Hi E@N!
I hope you all enjoyed today’s talk. Thank you for dealing with the technical difficulties, and for those of you who were at lunch, it was nice meeting you!
So Dr. Bischoff’s talk on education equity had, as I saw it, three parts. First, she presented us with some evidence to show that there is inequality in education right now. Second, she demonstrated that measuring equality in education in itself is a very difficult task. And third, she gestured towards some of the ethical issues that arise in the topic of education equity.
I think this was one of those talks in which the relevant ethical issues were quite transparent — indeed, equality of education is, at least from personal experience, a frequent topic for those late night conversations that seem (at least at the time) incredibly deep. So feel free to comment on any of those ethical issues.
I have to say, though, that one ethical issue interests me above others — so if you have thoughts on this, I would love to read them. Dr. Bischoff framed this issue as “liberty v. equality,” and I think that’s a great wait to put things. Any policy to promote equality must redistribute resources and standardize the range of choices that we have, thereby restricting our liberty. As applied to education, the attempt to provide equal education means, necessarily, that resources must be redirected from the well-off to the others, and that perhaps some educational options (e.g., private schooling or home schooling) must be banned. That’s, of course, a stroke against liberty.
So we have two great ideals — equality and liberty — and they seem to contradict one another in this difficult case of education. Of course, I’m not saying that we should have complete equality or complete liberty. As with many other things, we need to strike the right balance. So my question is, how would you go about finding that balance? How much should government (or some other organization) actively redistribute resources in the name of equal education?
Looking forward to reading what you have to say!
I definitely think that education equality is something that may never be completely achieved. There are so many factors that contribute to the quality of a school district, from the socioeconomic status of the families that feed into that school to the quality of the teachers and other staff, that it seems nearly impossible to create complete equality. Thus, as Albert noted, there has to be a balance between equality and liberty. This is, of course, no easy task, but I think that one step that could be taken towards better equality is redistributing money from magnet and private schools to re-establish art and music programs in public schools. I believe that participating in these kinds of activities has great benefits. For example, studies have consistently shown that children who are involved with music actually perform better in school.
As someone who comes from a public high school in Oregon that has a very strong music program, I saw myself being able to enrich my life with music while witnessing the arts and music programs of school districts around my area being completely removed with budget cuts. Because of the strong and ever increasing performance of my district’s music program, administrators have refused time and time again to reduce funding these programs. Private schools on the other hand, do not seem to have much of a problem funding programs in the arts. I have heard parents with kids in private schools boast about their school’s amazing music programs, while the people going to public schools either do not have these programs or have seen them being reduced or removed entirely. Although I may be biased towards the arts because of my own educational experience, I feel that this is something that needs to preserved in public schools.
When thinking of the bigger picture, I therefore support the idea that part of achieving the right balance will be one where children in private schools and public schools are both given access to the same types of classes and programs, whether these classes are in music, computer science, or history. I personally think that until public schools are able to provide children with equality in terms of equal access to different subjects, private schools should not have their funding increased. Then the money that would have gone to private schools could be allocated to public schools to use in strengthening and adding (or re-adding) programs.
Who was my favorite teacher? I think this is a good question to ask myself following Kendra’s talk. Kendra challenged us to think of the proper scope of education policy, be it schools, families, or teachers. I would like to speak directly about my teachers growing up.
My favorite teacher is without a doubt Mr. Simpson (3rd grade). The class was challenged, motivated, and engaged. Mr. Simpson had us put on a play, participate in a mock stock market exchange, study architecture, build websites, and more activities that I look back on fondly. My class had awesome test scores; I remember a pizza party as a reward for every person in my class scoring above a certain benchmark percentile on a standardized test. My elementary school was awesome!
However, my second favorite teacher does not fit the mold of Mr. Simpson. My second favorite teacher, Mr. I, spent a majority of class time asleep. This is not a joke, I had quite a few teachers who spent class time asleep. Students came late to class (or didn’t come at all); students left class at will. Others did homework for other classes. Some played games on their phones.
I had classes with Mr. I in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. He was without a doubt my favorite teacher in high school, which I am honestly embarrassed about because I think that fact says something unfortunate about my work ethic.. or moral compass… but Mr. I was a great, funny, easy-going guy and the ‘free time’ that his class enveloped was absolutely the highlight of my day.
