THE MEME CONCEPT

The Meme Concept

The Meme Concept

Educational funding concept from Kozol

The role of education is widely understood to be essential in our society for both the advancement of the nation as well as the enhancement of individual life. The power that results from learning provides people with the ability to succeed physically, intellectually, and emotionally, and contribute their resources to the betterment of their environment. The fact that a person who has worked hard at his education will be offered myriad opportunities for his future is something that no one can contest in our culture, because it is based on an ideology that has fueled the evolution of our country for centuries - the American Dream.

According to this idea, success will come to anyone in America, regardless of race, gender, or social status, as long as they work hard enough. Education is the vital component in this philosophy, because it is education that gives people the skills they need to work towards accomplishing their goals. Long ago, the United States made the decision to require universal public education in the hope that everyone would be offered an equal opportunity to realize this dream and to pursue a life full of accomplishments and privilege. However, in practice, this theory has failed to supply each child with the same chance to achieve his goal and instead has only fostered segregation, discrimination, and mass inequality. This disparity is the issue that is taken up by both Jonathan Kozol and Peter Schrag in their respective works, Savage Inequalities and “High Stakes are for Tomatoes”. While their opinions differ about the fundamental problems in our educational system, they are both deeply concerned with the inconsistency of the standards and the segregation that results. Kozol argues that the biggest problem in our public educational system is the severe lack of funding and the gross inequalities that are present among school districts. Whereas many children of middle and upper class neighborhoods are given the material and intellectual resources that will allow them to obtain high social status, solid employment, and wealth, many other children are denied this privilege because of their economic background and location. Obviously within almost any society there are going to be varying levels of wealth and power, but it seems that in America, the distinction between rich and poor is greatly magnified. This economic separation has also come to include factors of race, for the people who constitute the low-income class are predominantly minorities. Therefore, if the US has promised every individual with an equal education, how is it that low-income and often non-white citizens are not being offered the same resources as upper class white citizens? In Kozol's opinion, it is this lack of fiscal resources in poor neighborhoods that is the foundation of all the other problems found in the individual district schools. Inefficient and untrained teachers, textbook, lab instrument, and general supply shortage, and unsuitable building conditions all stem from the fact that there is not enough ...