The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side: An Autoethnography
Education is “the central means by which a society transmits its knowledge, values, and expectations to its members” (Ferris & Stein). From a sociological perspective, this statement resonates through my educational experiences. I’ve learned a lot from the education system, and I have experienced outside forces playing a role in my own schools. In elementary school, I was a part of a referendum and the introduction of the “No Child Left Behind” Act. In high school, I experienced what it was like to be in one of the poorest schools in our district, due to the crash of the housing market. These experiences have opened my eyes to the quality of education I was given versus the people I encounter now, who come from varied other backgrounds. I was made aware of not only the fragility of the educational system, but also the massive influence education has on every person.
I grew up in the suburban town of Algonquin, IL. My school district was District 300, based out of Carpentersville, IL (it is now based out of Algonquin). I went to a Catholic preschool a few blocks away from my house. Right before I went into first grade, a new school opened up, which was built to deal with the overflow of a K-8 school in Carpentersville (I only attended this K-8 school for Kindergarten). The new school was comprised of mainly white students, with the occasional students of a different ethnicity. When I was in third or fourth grade, I remember there was a referendum taking place involving higher taxes to open more schools in our district. The parents who had children in school (including my parents, who had 3 of us in school) knew how much another school would benefit us, and they were afraid that the large population of retirees that lived in the district wouldn’t vote for it because they didn’t have children in school. Eventually it passed, and District 300 began building Hampshire High School, to both accompany the community that was rapidly expanding, and to take some of the overflow from the two high schools that desperately needed it.
Since before I can remember, I have always, without a doubt, endured some type of standardized testing. It started with ISATs (Illinois Standards Achievement Tests), due to George W. Bush passing the “No Child Left Behind” Act in 2002. I never understood the point of the tests- all my teachers told me they wouldn’t count for a grade in the class, so what was the point of taking them? This line of thinking stayed with me through my middle school years, as I endured similar standardized tests. Again, the teachers stressed the importance of them- but the scores never counted as a grade in the class. I didn’t really care for the tests, and most of the questions were about things we had never even talked about in class. As the years went on, we would start to dedicate time to learning exactly what would be on the standardized tests, thus changing the curriculum. The only comfort I drew from these tests was that everyone who was also in my grade in the United States would have to take the same test. I always got the same scores: Exceeds in Reading and English, and usually I met the standards for math and science by a small margin. However, we never discussed our scores in class, and I never got to know which ones I got wrong or how to answer it correctly, as I would be able to on a test that my teacher gave me. I was never allowed to ask questions about it, or anything. I could basically just look at my scores and that was it. So then, what would be the point to take these tests, and to actually want to do well on them? I hated these tests, and I wouldn’t put in my full effort for them, thus producing a lower grade. They didn’t know it was me that had the lower grade, my score was simply compiled with the thousands of other students in Illinois, to determine our state’s level of success, not my own level of success.
At the end of middle school, I took a field trip to my future high school, Dundee-Crown. The size of my field trip group wasn’t large by any means, but we were like sardines in a can in the hallways during passing period. I had never seen so many kids in the hallways. There was legitimately traffic in which people stuck to the right side to make a two-way lane form. Needless to say, I was extremely claustrophobic.
My first year at ‘Crown was eye-opening. Whites were the minority of the school (it was a majority-minority situation), classes were overcrowded, and there was rush hour traffic every passing period. I thought that’s what every high school was- overcrowded. After joining the debate team and traveling to several different high schools in the surrounding suburban Chicago areas, I learned very quickly that I was given the short end of the stick on several different things. Many of the kids I would compete with were from some of the richest suburbs around, and had large, well-equipped high schools. Everything was new and state-of-the-art. I started to realize that the area in which the school is located will greatly impact the quality of the school. Although I lived in Algonquin, I lived in the working-class part of town that advanced to Dundee-Crown, located next to housing projects of Carpentersville. Our football field’s fence was the only thing that separated us from drugs and crime on the other side. A student was robbed at gun point in the parking lot my senior year. We had gang members attend school, famous skateboarders, and a lot of (now) drug addicts. Our biggest struggle was making sure kids graduated high school, while my debate competitors had their eyes set on Harvard Law School.