Where I am going with this is to provide an example of the inequality in schools, even within a district. My elementary school was phenomenal; my high school was pitiful! This is not to say I did not have qualified, dedicated teachers in high school. But Mr. I is a pretty accurate depiction of the teaching body as a whole. There just aren’t enough people like Mr. Simpson teaching. If I were to guess the fate of education inequality in our country based solely on my experiences, I’d have to say we are going down a dark, twisty road. We are ‘fighting the good fight’ and must continue to try to uniformly raise scores across the board until the end of time, but we are chasing an unattainable goal.
Does anyone see any possible way to increase scores in the lowest socioeconomic quintile MORE than the scores in the highest? Playing catch up is tough when the fortunate are improving faster than the unfortunate… increasing the gap in education inequality.
I think that Dr. Bischoff approached education inequality from a Rawlsian framework. Dr. Bischoff was uncomfortable with the idea that some children will be perpetually be better off than others simply because of who their parents are. This seems to suggest that we should be intolerant as a society of anyone who has high ambitions. I commented in class that it was not clear that it was fair or just to limit the educational opportunities of the brightest children by forcing them to attend sub-par and often dangerous public schools. Bischoff is concerned about the consequences of inequality existing at all, even if every student is at an adequate level of knowledge. It seems to me, however, that Bischoff would be opposed to the outcome of a thought experiment in which everyone’s well-being and flourishing would be increased, but more for people at the top of society. Under this result, everyone would be better off, but inequality would rise– which is bad according to Dr. Bischoff. I cannot justify a decision to forgo improvements in the quality of life for everyone simply because overall inequality might rise as in the previous example.
The second objection I have is from a practical standpoint. It just doesn’t seem possible to coordinate and correct the talents and penchants of all the people in a society. There is too much diversity among human beings to maintain any system of ascribed status — even equality. I argue that instead of focusing on equality of results, we should instead try to maximize well-being generally, even if that means more inequality. No one is arguing against having the most opportunities possible for everyone. The argument about equal opportunity does not seem to match what people are actually concerned about. If somehow we could manage to create institutions by which everyone had exactly the same equality of opportunity and inequality of outcomes persisted, we would still think that the outcome was somehow unjust. But maybe society is incapable of being set up in a satisfyingly “fair” way.
The discussion of liberty vs. equality is riveting. It seems to me that any system that tries to enforce equality when it is clear that abilities are not commensurate will necessarily reduce freedom. Some people who have natural talents will have to be suppressed somehow, and few of us would support that kind of restriction of freedom.
The comments above mention the Rawls, and I wanted to take that idea and expand upon it a little further. Those comments seemed to be concerned with forcing students into subpar schools in order to keep equal outcomes. They were concerned with an educational system that didn’t allow inequality to increase even if it meant everyone was better off overall.
It is interesting to think would the difference principle, if only applied to education, would look like in practice. The first thing that would be have to be considered was the relationship between private and public schools in the area. I could imagine an agreement something like the luxury tax in sports, where for every dollar in school spending the private school has over the lowest funded school in some unit of area (state, county, district) there would be a percentage of tax that school would have to pay. That tax would then be redistributed to the public schools within that same area (state, county, district) based on need, the most going to the lowest funded public schools. In this way, parents would continue to have the right to choose where the put their kids in school, for religious or other considerations, but in order to do so they would have to increase the well-being of the lowest schools. Private schools probably still would be much better funded, pay their teachers more, and place students in colleges at higher rates, but the price for this inequality would be an increase in the education for everyone. There does seem to be a ring of fairness to this, a balance of equality and liberty, and I wonder if Dr. Bischoff would be opposed to an application of the difference principle like this. There are would have to be different redistribution plans that would be interesting to think about, between public schools in the same district and other things, but I think the idea of taxing inequality, paying a percentage penalty for it, and then using that as a mechanism of redistribution could, at least in theory, work in those cases as well.
I did have one other question about what equality of education would look like. Say every school was performing adequately on test, placing similar numbers of students in college, etc. We would then have a much better educated populace, a much more skilled populace. I just wonder how that would affect our labor market? Would there suddenly be an increased demand for skilled labor, or would more skilled people be forced to fill jobs below their skill levels as the skilled positions are filled? How would our labor market accommodate an equally educated populace? Or even a significantly more educated populace than the one we have now? Jobs are scare as it is, even for the number of college graduates we have currently. It seems that our economy would be somewhat incompatible with an equally educated populace.
