Now that my kids are all grown up and have kids of their own, I live in a beautiful rural spot. I would have never lived in this beautiful rural spot while my kids were still at home. Back then I chose a dwelling according to its corresponding school system: the best neighborhood, with the best school system, that I could possibly afford.

 

What that says about the Unites States is appalling. It means that we all participate, every day, without thinking about it, in an educational system designed to reward those who are already well off while punishing those who are not. By basing public school funding on local property tax revenues, the United States overtly and covertly perpetuates inequality in education. A child whose parents can afford to live in a good neighborhood in a big city can get a good education in public school. A child whose parents can’t afford to live in a good neighborhood in a big city is on their own.

 

Yesterday afternoon I waited where my gravel road joins the paved road while local kids piled off the school bus. The little kids looked pretty much like little kids everywhere look. Excited to be alive. The older kids, the middle schoolers, looked pretty down in the dumps. I thought about that as I drove to a doctor’s appointment.

 

What if you’re one of those middle schoolers getting off the bus yesterday whose parents are–and will probably always be–achingly, grindingly poor?

 

And what if your only ticket out of a similar life of poverty was the public school system in a rural county in the United States of America?