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Opinion

Public education needs reforms

Lashic Patterson 
Opinion Columnist 

Something definitely stinks in the state of public education. 

During the Clinton administration, the nation saw many of its after school programs -- in the words of Darryl James -- begin to evaporate. 

The nation also saw affirmative action, scholarship programs and other financial aid programs established to help children of color and/or of poverty being called into question during the Bush administration. 

Instead of money being spent to help fund schools that serve a population of students who are of color, in poverty, or both, the United States is spending money on foreign issues and on building more prisons. One finds a prison population that consists mostly of blacks, Hispanics and -- you guessed it -- people who have poor socioeconomic status.

Based on many studies done by people like Jonathan Kozol, professor and author of such works as The Shame of the Nation, the nation's schools are becoming more segregated.

Kozol has said that "the desegregation of (black and Hispanic children from whites)… has now receded to levels not seen in three decades ... almost three-fourths of black and Latino students attend schools that are predominantly minority." 

This phenomenon of sorts is called the resegregation of schools. 

It is clearly unconstitutional because this goes against the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, which ruled, "in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal' has no place ... separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

The main culprits of this negative trend are the tracking system, zero tolerance policy, lack of funding to make public schools equal, discrimination and the lack of quality in teachers and resources -- i.e. computers, science labs, updated textbooks, etc. 

Instead of copying models from countries such as Japan, the U.S. government and Board of Education seem comfortable and unwilling to create a one-track system that places every child on the college track program that prepares students for college or whatever endeavor he or she chooses. 

Studies that have been covered by writers and scholars, such as Jason W. Osborne, show that students placed in lower tracks are mostly from destitute backgrounds and mostly of color. These students find it harder to escape as they pass from one grade level to the next, and are more likely to be labeled as problem children and graduate at much lower numbers than those in higher tracks.

And children who attend low to high poverty schools are aware of the difference in quality of education. 

Most of these students feel like their lives are being hidden from the public agenda and are being thrown away.

Send comments to dccampus@mail.uh.edu