Land of "Equal Opportunity"

I’m sure that almost every person I talked to could tell me a story about “Great Aunt So-and-so who came over from whatcha-face with only the coat on her back and a worth ethic and look where my family is today!”

America: the Land of Equal Opportunity!

It’s a nice story, but it’s simply not true.

When the original settlers came over to the United States, they came to a land that was free for the taking. At the time, the leg up the social ladder was land, and, quite frankly, there wasn't any land for sale in Europe. Sure, you could get a flat in the city or a small paddock in the hills every once-in-awhile, but land was hereditary and there wasn't any more to be had.

But there was this great and open land! The New World! You could just stake out your land and put in years of work and after a while, you had a living and a status in this open country.

Needless to say, we don’t live in an age when land is the means of subsistence anymore. In fact, people who make their living off the land are often the least well off among us. The real leg-up is education. A work ethic is still one of the most effective ways to get yourself up the social ladder, but you have to apply that to your education and not to the land. And so we say that America is the land of opportunity where everyone can get a free education and start on an even playing field!

Even playing field? Hardly! The current system is more like the Rockies than anything else. In rural or urban districts, students are simply less valued than those in middle class white suburbia. We convince ourselves that our blatant favoritism is acceptable by saying “oh, they’re in such a horrible place, they’ll end up dropping out anyway” and laughing off our own disregard, when if we take one honest look at the situation, we know that’s not the case.

Firstly, we send all the rotten teachers to the inner city. That’s not entirely true, they’re not “sent” to work in these schools, but the good teachers find other jobs and go somewhere else and the teachers who do stay are burnt out and don’t believe in their students anymore than the general populous. Another year, they say, another batch of teen pregnancies, drug dealers, and convicts. Another batch of failures. And so it doesn't take long before the teachers themselves don’t even try. Why look for what went wrong in your lesson if the students are all going to fail no matter what you do? Why assume anything went wrong at all? Not to mention, the easiest way to make a child give up is to give up on them.

Students simply don’t have the same opportunities, either. Kids in middle class white suburbia have marching band, basketball, theater, and art clubs. Extra-curricular activities are proven to strengthen a student’s relationship to school and motivate them to advocate for themselves, but it seems that only the kids in the areas where success is already presumed get these opportunities. How can we call public education anything like equal when suburban students are handed the tools they need to succeed and rural students aren't even given the option?

Not only that, but simple facets of education are missing in our most needy districts. Books, for instance, are one of the most integral aspects of education. By engaging children in the habit of reading at an early age, students will be more motivated, have easier success in school and in life, and will be more likely to take their education into their own hands. And yet, not only are books shockingly absent in the schools of our urban and rural students, but we then go and blame the students for not learning to read! How are they to learn to read without any books?

And no, in today’s society, books are not the only avenue for reading. Far from it. Now, even newspapers are read online more often than in person. Our future as a nation lies in the hands of technology. More accurately, it lies in the hands of those whose minds comprehend our technology enough to shape it’s next generation. The job fields for things like computer science and inventive engineering are predicted to soar within the next few years. And yet those same students, the ones who we push to graduate and get themselves on their feet, are kept away from computers. In urban districts, not only do most families not own a computer, but many schools don’t either. There’s no opportunity for students to learn the basic skills they will need in the workforce, let alone the opportunity to really grasp technology and invest in it in the way that is required for those that make the future. In fact, not only do we rob our students of these opportunities, but we penalize them for an un-typed paper.

When we look at all these discrepancies, we begin to understand the true form of this “land of opportunity.” If America is a land of equality, then we should start by valuing our progeny equally. To any perceptive mind, that’s not the case. So what do we do?

The obvious answer is revolutionize the financial system that puts our schools at such polarized places. If the urban districts had the same budget per student as the suburban districts, they would look a lot different. There would be technology, books, electives, and AP courses that the schools previously couldn't afford. Not only that, but there would be significantly less incentive for the better teachers to seek alternative jobs if there was no pay difference. If we as a country are spending more money on some of our kids and less on others, how can we possibly say that we value them all equally? It’s the ultimate parental favoritism between Washington and her many district babies.

Of course, some people will resist this. The federal government shouldn't be paying for schools that are sub par, they will say, and suburban parents who have worked hard for their money shouldn't have to pay for future dropouts that they have no influence on. But before the dissenters jump to conclusions, here me out. It is natural to resist the federal government supporting failing schools -- it’s almost like feeding the problem. However, in the current system, only the schools that do well receive funds from the government. Not only does this mean that the schools that need the money the most to motivate and engage their students are not getting it, but the ones that are already doing well will be able to do even better, creating a larger and larger gap. I understand a resistance to an overall federal funding per-student to each school, it’s drastically different than anything we've tried before, but it’s the only way to ensure that each student gets a fair shot at a good education. If the students fail out, fine, but the government will have held its obligation to give each person in this country an equal chance at life, and in the current system, they’re discriminating at best. At the very least, we need to institute an equal funding per-student from the state to ensure statewide equality, if not nation wide.

I also understand the fury of hard-working suburban parents who don’t want their money wasted on hoodlums in the city or hillbillies in the country. But again, I ask you, think about the facts. At some point in time, no matter your ethnicity, your ancestors worked hard to get you where you are today. And right now, in our cities, parents work hard and invest everything they have for their children, who are left without the support and resources to pull themselves up that your ancestors had. Without investing an equal amount in each child, you can hardly claim you live in a land of opportunity.

We, as a country, need to hold to our values. We need to commit to equal opportunity for our future leaders. If we don’t invest in our future, then we need to change our motto to this:

America: Land of Equal* Opportunity!
*Must be 18 years old or older, citizen of the United States, and have moderately wealthy grandparents. Subject to approval. Void where prohibited.