In the spring of 2010, District 300 dealt out 363 pink slips to teachers, notifying them that this would be their last year teaching. The district also stated it intended to cut the music program, the special education program, art programs, and much more. Since schools are funded almost directly from the neighborhoods in which is it situated in, from 2007 to 2008 our school went from decently poor to flat-broke. We felt the full wrath of the 2008 housing market crash. Somewhat back on our feet by 2010, the parents and students rallied together and fought the school board. After some changes in the budget, they were able to return many of the jobs, however most teachers left due to the simmering instability that was in store for us. The classes grew from 30 kids to almost 40 students per class. I learned that our school was originally built to hold 1,200 students. My graduating year of high school, the statistics were as follows:
“2,639 students attended this high school. 58.6% are from low-income households, and 2.2% are homeless” (Chicago Tribune, 2014).
The two other high schools in my district were predominately white and, as it turned out, much more funded than ours. In Jonathon Kozol’s piece, he unveils this truth about unequal funding in inner city schools versus suburban schools of New York City. While Carpentersville is not the inner city of NYC, the unequal funding pattern is still apparent. “As it turned out, the use of private subsidies to supplement the tax-supported budgets of some schools in affluent communities was a more commonly accepted practice than most people in the city’s poorest neighborhoods had known” (Kozol 266). The other schools in my districts and the districts surrounding followed the same pattern. If the school was set in an affluent community, those students were almost guaranteed to receive a quality education, while kids who attended my school were forced to deal with less than that.
The thing that strikes me as odd is that we are not lashing out against the way the educational system is structured. At least, that’s not how my district handled it. We, as students, time and time again put ourselves in front of the board members (who, for working in a poor district, made a nice 3 figures) and advocated for our right to a proper education. Most of us were debate team members, who had the opportunity to travel to other high schools and see the clear differences. It became a problem bigger than us. It became a problem that, not surprisingly, too many students face. From a structural-functional perspective, this educational inequality was merely preparation for occupational inequality later in life.
I still managed to do alright in high school, and got myself accepted to college. This could be due to the fact that I’m a white female who stayed out of trouble in high school. Hispanic and Black males spent a lot of time in detention or ISS (In-School-Suspension), where they were pulled out of class to spend their day in a locked room. Although I didn’t receive the best education around, at least I was in the classroom. As Ann Arnett Ferguson points out, “There are serious, long-term effects of being labeled a Troublemaker that substantially increase one’s changes of ending up in jail” (582). Unfortunately, the kids that I knew that spent most of their days in ISS are either in jail, just got out of jail, or just haven’t been caught yet. As much as it pains me to say, being white benefitted me while it hindered others. However, both of us felt the effects of a lower quality education.
Many people are unaware of the educational inequalities that plague schools across the country. That’s what the idea was for the “No Child Left Behind Act”; to try to monitor schools and make sure each child as an equal opportunity to achieve their goals. Education is one of the major agents of socialization, and sadly could cause irreparable damage to those it short hands. A child’s education should shape them to achieve greatness The educational experiences that children have will stay with them through adulthood, and the majority of them will be hindered due to their lack of a quality education. Why is it that the children that need it the most are the ones who have the least?
Sources
Ferris, Kerry, and Jill Stein. 2014. Real World: An Introduction to Sociology, Fourth Edition. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
“2014 Illinois School Report Cards.” 2014. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, IL. Retrieved November 14th, 2015. (http://schools.chicagotribune.com/school/dundee-crown-high-school_carpentersville)
Kozol, Jonathan. 2005. “Hitting Them Hardest When They’re Small.” Everyday Sociology Reader. (p. 266)
Ferguson, Ann Arnett. 2000. “Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity.” The University of Michigan Press. (p. 582)