Some private schools may indeed have more opportunities but as a graduate of one, I can also say first hand that I did not have the most qualified teachers nor the most inspiring counselors. Many of my classmates did not even seek out college. I bring this up because I want to emphasize the importance of school counselors in all educational levels. These counselors help make students aware of opportunities as well as keep them on track to graduate and continue their education. Obviously the resources are not the same between public and private schools. But the counselors could in many ways be if money went into training them properly or making their pay more competitive.
These counselors could do more than counsel students on what classes to take or what opportunities to go after. They can help evaluate teacher performances and student learning. While that happens during accreditation years when outsiders come in and evaluate the school, the counselor could be the daily insider constantly checking up and giving feedback to both educators and students. Think news ombudsman. This would require that counselors be highly educated and highly trained in gathering information and communicating that information in a useful way.
Learning about all the different ways to increase education equity is important because education direct influences workforce development. Local funds need to find better ways to increase the graduation rates on all levels because there are strong economic benefits to doing so. Local communities also need to find more creative ways for the younger population to be invested in their future and if more vocational training opportunities are the way to go.
One ethical issue on education that interests me is of good teachers in bad schools. Let’s say you’re a highly educated, credentialed, and qualified teacher who has a passion for teaching students. You hit the road running at an underperforming school and hope to improve a lot of things but most importantly, your students’ education. However, some time after you start teaching, you realize that the high school you teach at does not offer sufficient pay (for your amount of work), does not give you the resources you ask for, does not put you in a colleague-supportive environment, and worst of all, you have a bunch of rowdy kids who make your day miserable. Basically, the only reason you stay is because of the few hard working students who have great potential and make you feel fulfilled as a teacher. Some time later, the conditions still haven’t changed, and you feel a bit frustrated knowing you’re going to be stuck in this career of yours for a very long time. As a self-respecting adult, what do you do? Do you “tough it out” at this school or do you look for some better way out?
Let’s say you learn that the school across campus has a teacher job opening. It’s a not a big charter or private school, just another public school, but one with better performing students and track record. Do you stay at your underperforming school or try to move onto that better school where the majority of students are presumably more attentive, more eager learners, and where your job might not just be easier but where you would be more appreciated by students and colleagues? One might argue that choosing the better school means you are abandoning a challenge but the truth is you will be challenged anywhere you go, and the perhaps better school will only open new doors to you and challenge you in new ways. I recognize the role that teachers play in shaping education equity, but I cannot blame good teachers for going to good schools.
I think we all agree that there is significant education inequality in this country and that we agree to reverse this trend. The reason why this is important is that instead of placing a talented student from a more well-to-do socioeconomic background in a subpar school, what is happening right now is talented students from poor socioeconomic groups are placed in under-staffed, under-resourced schools – which is rubbing them of most opportunities to develop their potentials.
As much as a responsible government would legislate to forbid alcohol availability to juniors, it should legislate to reverse the current inequality in the education system. I agree that alcohol access is not the same as education access. The former prohibition appears more reasonable because the individual is protected from access to substances that could be potentially harmful to them if not consumed with discretion; while limiting choices in education institutions appears to be taking away what is good for the individual. I would argue that this is not the case. It only appears to seem like it because it is like not giving a candy to a child each day in order that the child may get a better present after a month of good work. The child would not like it in the moment, but later he’d be glad to have the better present. Applied in the education equality problem, one way of leveling the playing field for all children regardless of socioeconomic background is to abolish all non-public schools and have all children go to public schools. This way, the resources would be more evenly distributed: there will be a mix of good and bad teachers in every school, a mix of facilities available to students, etc. etc. It will also be natural for kids to grow up in diverse socioeconomic environments with their friends coming from diverse backgrounds – the good characters nurtured in environment like this is not something one can learn in a classroom. In the long run, this will lead to a society with lower crime rate, less social problems, thus an overal more harmonious, flourishing, thriving society.
This way, parents who have extra money to spend on their children can still send them to horse-riding classes, surfing classes, or any other after school activities that strike their fancy. But these opportunities will be perturbations to the average access to most opportunities, they are not causing detriments to the less privileged.
I think a good way of going about striking a balance of liberty and equality is that when “a little more” for the rich is harming the poor, then one needs to re-think whether the society is as fair as it can be.
