Poorly Funded Public Schools Blog

School Resources
Do materials really matter? Why or why not?
The materials used in school obviously matter, otherwise, they wouldn't be required materials. The children are supposed to have all the resources that they need in order to learn. How is a student supposed to learn science when their materials are popcorn poppers or scraps from the recycling? It must really hurt the children's learning spirit once they realize that the materials that they are given are literally garbage when compared to the materials given to the students at the higher-end schools.

"A chemistry teacher at the school reports that he does not have beakers, water, Bunsen burners. He uses a popcorn popper as a substitute for a Bunsen burner, and he cuts down plastic soda bottles to make laboratory dishes." (Savages Inequalities, p. 64)

Bad Teachers
What affects do bad teachers have on a child?
Bad teachers can have a drastic negative effect of their students. If a teacher has little to no interest in his or her class then that will be reflected onto the students. For example, if a teacher seems bored while going over a lesson then the students will not pick up on it and will also be just as bored, if not more, almost like the teacher is simply teacher them how boring this subject can be. Where as, if a teacher shows a lot of interest in the subject and tries to make it seem more fun, the students will immediately pick up on the teachers energy  and will be more interested in the daily lesson.

"'We have teachers,' Mrs Hawkins says, 'who only bother to come in three days a week. One of these teachers comes in usually around nine-thirty. You ask her how she can expect the kids to care about their education if the teacher doesn't even come until nine-thirty. She answers you 'It makes no difference. Kids like these aren't going anywhere.'" (Savage Inequalities, p. 63)

Protecting the Wealthy By Providing a Lesser Education to the Poor
What makes this observation true?
This observation is true because in Chicago a lot of the school systems are already unfair by providing the schools, where children whose parents have lower incomes, with much less resources than are available in the richer areas, and then when there was a new condominium development built in the poor area and more wealthy, mostly white, families moved in they requested that a new school be built, and the city built it for them, though they wouldn't consider building it before the new families moved in. Then after the new school was built the new families in the area had the nerve to say that they did not want the children who had originally lived in that neighborhood to attend the new school so that the poorer kids would not be mixed in with their own children, but the school was, on the other hand, willing to let students from out of the area attend for their fine arts program.

"The parents from Dearborn Park insist that, if the school is attended by the children from the projects - these are the children who have lived there all along - the standards of the school will fall." (Savage Inequalities, p. 74)