Unequal Education: Failing our Children

3/15/2011

We watched a video today about two students going to two different schools blocks away from each other, but both were very different. One school was called Riverdale and it was a predominantly white school. A student named James attended Riverdale and the documentary film crew followed him throughout a few of his school days. The other school that was compared to Riverdale was called South Fordham a predominantly black school, and the student that the documentary followed from that school was named Lonnie.

At the beginning of the video, Lonnie was afraid to go outside to dump the garbage at his own apartment building. Lonnie’s mom talked about how just days earlier a little girl got into a fight outside in the street. When we visited James house, however, he said he liked his neighborhood and his house was much larger than Lonnie’s family apartment. I can’t believe that those two homes are as close a few blocks away like the video said, because the neighborhoods are so different. I was also sad to see that one of Lonnie’s teachers was teaching a subject that he was unqualified to be teaching. Along with the unqualified teacher, Lonnie did not have access to microscopes in science class or other materials that are beneficial in a classroom. While at James school, he could use microscopes and many other things Lonnie did not have at his school. I don’t think school funding should be based on the amount of taxes paid in the area of the school district because it creates issues, shown in these two schools. It gives a head start and an unfair advantage to the children in richer areas. Both kids had the same ambitions, but one had a greater potential to achieve them just because his family lived in a richer area.