Much is made of this purported ‘tension’ between liberty and equality. It is mostly brought up by those on the right, who want to claim that somehow and attempt to reduce inequality, however noble its aims, will necessarily entail an infringement on someone’s liberty. We talked about Rawls above. Robert Nozick, who was Rawls’ main critic, certainly took this view. Nozick argued that any attempts to enforce equality in a society will necessarily result in persistent government intervention to forcibly transfer wealth or property from one group to another. Many people sympathize with this view, and the consequence is that people who would otherwise advocate for more equality, begin to look at inequality as a kind of ‘necessary evil’ – that is, they say to themselves: well I do wish we had more equality, but I understand that, in order to do so, we would have to violate liberty, and I’m not OK with that so I guess I have to live with the inequality.
I tend to think that this whole argument is a farce. It is a farce that works on most people because they don’t stop to think about what they mean by the term ‘liberty’. Again, those on the right try to convince us that liberty basically means ‘the freedom to do what you want’; they also make the case that the main threat to you liberty is government. I disagree with both those points – I think that is a very base concept of freedom. True freedom, if it is to mean anything, must take account of our human nature. The essence of being human is rational thought and creativity – therefore, true human freedom must refer to these faculties. I deny that a child who grows up in the slums of some inner city, and who is not exposed to a good education, is at all free in any meaningful sense of the word. Freedom means the freedom to realize one’s own full potential. Hence my next point of disagreement: the primary hinderance to most people’s freedom is not the government. In fact, it is because the state is too weak that most people’s freedom is curtailed. The federal governement cannot mandate that the rich fund the poor’s education. This fundamentally denies the poor their true freedom.
Those who seek to pit freedom and equality against each other should think deeper about what kind of freedom they think human beings are worthy of.
The talk touched upon the the levels of equality – individual, group, states, etc. The definition of each of these levels lends another layer of complexity in understanding education equality. On the group level, for example, it seems like groups are categorized by race in K-12 education, but more so by SES as people mature. This results in a disconnect that may create a loophole in which people who were previously supported by policies targeting group inequality can fall through as these policies don’t apply later in life. For instance, college admissions considers the applicant’s ethnicity, yet rarely do work places put such great emphasis. It could be argued that once people are provided equal opportunity to higher education, less importance lies in a person’s ethnicity. Yet the society is inherently biased and racism still has its place. This leads to another question – to which point should society address inequality? How would this compensation affect equality of the non-covered groups? I think this is not only an ethical issue of what’s fair and unfair, but also a question of allocation of collective resources. For instance, addressing inequality requires an immense amount of material and human resources – in equality, specifically, compensating for education inequality would require paying teachers, improving facilities, buying textbooks, etc. If the goal of the society as a whole is to achieve the greatest utility with the least amount of input, addressing every single inequality is unwise since the opportunity cost of it is much greater than its benefits. Yet inequality of any sort is perceived as inherently flawed and actions are called upon to address this issue. Personally, I think defining inequality at the group level is effective, but addressing it at the individual level may make more sense
On the issue of education, I agree with the notion that the tension between equality and liberty is at the crux of the debate. However, rather than talk about the right of government to redistribute wealth which many comments seemed to be concerned about, I would like to speak about the right of parents to educate their young. Studies have shown that the most important determinant of whether or not a student will become successful is the student’s family background. This could be a combination of the culture, affluence, familial structure, and rearing in general but the point is that genetics and the student’s free choice are not statistically as important. This in mind, the question of whether or not our schools are adequate seems to be secondary to that of whether families are providing the right environment for kids to succeed in school and beyond. To this point, there is a wide debate (that happens to be along party lines) about whether or not government should take more of an active role in ensuring the right conditions are met for every child to ensure equal opportunity. On the whole this idea seems appealing. However, upon further examination, there seems to be some unforeseen difficulties. For one, how should a child be raised and who should be in charge of such deciding these standards for others? Furthermore, is there any perfect formula for people to follow from which such normative questions can be answered? Conservatives have ever supported the liberty of the individual over the paternalism of government because they believe the government does more harm than it does good in these matters. The discussion of whether their beliefs hold credence aside, the debate is nonetheless an important one. Should culture be a victim of the moral presumption of the many? There are many other dilemmas which this entire debate seems to conjure. I omit my personal beliefs in this matter but will be happy to speak about them through less of a constrained medium.