In an effort to consolidate my thoughts for a discussion I will be leading soon for church, I am writing out my thoughts which have been formed throughout my time teaching in the School District of Philadelphia. When we look at America’s education system we are confronted with a lot of uncomfortable truths. It’s hard to pick one area that needs improvement, and it’s even harder to identify one area that will fix all of the other problems. Like the other systems that exist in our country, the roots of education are twisted in ugly knots of racism, classism, and marginalization.
Size Plays a Part
I must confess that most of my thoughts around our education system are not founded on research. My thoughts have been founded on experience instead. I have been teaching in the school district for four years now. My first two years were at a school in Lower Northeast Philadelphia. For the last two years I have been teaching at a school in Society Hill–only a ten minute walk from the Liberty Bell. The length and breadth of the School District of Philadelphia is dumbfounding. I’ve included a diagram to show all the different sectors of the district. (Ignore the colors and the percentages–the map didn’t have a description.) There are 304 schools in the school district. Depending on where you go to school in this district, you will receive a very different education. If you live in a wealthier neighborhood in Philly, your school will probably benefit from parent donations and fundraisers run by parent organizations. If you live in a poorer neighborhood in Philly, your school probably won’t have those benefits because there isn’t money in the community to invest back into the school.
This fact has led many families to send their children to neighborhood schools in different areas just so they have more opportunities than the ones afforded them in their own neighborhoods. “But that’s illegal and takes away from the families and children who live in those neighborhoods!” you may cry. Yes, it is illegal, but I would argue that the concern shouldn’t be ‘they’re taking resources away’ and instead ‘why aren’t these resources available for all children IN THE SAME DISTRICT?’ Furthermore, it is exhausting and potentially dangerous for a child to travel across the city to go to a different school. However, if that was your only shot at getting a better education which might lead to a better chance of getting some sort of higher education, this could seem like a risk worth taking. Perhaps people wouldn’t be forced to break the law if there was enough funding in the school district to ensure equitable education and resources.
A Tale of Two Schools
Allow me to introduce you to the two schools I taught and currently teach in. I hold them both very dear to my heart despite the challenges I came across.
Sullivan was my first school. It’s a K-5 school with a population that is majority Black. The neighborhood used to be, I was told, all blue collar Caucasian, but as gentrification started pushing Black people out of their homes in North Philly, they began to move into the area. The building towers above a large cement lot that served as the gym and recess area. No trees, no playground, oftentimes littered with broken glass, and overall depressing. Broken needles are found on the sidewalks right outside of the school yard, and my coworkers would lament the opioid addiction which has overtaken the surrounding neighborhood. I was told by some of my coworkers that Sullivan is not the worst in the district. (Comforting, right?) This pronouncement did not make my first year there any easier. Every classroom was filled with little bodies trying to work through trauma, instability, and things that a child cannot handle on their own. This manifested itself in fist fights every single day, shouting matches, power struggles, students eloping from the classroom, chairs thrown, stealing, etc. You name it, these little children were doing it. I was flabbergasted and unprepared to face this level of emotional and mental distress, and it made me extremely anxious to go to work.
Let’s not make this about my experience, though. Let’s talk about what was causing the students to act this way, because it would be unfair and ignorant to say “they just weren’t raised correctly.” For all of the trauma that comes from living in poor neighborhoods (violence, drug abuse, food insecurity, volatile home life, unclean living conditions, to name a few) students need to have more support. A majority of the population at Sullivan came from homes like I just described and some students thrived at school and others couldn’t get past their circumstances. It was a building full of hurting children who just could not function, and teachers who could not teach subject matter because they couldn’t get past the basic necessities that their kids were lacking. Is it a wonder that scores in that school, and others like it, would be low? We were lucky to have a counselor at our school who tried her best to handle each situation, but frankly there was not enough of her time and effort to go around. According to the American School Counselor Association there should be one counselor to 250 students. My school had about 600 students and only one counselor. That is not unusual, as some schools don’t even have a full-time counselor.
Jump over to McCall with me. This is my school home currently. It is a K-8 school that is majority Asian (about 78%) with many living in and around Chinatown. The surrounding neighborhood is wealthy and vibrant. Parents who work white collar jobs generally donate to the school and cover the needs of those who are not as financially stable. A jungle gym with soft turf stands in the middle of the school yard and two basketball hoops with nets stand off to the side; favorite spots for all of the children. The school holds elaborate fundraisers and numerous before-and-after-school activities. There are never fist-fights, there are maybe four children who are known for eloping from the room, and for the most part there isn’t much conflict between the students. Instead of physical conflicts, we oftentimes have to address verbal bullying. We have 720 students and only one counselor–another dismal ratio.
You might be thinking to yourself, ‘Aha, the school is about 78% Asian. That’s all I needed to know.’ I would challenge you to ask yourself why you latched onto that detail and not to the copious funds and opportunities the school offers. I would also challenge you to reconsider your view of Asian people in general. I have Asian students who are unmotivated, do poorly in school, and try to sneak their way out of work while I simultaneously have Asian students who are the complete opposite. Not all Asian people behave or excel in the same ways and it is detrimental to them and to you to view them as a monolith.
