Schools and classrooms can either perpetuate social inequality or work towards equality. Society is based on inequality; inequality of class, wealth, status, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, and more. Since shortly after the founding of the republic, the majority of public opinion has been committed to trying to provide equality of opportunity through a common school experience in publicly funded schools. This way of thinking about schooling is described by Spring (2018) as a contest in which some will succeed and others will fail and “it is the role of the school to ensure that everyone begins the race for riches on an equal footing” (Spring, 2018, p. 70). The argument is that whoever succeeds or fails does so because of his or her qualities, effort, intelligence, or another intrinsic factor. However, this ignores the “blatant social, economic, and political inequalities” outside the school gates (Spring, 2018, p. 71). The children of middle-class parents typically go home to a full refrigerator, full bookshelves, and a never-ending slew of enrichment activities like music or dance lessons, coding camps, theatre visits, and foreign travel. These children will likely not experience a relaxed, unstructured summer, but neither will they experience the “summer slide” that puts their less well-off peers behind when they start school again in the fall. So we see that equality is not equity.
One model that attempts to overcome family background is what Spring terms “the sorting-machine model” (Spring, 2018, p. 73). In this type of school, children are tested and then assigned classes that meet their ability. In England, this was done by a test at age eleven. This test determined if you were smart enough for the state to invest in a college preparatory education that would culminate in a university degree, or if you were only good enough for a vocational education that ended at age sixteen and usually led to an apprenticeship in a skilled trade for the top tier, and unskilled wage labor for the rest. This model was highly efficient and deeply unfair. It proved excellent at perpetuating the rigid class structure for many years; this is why it was abolished about thirty years ago. In the States, sorting is not this unfair but instead is based on intelligence tests in some schools. This is thought to be an accurate and bias-free measure of a child’s potential, thus giving students from even the most disadvantaged homes the chance to be educated up to their potential. But these tests can be deeply flawed and culturally biased.
How much money a school district has to spend per pupil can also contribute to inequality of educational outcomes. Everyone in Southern California where I live knows which school districts have better test scores and reputations for academic achievement than other districts. Housing in these districts costs more, and often quite substantially more, than the districts who do not achieve high test scores and academic outcomes. For example, my sister lived in an excellent school district, that required parents to contribute at least eight-hundred dollars a year per child to be spent in arts and music education. She said that while it was not a legal requirement, word would get around about which parents refused to pay, and they would be shamed. For example, the elementary school where her children went raised $222,000 in September to pay for the enrichment teachers’ salaries. In my community of Hemet and San Jacinto, I don’t believe the schools would be able to come close to that number. The children in Encinitas already come from middle-class and wealthy homes with so many advantages, and these are augmented at school because of this fundraising. This is part of what the economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis call social reproduction (Spring, 2018). Spring reports that they believe that, “school is a medium through which family background is translated into occupational and income opportunities” (Spring, 2018, p. 87). Middle-class parenting emphasizes self-direction and assertiveness, while modeling dominant culture-approved personality traits, which in turn helps develop the personality traits related to workplace success. Individuals who are taught, and able to develop self-direction, excel in many professions that are high-status, which repeats the pattern of educational success followed by career and financial success these children saw in their parents.
Reference
Spring, J. (2018). American Education. New York: Routledge.