This country needs to reconsider how public school is funded
In “The forgotten Supreme Court case that cemented educational inequality” (Ideas, May 3), Jonathan Kozol reviewed a 1973 decision that allowed property taxes to be applied to funding public education, even though, as Kozol writes, “wealthier communities could fund their schools at higher levels than poorer communities.” Justice Lewis Powell, in his majority opinion, said that “the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute equality.” So a court ruling handed down two generations ago remains the rule of law.
It’s time for this country to reconsider how education is funded. Observing other countries can provide insight. Sweden, for example, funds education universally because it recognizes the value of education as an investment improving both the individual and society as a whole.
While wealth redistribution raises hackles on both sides of the aisle, the time has come for elected officials to develop a policy to level funding for all school districts. Equal access to educational funding would provide the chance to lift all boats.
Tax dollar redistribution is not wealth redistribution. This is a matter of telling politicians how we want our tax payments allocated.
Bob Dockendorff
Plymouth
We’ve identified the problem — now how will we solve it?
I read Jonathan Kozol’s article “The forgotten Supreme Court case that cemented educational inequality” (Ideas, May 3) with the hopes he would offer more for a closing statement than suggesting the remote possibility of a constitutional amendment as a solution to such a profound problem. Having taught at the high school level, and having read his 1991 book “Savage Inequalities,” I expected at least one proposed remedy Kozol finds attainable.
Today a reasonable person has little difficulty identifying disparate, unfair, or unequal circumstances in the fabric of our society. But crafting workable solutions to such critical circumstances remains hampered by resistance to change, political partisanship, and economic realities. Worst of all, intelligent political compromise — often the most successful way to reach consensus — is now viewed as weakness.
Our Framers did not specifically address public education in 1787 in Philadelphia, and the 14th Amendment may not directly guarantee equality in public education (the vote was 5-4 in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the case Kozol cited). Those facts, however, should not serve as an excuse for a lack of attention to this matter. We should expect more of ourselves.
I look forward to the day when our nation’s best and brightest have an environment conducive to attacking longstanding, complex problems with methods likely to produce results. Perhaps a collaboration between our legislators and American higher education institutions’ graduate programs would be a good start.
Peter Vangsness
Medway
Too few Americans see past their own family’s experience
Jonathan Kozol’s informative essay brought needed attention to a longstanding, chronic injustice that undermines every facet of American life: education inequality.
We know that the quality of education matters crucially for the social, economic, and creative achievement of every individual, and that the quality of the collective education of our nation is critical to determining whether the country will flourish or decline.
What Kozol does not consider in his elegant description of the hypocrisy and peril of America’s property value-based education system is how many Americans are aware of the problem and its damage to us all.
I went to Memphis public schools when Justice Lewis Powell wrote the majority opinion in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, and my children later attended the illustrious Boston Latin School. For years I have volunteered to enrich the educational experience of children in both urban and suburban public schools. Even in my limited experience, the differences in educational resources can be stark — and these differences matter forever.
Yet such rampant differences are unseen by many Americans, because few ever see more than their own and their children’s (likely similar) educational experiences.
James L. Sherley
Boston