Statistics and Comparisons
We just looked at two schools within the same district. Here are some statistics to break down the disparity between suburb schools and Philly schools. I have chosen Radnor School District as a foil for Philadelphia because it is a rather wealthy district and ranked #2 in Pennsylvania in 2019.
Radnor is ranked #2 in the state.
Philadelphia didn’t even make the top 100.
Radnor’s 2017-2018 budget was $95.7 million for 5 schools. If all the money was used for schools and resources it would be ~$19 million.
Philadelphia’s 2017-2018 budget was $3.15 billion for 304 schools. If all the money was used for schools and resources it would be ~$10 million per school.
Radnor is a majority white district; most minorities are Asian.
Philadelphia is a majority black district.
I don’t believe these numbers are arbitrary. If a school is ranked higher it’s because their scores are higher, there are more resources and extracurricular activities, there’s a higher graduation rate, etc. Radnor is able to tick all of these boxes because it has more funds, and more leniency to provide for its students. Also, their state funding does not decrease even if their enrollment numbers go down. This is the case across Pennsylvania.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Pennsylvania spends its money on schools, this article outlines some of the specific issues Philadelphia School District faces as both a city and a county, among other things. https://whyy.org/articles/multiple-choices-how-much-does-pennsylvania-spend-on-public-schools-and-how-are-costs-shared/
This Seems Like a Stretch
You might have read all of this information and thought, ‘Wow, this is a strong case for economic disparity, but I don’t see how this relates to systemic racism.’ Racism has been so ingrained in our society that sometimes we don’t recognize it. A good place to start in understanding how poverty and racism go hand-in-hand is ‘redlining‘. A common concern I have heard people voice in response to calls against economic injustice done to BBIP is “Well, there are poor white people too. They struggle also!” It’s an entirely valid point…to a certain extent. My first response is: yes, there are poor white people also and their needs are not to be ignored. It just so happens that their plight has nothing to do with their skin color. Poverty is difficult to rise from, but white skin will not hold you back from interviews, cause people to doubt your intelligence, or cause people to question your innocence. My second response is: where was your outrage for the poor white people before Black people decided to raise their voices and bodies in protest? What are you doing to help the people who you feel are being forgotten?
What it comes down to is this–if there are people who are being oppressed, it affects everybody around them. If there are poor white people, there are probably poor Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous people there too. The call for action from one group does not cancel out the needs of the others. If Sullivan’s community of Black families are stuck in a neighborhood with no resources, all of the white and Hispanic families are also stuck in a neighborhood with no resources. It doesn’t hurt the white and Hispanic families to share the demands of the Black families. Race might not be the answer to all of the problems in our institutions, but you can’t overlook its role either.
One Last Look
I would like to leave you with one last image of a young man who I taught at Sullivan. For the purpose of this post I will call him Anthony. I taught Anthony when he was in 5th grade. He was small for his age, but made up for it with his big personality. He could be obnoxious and a class clown, but when I called him to task he was responsive and sweet. I noticed a couple months into school that his demeanor began to change. Instead of his sweet response, he would switch to noncompliance. “I don’t have to listen to you” became a common phrase.
I decided to call home to address this change in behavior not to get him in trouble, but to try to understand why he was different. His aunt picked up the phone and tearfully told me, “Oh, his classroom teacher must not have told you. I don’t have custody of Anthony anymore. His mother complained and foster care took him away. Please tell him that I love him and I miss him.” I was heartbroken for this woman and for Anthony. At team meetings we would discuss the ways Anthony was falling behind due to his behaviors. One of my coworkers told me that Anthony was trying to act out and get in trouble so he would be allowed to go back to live with his aunt. This ten year old boy was trying to make sense of why his world was turned upside down, and he was doing what he thought would help his situation. As the year went on, Anthony was shuffled from class to class as his outbursts escalated. He was antagonizing other students, blatantly disrespecting his teachers, and disrupting every classroom he went into. He was suspended several times that year.
Why am I telling you this story? I’m trying to illustrate how traumatic events can trigger negative behavior. The things that a person does when they are in distress are not excusable or okay, but they do not define that individual. Anthony was a ten year old boy who lost everything that was stable in his life, and he dealt with it the only way he thought was best. I cannot for a minute imagine that he felt better when he started fights with his classmates or yelled obscenities across the room. But I can imagine that he felt alone, scared, and helpless, and nobody was helping him to feel any different. Sadly, if you didn’t know what Anthony was dealing with (and even if you DID know) it was too easy to see a Black boy who was a troublemaker and a delinquent.
Think of the poorest schools in Philadelphia. The schools that serve communities that are dealing with forms of trauma that many of us can’t imagine. The schools that are in neighborhoods that serve majority Black and Hispanic children who might have witnessed a friend being shot or who haven’t eaten all weekend. These communities need HELP. The funds are not sufficient to provide emotional and mental health support in school, to provide child care after school so they are not shot on their way home, or to provide adequate materials so every single student has the same shot as a student in a wealthier neighborhood or town. If you are still unsure how this is tied into race, please keep digging. There is too much to unpack in one post and anecdotes only go so far. I hope that at the very least, you can agree that the education provided to our children in this country is inequitable. Perhaps you will come to see that it is systemically inequitable.
Drops of Jules 