Background Information on Elementary and Secondary Education Act

In 1965 Congress passed The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was created to provide an equal and better education for all children. It became one of the most essential acts for education in the United States. The act creates funding for low-income areas and schools to provide a more equal education for all children. The start of this act urged on other pieces to be added to strengthen the schools around The United States, such as the Aid to Handicapped Children. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides an education for all people under the age of twenty up to grade twelve. It states that any child is entitled to a free public education. Its goal was to "help provide an accelerated, high-quality curriculum, including applied learning" (Elementary).

I believe this act to very important to education in only the sense that it provides and entitles all children to an education. I believe that if this act was not in place there would be many children that would not have the opportunity to go to school, that said, it would deny those children the right to knowledge. In almost every other sense of the act, I believe it is useless. Many of the statements the act makes are not followed through with actions today. For example, low-income school do not have the same funding or offer the level of education that Deerfeild High School does. Both schools are public schools yet the children that go to low-income schools do not have the same opportunity as we do.

New Trier High School is attempting to pass a referendum that would involve their community to finance aproject through taxes. They would spend as a comunity a total of 174 million dollars over the course of twenty three years. Now New Trier is getting no state money for this project, yet if the referendum is passed then they will have a newer and nicer looking school. Is this fair? The state provides the funding for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) but they tax payers around them cannot afford to pay that much to provide a nicer looking school. The tax payers around most CPS schools can barley afford the school and for that matter can not afford to give a proper education at the school due to the lack of materials and teachers. According to CPS.edu their funding was 180 million dollars short of the minimum they needed for teachers and supplies. If New Trier used the money they want to use to "fix" their school and used it for CPS they could have provided teachers with jobs and students with teachers and still have six million dollars left over to improve 409,000 students educations. CPS has over six hundred schools and 409,000 students which creates little funding per kid. According to an article published in August 2008, about a possible boy cot for CPS due to low funding stated, "CPS receives $10,000 per student while students attending schools in affluent school districts such as New Trier High School in north suburban Winnetka receive $17,000 per student. " (Hudson Chicagodefender). This is unfair. New Trier has about four thousand two hundred students who attend their school which a 17,000 dollar budget for each of them. There are 409,000 students that receive almost half as less as they do. This is unfair. This contradicts The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the lack of education in these areas are again creating a cycle of lack of knowledge. With 409,000 kids receiving knowledge that is much lesser and not at all equal to the four thousand two hundred kids that go to New Trier it creates 409,000 kids with a much smaller opportunity for success. This is why the problem of low income schools has been around for too long. Until all students can be provided with a "New Trier education" all students will not be equal. The more time that goes by the more New Trier uses the high income community to better their school and the more CPS is cut off from funds due to a low income community. The Elementary and Secondary Act needs to take tax payers money into account when looking at funds for schools. Until all students are equal there will continue to be a lack of balance for opportunities for each student. All of this said does not mean that no one who comes out of CPS schools cannot succeed in life, they definitely can and all of this said does not mean that all New Trier students can succeed. What all of this means is that CPS students have a harder time finding that success from the beginning of their educations due to the lack of opportunity that is given to them.

http://www.chicagodefender.com/article-1666-proposal-could-end-pending-cps-boycott.html
http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/Financial_information/Pages/FYBudget2010.aspx
"Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965)." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .