Lacking opportunities
A small group of eight students sit in desks arranged a semi-circle around their teacher. Posters of famous poets and writers decorate the otherwise bland walls. One student has his head face-down on his desk. The topic of the day is Hamlet.
“What do you think is the importance of providing comic relief to the audience through inclusion of the ‘Grave Digger’ scene?” asks the teacher.
“Well, me and my friend were talking about that..,” starts the boy with his head down.
“My friend and I,” interrupts the teacher, shaking his head.
Chris Johnson, who teaches several Accelerated English and Advanced Placement English courses at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, MS, doesn’t let a grammar mistake go uncorrected in his classroom. He is one of the few instructors at IAHS that teaches accelerated courses.
“We don’t have many AP classes,” Johnson said.
“A lot of students who could do well just don’t have opportunity here, or in many schools in Mississippi.”
This sentiment is held by many teachers and administrators in the Itawamba school district who wish that there were more chances for their students to excel and prepare for the types of classes they will encounter in college. More educational tools and opportunities could be provided if a greater budget was provided to the school.
Although there may be a few reasons why some schools provide a plethora of diverse opportunities to their students and some schools only a few, the one big reason is money.
The numbers game
In 2010, Mississippi received $532,253,342 for all elementary and secondary level public school programs, according to ed.gov. That may seem like a lot of money, but, in comparison, New Jersey, received $1,129,150,316, more than twice as much as Mississippi was given.
With that drastic a difference in amounts, it would be hard to believe that public school funding has no affect on students and the educational opportunities provided to them.
“Other states, with more funding, might have more diversified programs available to their students, so those students get more experience with advanced courses. Also, that may give them an advantage when taking state tests, the ACT, and the SAT,” Johnson said.
The proposed correlation between funding and achievement can be seen through reviewing those scores at act.org. In Mississippi, the average score on the ACT was 18.7. In New Jersey, the average score was 23.7. Although five points is not a large number, it can make a world of difference when students begin applying to colleges and for scholarships.
A privileged few
No school has the perfect recipe for producing high- achieving students who score perfectly on standardized tests and are fully prepared for college. But there are some schools that are provided with a greater amount of funds than others, which helps to open up possibilities for advanced classes and diverse course opportunities.
One of those schools resides in New Jersey, where the public school budget is twice that of Mississippi’s. Moorestown High School offers several advanced classes and excellent teachers that help to inspire their students perform at the highest levels.
Moorestown High School, located in the town Moorestown, is known for its high achieving students. The school prides itself on the fact that 95 percent of seniors attend college after graduating. Moorestown has also been honored with the National Blue Ribbon School award, which is given to schools that have achieved high levels of performance or significant improvements with emphasis on schools serving disadvantaged students. Additionally, over 60 percent of the district staff holds advanced degrees.
Beth Glennon has been a math teacher for 20 years at Moorestown High School. She believes that public schools in New Jersey are very strong.
“We have a long tradition of providing a quality education to everyone who attends our school,” Glennon said. “Low level children, children with special needs, AP and honors students, they all receive the same quality education.”
New Jersey public schools, like Moorestown, have proven in many ways that they can provide their students with the skills that they need to succeed in the future.
For example, also according to act.org, 37 percent of public school students in New Jersey have met or exceeded the College Readiness Benchmark score in all four subjects, while in Mississippi only 10 percent of public school students have met that benchmark. These scores measure students' progressive development of knowledge and skills in grades 8 through 12 and help predict a students’ preparedness for college.
Could this be because they have more money?
Vicki Dugan, a fourth grade teacher at Lumberton Elementary School in New Jersey, believes that the amount of funding their state and school receives could definitely be an aspect of why their students are such high achievers. However, she feels that quality teachers can do more for a school than any amount of money.
“I have been teaching for a very long time and I like for my students to like me, but I make sure they respect me.” Dugan said.
“I have learned my own lessons of what is right and what is wrong, and I know that getting along with my students helps them improve with their academic success.”
An unclear solution
It is hard to fix a problem when there is not one concrete cause. In the case of a schools’ combined student academic performance, there can be many reasons why one school outperforms another. There can also be many reasons why an entire state full of students does not do as well on standardized tests as another state. Some of those reasons include: socioeconomic status, cultural differences, quality of teachers, school funding, and educational tools.
Ellen Cook, guidance counselor at IAHS, explained that there are countless reasons why one student, school, or state outperforms another.
“I believe socioeconomic status is the strongest reason why Mississippi performs so poorly. Students who live in poverty just don’t do as well due to cultural standards,” Cook said.
Not everyone feels that poverty equals low scores. Teresa McNeece, superintendent for the Itawamba County school district, thinks that Mississippi students can achieve at the same levels of students in any state. She believes that in her district, and in Mississippi as a whole, funding plays a huge part in academic performance.
McNeece explained that every state’s funding has been severely cut in the last two years and there are two ways to make up the difference: raise local taxes or make cuts in the schools. Itawamba had to do both this year; they raised taxes and cut school personnel.
“When you have to cut teachers and classes, you are going to affect student performance,” McNeece said.
McNeece also said that more advanced courses in her district would be greatly beneficial to the scores produced by her students, but the current amount of funding does not allow classes to be added.
“I think our ACT scores could be raised if we could offer more advanced courses in our high schools. We have a disadvantage in that we aren't able to offer as many as we would like due to a lack of funding.”
McNeece expressed that there is no easy solution to the problem. In fact, the whole thing is a catch 22.
“Funding is often based on student performance, but it is hard to raise student performance without an adequate amount of funding,” McNeece said.
“I just want to see our students achieve all they can and leave our schools prepared for whatever the future holds for each of them.”
Word Count: 1,256
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsfQymEwJsY
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