It's 2022, why are schools still segregated?

    Still in 2022, there has been a lack of progress when it comes to schools with a majority of minority students. Almost six decades ago, the Supreme Court had declared that “Separate but equal” in school was rightfully unconstitutional, we are still seeing issues in the performances and opportunities in black students. Black and Latinx students are more likely to attend a school where 60% or more of the students live in poverty than white students. Because of the poverty levels surrounding these schools, students are faced with less experienced teachers and poor resources which disrupts the students from having a good education and makes you question whether or not we are connected and unequal in terms of education.

As educators, we should learn about what different privileges look like in different schools. This will help us see how our advantages from our different life experiences result in us having different opportunities in life. This can be attained by listening to each other and sharing history. After communicating with fellow educators, it is important to have these types of conversations with your students. Letting students know that they shouldn’t be comfortable with giving each other labels and having their voices silenced can be a difficult but necessary discussion to have. 

What does money really have to do with it?

    Public school funding is not equal. A little less than half of all schools funding comes from their local sources rather than from the state or federal sources. This determines how good of an education a child has is based on where they live which isn’t fair especially because children in lower income places typically need more resources which results in more funding that they aren’t able to have. Students' social classes should not determine whether they go to a nicely funded school. It should however, determine the resources that schools provide them like being able to get free or discounted lunch, free books, or backpacks and items that they need for school that can be given to these students.

It is important to make sure that every school is receiving the equal amount of funding no matter where the school is located. Texas for example has an unconstitutional way of funding for it’s schools. Some schools in Texas are offered more solely because they are located in a better area. These funding disparities have led to numerous court decisions trying to come up with some sort of way to equally distribute money fairly to all schools. The problem is that Texas schools are funded based on property taxes which can be different all around. One school can be a well funded small low income school with a few hundred students whereas down the street you can have a poorly funded big low income school with thousands of kids that struggles to satisfy their students' needs. Because funding is based on property taxes, Texas school funding is seen as unconstitutional and will take years to develop a plan that makes all schools equal.