Class and Status in Education
Obviously budget cuts, no matter where they are being cut from, can affect the lives of many people. Specifically, this news article focuses on the New Jersey educational budget cuts made by Governor Chris Christie last year. As of March 22, 2011, a Superior court judge found out that these cuts made my Christie left New Jersey schools unable to provide “thorough and efficient” education for nearly 1.4 million students. Judge Peter Doyne, also realized that the cuts fell most heavily upon the high-risk districts.
The following video discusses a situation at PJ Hill elementary school, a school in New Jersey with a higher number of at risk kids.
“How much is too much for education cuts”
The school is suppose to receive a larger share of state funding than schools in wealthier neighborhoods, but Superintendent Raymond Broach expresses that he received no extra money last school year.
He talks about the “race” for learners and that assuming that every student starts at the starting line together is “not- American”. He states that “ [making a large sum of budget cuts] makes that race for some learners, almost next to impossible”. Governor Christie’s response to this call for help is that sometimes “Tough times call for tough choices”.
Breaking this story down in sociological terms, I’d like to refer to theorists Max Weber and his ideas of class and status. Class status has a lot to do with your “life chances”(opportunities), and it is shown here that these students in high-risk areas are being neglected the opportunity to achieve the education that they are capable of because of their life chances. The people of New Jersey are aware that those students in high-risk areas are in need for more funding because of the less-fortunate life they are enduring. Watching the video, a majority of the students shown were of African American decent. This speaks a lot about white privilege and the rejection of help that these students of PJ Hill are being faced with. It makes you wonder, if the roles were reversed and it was the white students that needed the help, if the same budget cuts would be made. America has been faced with the challenge of white privilege for many years, and although this news story does not directly state that those in the “privileged” area are of white decent, I feel as if the video makes this statement by showing a large sum of black students at this school.
The budget cuts forced Raymond Broach to keeps literacy coaches and instead cut nurses, social workers, substance abuse counselors, custodians and others from the district. His reasoning: “to know you can’t read, often turns students attention to being discipline problems, those are the students we fear we need to put a web of support around so that they don’t drop out of school and for that matter so they don’t drop out of society”. He makes a good point and also proves just how important education has become in today’s society. But it’s also sad to know that this “tough time” puts a damper on future students, especially those students who already have a setback due to their personal life of being in a high-risk area. It also clearly affects the jobs of many people in the area.
Max Weber- “Class, Status, and Party” (1909-1920)
