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Check out this awesome article pushing privilege envy syndrome I came across this week. According to the author of this article, there’s no way students of color in Waterbury, Connecticut can do well in school because the schools they go to are mostly majority black and such schools spend $4,000 less per pupil than neighboring majority-white schools ($16,000 per pupil for majority-non-white schools vs. $20,000 per pupil for majority-white schools).
Really? A four thousand dollars per pupil deficit is the key factor explaining the achievement gap between black students and white students? Here are two reasons why this alleged instance of “system racism” is flapdoodle.
- According to the OCED, the average class size in an American classroom is roughly 21. Let’s assume that the majority-white, $20,000-per-pupil schools neighboring Waterbury meet this benchmark. In order for the majority-black, $16,000-per-pupil schools in Waterbury to pay its teachers as well as the majority-white school districts pay their teachers, Waterbury would need to have an average class size of 26. So all that’s needed to equalize the teaching component between the haves and have-nots in Waterbury is for those who run the majority-black schools to be a little more efficient, a little more mindful when it comes to managing its resources.
- Growing up on Long Island, I went to a school district with high-per-pupil spending. But we routinely got our butts kicked in football, basketball, and baseball by schools with much lower per-pupil spending. Why? We had better facilities and spent more on equipment and coaching than these other schools. By all rights, we should have been a sports powerhouse. We weren’t a sports powerhouse, however, because, beyond a certain level of investment, money no longer matters. These “lesser” schools had inferior but totally adequate equipment and coaches and they feasted on us because they outclassed us in what mattered most: athleticism and grit.This lesson applies to Waterbury schools as well. The real issue isn’t that neighboring schools spend more per pupil; the real issue is whether $16,000 per pupil is enough to accomplish what Waterbury schools want to accomplish. And assuming for the moment that Waterbury’s primary purpose is to produce college-ready graduates, I aver that $16,000 per pupil is more than enough. Sixteen thousand times 21 (the average class size nationally) equals $336,000. Now call me nuts, but if I ran a school that brought in $336,000 for every 21 students enrolled, I think I’d have more than enough money to hire competent math and English teachers.
Final Thoughts
Promoting privilege envy syndrome is wrong because it pampers the people who can least afford to be pampered. By telling poor people to focus on the material and political resources of the wealthy, you are effectively telling them to ignore the ample opportunity and agency that they have to better themselves. You are effectively telling them that the fault doesn’t lie in them, it lies in the stars—or in that neighboring school district that spends $4,000 more per pupil. And what happens when poor people are given a pass by the “cool” people? Nothing. And that’s the problem. Pampered people—whether poor or otherwise—rarely feel obligated to change their ways.
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Is the article above another clear instance of the “cool” people promoting privilege envy syndrome? Or am I stretching things a little? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
I’m going to have to disagree with you. The point of such news articles is not to tell poor people that they’re being shafted and that there’s nothing they can do about it. It is to tell politicians and the voting public they are screwing up and screwing the poor by not giving them an equal education. It’s really as simple as that.
This country has massive inequality that isn’t going away. It’s getting worse. The message that you’d like to promote, which is: get yourself educated and pick yourself up, is nothing new. It’s been peddled in this country since its founding. And it hasn’t done much to solve the social issue of relative poverty/inequality and everything that comes with it.
I think the solution, like most things in life, is a balance. We need to focus on individual financial education but we also need to focus on policy to try as best as we can to give lower income folks some of the same opportunities and supports that higher income people have.
Hey, Dan. Sorry for the late reply. I love your comment and my response to it requires a post actually. Stay tuned, my friend. It should be ready next week.
I think of Dr. Ben Carson, who grew up dirt poor in the 50s and 60s in Detroit, the child of a single mom. He credits his success to a mom who forced him to read regularly and wouldn’t settle for anything less than his very best efforts. BAM.
Ben’s story is very inspiring. Why is it that so many Americans fail to follow Ben’s lead and have a strong affinity for excuse-making? We are so culturally weak, it’s pathetic.
Pathetic is the perfect word, my friend. So much opportunity wasted.
Everyone should look around in their own neighborhood. I something fails blaming it on the neighbors neither solve the issue nor help anyone. Also, these two numbers are just picked without any concrete context. My statistics teacher told me that “statistics is great because you can back with it whatever you want”. I think the real problem is (and this is a global issue) that schools are incapable of using the money efficiently to provide the best possible education for their students. It seems they have some serious homework.
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Nailed it, Mr. HCF. The biggest reason public schools are managed so poorly is that they don’t have any competition. They get taxpayer money regardless of how poorly they do. If taxpayer money followed the student in the form of a voucher (i.e., the education equivalent of food stamps), and schools, whether public or private, had to compete for students, schools would be managed much better.
It wasn’t until much later in life that my siblings and I realized that we really grew up with far fewer resources than many others. That’s because all of our friends were in the same boat and so we had little to compare to. Social media didn’t exist and the TV shows we watched were about families like us, not of wealthy families with first world problems. Despite this we all have done well in life and I attribute that to our parents telling us over and over that they expected us to put our best effort forward everyday and be responsible for our actions. We were also taught to treat people with respect and to help the less fortunate. The “experts” have been telling us that the answer to poor test results and high school drop out rates is to spend more and more money. All that has gotten us is unaffordable school taxes in NY but with no real results. People tend to be more creative when they have fewer resources but still have to meet a realistic goal. We need to focus more on student results and getting a good ROI on our education dollars. We don’t need more irrelevant testing either. We need teachers that are free to tailor their styles to each group of kids rather than sticking to a rubric that really doesn’t work. Thanks for the great article.
“People tend to be more creative when they have fewer resources but still have to meet a realistic goal. We need to focus more on student results and getting a good ROI on our education dollars.”
Wow! Nailed it, Pat. I couldn’t agree more. I firmly believe that we need to take a big step back on lower education. If I were in charge of education, I would require just three things for a high school diploma. Proficiency in 8th-grade level math, proficiency in 8th-grade level English, and one concrete skill that could command a wage one and half times larger than the federal minimum wage. That’s it. You finish high school and you’re competent in basic math, can write a coherent sentence, and you have a skill that can command $10.88 in the labor market. That may appear that I’m setting the bar awfully low. But with our current lofty goals for lower education, what percentage of high school graduates can meet my lowly standards? The sad truth is that too many of our students are culturally weak and too many of our administers and teachers are incompetent for grandiose education goals. We’ll get a much better ROI on our education investment if we just seek to inculcate our kids with three basic, easily defined skills. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Perhaps I’ll make it the subject of a future post. The plot thickens. Thanks for stopping by, Pat. Great freakin’ comment.
P.S. One of the main reasons Mrs. Groovy and I left Long Island was because of property taxes. We had a 600 square foot condo and our property taxes were $5,400 for the year we left (2006). I have friends today who have homes on Long Island and their property taxes are in the $12,000 to $15,000 range. It’s madness.