods will attend school which are well funded by the taxes collected from home owners, whereas their colleagues from the poor families residing in poor neighborhoods will attend poorly funded schools and thus both categories of students will not receive the same quality of education. The above situation reality is that the resources distribution among the schools depends on the socio economic status of both the students and the parents. Therefore, the education system of the United States of America enhances in the widening the existing gap between the poor and the rich. Over the past few years as a result of falling short of social mobility this gap has increased further (Bobo, pp 168). The social mobility is quite rigid in US; this mobility refers to the movement of people in a certain class status from one generation to another. The socio mobility is highly related to the rich tags, they create a notion that anyone with determination and works hard is able progress upward regardless to their back grounds. On contrary to this notion, the economists and sociologists have concluded that social mobility has stagnated or even decreased in the past three decades, some of the declines in the social mobility can only be attributed to the US education system which is stratified. The education system in the country forces the students from the low income families into schools that are not ideal; these students are in turn not offered with equal education motivation and schooling opportunities as those students from rich families. This repeated pattern of intergenerational school choices for child and parent results in social mobility stagnation (Kozol, pp 105). The models showing the attainment of social status have always assumed that social mobility is a contest which is open and that it is based on value as calculated over several years of technical ability and schooling. The open contest made the assumption that there was an equal opportunity to basic education. The Supreme Court made a ruling that schools that were separate but equal were unconstitutional; those opposed to integration had to find new means and ways of denying the basic education. If the schools being attended by the blacks and whites could not be segregated then the classes too could not and thus both the whites and the blacks should attend the same schools and classrooms failure to which will amount to denying equality in education to all students (Kozol, pp 98). Social immobility is more to the children who follow their parents’ footsteps and fail to obtain higher education. Such choices finally make the children from the poor families fail to access higher education. The reasons for the children from poor back grounds opting not to continue with higher education have a lot of explanations. The government on its part does not create enough awareness among the children equally and hence the children from lower class status grow up with fewer expectations in life, because such has not been properly instilled in them early in life by the education system that exists in the country. The education system of the United States of America lets down the students from the low income bracket since it does not offer them equal access to opportunities and resources as it does to those students from wealthy families. Studies have also shown that such programs such as the tracking education and gifted education are further used to manage the separation of those with lower skill levels from the ones with higher skills, which in most cases ends up separating the poor from the rich. In fact, most of the students in the program of the gifted students are from middle class families. This does not mean that it is only the rich students that are smart and the poor ones are not, but it simply implies that the program is used to enhance education inequality among the students on the basis of their back grounds it also shows that the students from the poor back grounds are not offered equal opportunities as the rich ones in their childhood development to enable them build up certain skills. The upper and middle class students grow up in an environment that foster their educational and intellectual development simply because their parents can afford to take their children to the museums, engage them in extra curricular activities, and pay private teachers to attend to their children. The poor children do not have access to such an integrated learning approach and the same is not provided in the education system of the US (Greenhouse, 124). The evidence of the fruits of inequality of the education system in the United States of America and especially in Chicago can be shown by the demographics and enrollment rates in colleges. It is highly influenced by the socio economic status of the students, in a study that was carried out in Chicago which examined the top colleges it found out that the following student representation. Seventy five percent of the students were from very rich socio economic backgrounds while the rest came from the poor back grounds. This is a good example of how much inequality exists in the education system of the United States of America and particularly Chicago (Lui, pp 220). The gap in the education system of US just like the chasm of wealth is growing wider and wider each year. An equal opportunity of accessing quality education has become a perennial dream for most of the progressive people and the working class. This dream has been undermined by forces of neo conservative. Despite the fact that there was the adoption of free education in the public schools by the US government in the past, an equal opportunity for quality education is yet to be achieved. Education in the public schools has always been provided for free, although in the past it was not free to the Native Americans, slaves, migrants, student with special needs, pregnant girls and other groups of people which were neglected (Bobo, pp 180). Although slavery came to an end, inequality in the education system still persists, despite the fact that it was one of the major rights the former slaves fought for. The former black slaves thought that by getting access to quality education they would be in a position to integrate socially with other Americans, but this remains a dream that is yet to be realized even though more than a century has elapsed since slavery was abolished. Black children have to date been denied a chance to access quality education since a vast majority of them come from poor families and the education structure in the united states of America is such that it offers a more favorable environment to rich students and denies the poor ones a chance to attend good schools which are well funded with ample resources to enable the students acquire quality education. As a result the black children have for a long time been prevented from succeeding academically and finally succeeding financially after school which applies to the whites (Kozol, pp 112). In Chicago as it is in most parts of the United States the blacks cannot afford to live in rich neighborhoods and since the schools receive much of their funding from the collection of property taxes from home owners, very little is collected in areas inhabited by the black population which in turn implies that their children will attend poorly funded schools which will in most cases lack proper facilities to enhance a smooth learning process. When students are educated in facilities lacking enough facilities they will end up performing poorly and thus have limited chances of excelling academically and in very rare cases will they be in a position to join credible institutions of higher learning. Such students will therefore, in future not be able to secure good white collar jobs and thus they are likely to earn much less in future as compared to those students who were in a position of attending schools that had enough facilities. Therefore, poor students will in future not be able to take their students to good schools since they cannot afford and hence their children will follow in their foot steps and the poverty chain will continue (Ferguson, pp 152). The education system in the United States aids in the maintenance of the existing class structure. Ever since slavery was abolished, the education system has been used by the racist whites as an instrument of enabling them maintains their throne by maintaining a poor black population. The ideas that the minority are inferior have been spread all over the country for decades and the less informed people have always fallen into the trap, as they are made to believe that intelligence and superiority is determined by one’s race. Skewed data has been used to assert such claims and to spread the ill intended ideas (Kozol, pp 144). Conclusion The education system of the United Sates of America is amounts to inequality as students are not given an equal opportunity of accessing quality education. This is mainly as result of the funding system which has been adopted which denies poor students a chance to attend schools that are well funded and thus have ample facilities to enable the to excel academically. The students from rich socio economic back grounds are in a position to attend well funded schools since such students will in most cases live in rich neighborhoods and since school funding originates from property taxes their schools will be well funded as more taxes will be collected in their neighborhoods. The fruits of this inequality are very evident in the enrollment rates of students in institutions of higher learning as statistics reveal that majority of students in these institutions are from the rich back grounds. The education system of the United States thus leads to inequality and denies the poor students an equal chance as the rich ones. Work cited: Bobo, Kimberley A. ; Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid – and What We Can Do about It (2009): New Press, ISBN 1595584455. Ferguson, Ann Arnett; Bad boys: public schools in the making of black Masculinity (2001): University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472088491. Greenhouse, Steven; The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker (2008): Random House Inc, ISBN 1400044898. Kozol, Jonathan; The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005): Crown Publishing Group, ISBN 0307339416. Lui, Meizhu; The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U. S. Racial Wealth Divide (2006): W. W. Norton, ISBN 1595580042.