Makayla DeNoble

When looking into scientific journals or peer reviewed articles it is clear that many of them do not directly address the problem as socialization. However, many do touch on the point of the struggle that minority children take on when they are facing the public education system. The primary article that I looked at was from Scientific American, “Educating Poor Minority Children” by James P. Comer. In this article he goes into detail on the disparity that the minority children have faced for a very long time, specifically pointing towards Thomas Jefforsons presidency and advocacy of poor children receiving education. In this article Mr. Comer claims that the discrepancy of education of minority children sets them behind the national average by two years. Two years can do a lot of damage and keeping up with classmates is hard enough as it is. “In large cities as much as 50% of minority children drop out of school”. This statistic shows how there is a continuation of socialization because without schooling it is difficult to succeed financially or socially. Without the care and attention that schools need to provide for their minority students and their poor students they are bound to continue the cycle. 

My second article is “Multiple Marginality and Urban Education: Community and School Socialization Among Low-Income Mexican-Descent Youth” by Gilberto Q. Conchas. This article primarily focuses on the socialization of Mexican youth and the impact it has on the community and vice versa. From a young age the youth have to be faced with challenges that they should not have to handle yet. They are forced to confront environmental, cultural, and economic conflicts that can have a negative impact. When the outside environment is negative it is hard to have a positive school life. By not having the comfort and security guaranteed at home students often fail to have motivation in their education. This article focuses more on how a negative community can further push youth into socialization even if the school is trying hard to put them on the right path.

When comparing the article it is obvious that both of them are correct and can correlate with each other. Socialization often has to be impacted by how the system handles minorities and people in poverty and how the outside world can corrupt it more. Youth need to have a school that can drive them academically and provide programs to keep the kids involved and out of trouble. The community needs to also not drag each other down into the darkness, not all minorities live in bad communities, but many are not supported by those around them. This applies to organizations such as law enforcement, government aid, jobs, etc. To end socialization the organizations put in place to help the people of the United States, need to work together to create a supportive and successful system that will push students to graduate, go to college, create economic advancements and job opportunities. Just because some groups need more help than others does not mean the system should give up on them.

Citations:

Comer, James P. “Educating Poor Minority Children.” Scientific American, vol. 259, no. 5, 1988, pp. 42–48., https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1188-42.

I previously wrote a deeply investigated account of solicitation in the Beaverton School District. In my previous blog, I showed how the schools that receive more funding are also the schools with less poverty and higher test scores. It showed how the high schools with less funding are struggling to keep up while the majority of their kids are already struggling with poverty. Now I come forward with two news articles showing how some schools are not actually underfunded, they are just poorly using the funds that are given. The Oregonian puts a spotlight on the school districts' lack of discipline from government officials when it comes to spending the government's money. The article said that auditors have found, "Those officials have sat by for years as the state education agency did little to set meaningfully high standards for schools or districts and did little to intervene when some of them vastly underdelivered for their students, particularly students of color and those living in poverty". This further proves my claim of socialization taking place in Oregon and the Beaverton School District. Oregon is amongst the lowest graduation rates in the nation and is failing to improve. It also showed how not requiring the review of grades from schools has caused schools to not strive to improve student success, even if the money they are granted is intended for that reason. According to the Oregonian, the lack of student funding is deliberately due to the misuse of funds and lack of accountability.

Oregon Public Broadcasting pointed out that Oregon currently has the biggest school budget ever granted by the state, this budget includes $9.3 billion for the next two years, but this does not include the other funding from congress. Even with the funding, many schools are still going through cuts, why? Beaverton is using reserves because they really need $9.6 billion. Many funding has regulations that can only apply to helping Covid 19 issues making them almost inaccessible. Millions of dollars are spent on summer programming like cooking camps, and some schools are focusing on hybrid, all of these programs take billions, especially when dealing with families in poverty that can not pay extra. They argue that the Oregon school districts are not misusing funds but are trying to create a more inclusive and exciting educational environment. Many of the things talked about included the goals of the Beaverton School District claiming they are underfunded with $9.3 million. This makes me wonder why they believe summer programs take precedence over class sizes during the school year, especially when summer programs are provided at low cost by the local Tualatin Hills Park and Rec which they had partnered with in the past. The impact that class sizes can make on a student's future is huge, being in a class of 20 and having a teacher be more personable and able to help is better than an overwhelmed teacher who can barely make ends meet with a classroom with around 40 students.

I personally went to Aloha High School in the Beaverton School District where I have firsthand experienced the lack of funding for our school which already has most of its population coming from poverty. I have been in a classroom that did not have enough seats for the number of students that have been put in the class, which was 42. As a student who was in athletics and student leadership, I have traveled to other schools in the district and witnessed the inequalities that my school has faced. Five miles down the road from Aloha in either direction, you will find two high schools that are greatly funded. Westview High School and Mountainside High School. Just walking into their buildings you can see how Aloha and Beaverton were exiled as poor schools and were ignored. As a school, we have to fight for teachers, our advanced placement programs, and for our basic needs. Our school district does not use the funding correctly, their excuse can not be "there is not enough" when they blatantly ignore schools that need help and instead create "summer cooking programs.

In the Beaverton School District, the high schools experience a major lack of resources for the school of students that have a lower family income. The top schools based off of graduation rates are Mountainside, Sunset, and Westview with graduation rates in the 90s. They also individually have less than 25% of their students on the free and reduced lunch programs. These programs are available for students that have families who make less than $8,732 per person when annual income is split between all family members. Then when looking at the schools that have the lowest graduation rates it is heavily dominated by the low-income schools, Aloha, Beaverton, and Southridge. Aloha has 64% of their students on free and reduced lunch with a 79% graduation rate. Beaverton has 50% of their students are on free and reduced lunch with a 79% graduation rate as well. Southridge has 44% of their students are on free and reduced lunch with a slightly higher graduation rate of 85%. The correlation of the demographics to the graduation rate proves the effects of socialization and lack of resources for low-income schools in Beaverton. The expected outcomes of the students are clearly different, it is easy to see without even looking at the statistics the drive for students to go to college is less influential in these low-income schools. Socialization is about only seeing one possible path because that is what individuals were raised into and conformed to, it is time to see the flaws and stray away from the set path.

Senior, & Sophomore. (2022, August 14). Explore Beaverton school district. Niche. Retrieved October 16, 2022, from https://www.niche.com/k12/d/beaverton-school-district-or/