Education Equity in Boston
Creators: Yuqing (Bonnie) Cao & Marisol Rosa
Being in a college university atmosphere has made us realize that there are students who come in more underprepared than others and this has a large effect on their performance and opportunity to succeed. The problem we see is that there is a large achievement gap in high schools between students from high-income families and students from low-income families. Schools with a high percentage of underprivileged students are not receiving enough funding from federal, state, and local sources to be able to succeed as other more privileged students do. To begin solving this on a smaller scope we need to present this matter to the sources in control of our Boston Public School District’s funding to give more to the schools that hardly have any. In our advocacy poster, we presented a plot graph that clearly demonstrated the achievement gap in Boston Public Schools. On this graph are scattered test scores, showing the difference between the highest performing schools and the lowest. Our second and third graph focus on showing what is wrong with the way the money is being distributed now. The second one is a bar graph showing how a lot of money is being put into just a few school districts whereas the majority of them are barely receiving much. The third graph is a line graph that shows the unjust distribution of money between schools with a high percentage of low-income students versus those with more high-income students. The poster goes on to explicitly state exactly what can be done with the more money that would help for schools to perform better, like being able to hire more teachers and providing better programs for students. If we present this information to our federal, state, and local funding sources then they will realize how the money is currently being unjustly distributed and be convinced that they need to distribute the money in a better way that demonstrates equity. Ideally, they will provide more money to the schools with more lower-income students and by doing this future generations will not have such a large achievement gap. By closing the gap more students will be able to succeed which means more minds working together to build an improved future. The world would be a better place.
