Week 7: Lit Review - Danielle C.

Buszin, J. S. (2013). Beyond school finance: Refocusing education reform litigation to realize the deferred dream of education equality and adequacy. Emory Law Journal, 62, 1613-1656.

The article talked about how education reform has been mostly looked at as a financial issue for the past forty years, but how financial assistance is not the most important aspect that can make a significant impact.  It examined recent court cases to find that almost all the schools that received financial help were unable to make a significant impact on change for their schools even with assistance.  Comparing one school’s needs to another to make them equal can be a nearly impossible task because the quality of each schools maintenance, transportation costs, construction costs, number of students, number of teachers, logistics, etc. are completely different.  Inequality in education begins at the fundamental level; schools that cannot afford textbooks, routine building maintenance, or teacher salaries are going to have a hard time promoting an education that looks anything like schools that can easily provide for these.  The article discussed that after providing for these basic financial necessities the laws for education must look deeper into the quality of each individual school program.  Helping schools find and train educators to work specifically with the unique population of students in their school is key.  Programs built to get students, families, and educators excited about the curriculum were also suggested.     

I thought this article would be interesting and pertain all of our research in our community work because many of our areas have issues within their school systems.   The article really emphasized looking at each distinct for its individual assets and also determining aspects that could be improved.   I liked how the focus of this article was more on programs than finance.  I think many times people get caught up with finances that we forget that while money helps it does not necessarily guarantee the right programs, curriculum, and educators for a school.  In my opinion financial assistance should be used to help more equally distribute the basic needs for schools to function and more effort should be based on developing these individual plans for quality programming.  For me personally, I always had an easy time in school throughout high school.  I did not put much effort into assignments, I do not ever remember studying for tests, and I graduated with a 4.0.  When I got to college I felt totally un-prepared and had to re-learn how to be a successful student.  This is unfortunate because I went to a Parkway school, which has a good reputation for education.  However, even at this “good school” I did not feel ready for the next step and I would have benefited for some classes or programs helping me learn strategies for the high school to college transition.        

What do you think is the most important aspect in promoting equal education?  What laws would you like to see passed to impact education reform?  What was your experience of how your school prepared you for higher education and the workforce?