A travesty in itself
It is all put in perspective, to be able to tangibly experience the institutional barriers that affect our youth, to experience the theories we discuss in sociology class in terms of their real social consequences. It raises doubts about the competence about our administration in terms of priority. Expenditure focuses heavily on Foreign policy as opposed to the education system and the healthcare system. The primary focus of the United States government has been based upon on personal preference as opposed to logic, reason and a sense of morality. To perpetuate such a system of deprivation is a travesty and morally irresponsible of public officials who promise to serve their country. The high school kids we saw today at Stephens are so full of promise but the institutional barriers that stack against them are heavy; the lack of textbooks, the lack of an academic support system for those who need it the most as the majority of them come from families who lack the ability to support them adequately. In a country where we spend $18,460,000,000 annually to go to outer space and $70,000,000,000 annually on a conflict started on false premises, the fact that public school children adequate materials in school, begs of us a serious question. What are we investing in? In oil? In the personal interest of a few? The promise of such budding minds is stagnated by the lack of priority and irresponsible decision-making that is almost criminal (In fact Louis XVI was guillotined for such poor judgment). Awareness and perspective needs to come to the fore. I met a high school math teacher at Stephens High School today named Ms. Leville who was so frustrated (emphasis on frustrated, she became teary-eyed explaining the conditions) at the lack of textbooks, the lack of an after-school support system or even those she offers to help personally because of expressed interest, lack the means to get them there. According to her, some students had given up hope on school and those who had not were limited in their skills and even those ahead didn’t get taught because she had to get students who were behind to a benchmark level, so those who did not have the proficiency to pass the test were a priority and those who at the level had to be neglected, a symptom of the No Child Left Behind system. Are we truly the land of the free, when we put institutional barriers in the path of children preventing them from a sufficient basic-level opportunity to succeed if even an equitable education cannot be provided for? A seventeenth century dramatist Henry Fielding made this statement during the industrial revolution, “Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.” They indeed have become a farm system for the underprivileged to remain at the bottom by implicitly encouraging an indulgence in crime and deviance through deprivation. America should be ashamed of itself.