CARSA

Denvir outlines the issues that neighborhood schools are facing when faced up against certain standards. Schools like Steel Elementary, that have failed to reach the standards of NCLB, are under threat of being taken over by a private consultant, intended to transform the school. Mark Gordon, the CEO of Mastery Charter Schools remarks that "districts are a house on fire and poor children are trapped inside", which implies that poor people are completely helpless, and without Mark Gordon to save them, they will collapse. Kendra Brooks, principal of Steel Elementary School notes that "Gordon....said his job was 'to help poor people'. Well, no one asked for your help....Every couple years, they come up with a new philosophy about what's best -- instead of funding the school".

After reading the selections from City Kids, City Schools, which provided strong, negative opinions about how the government deals with poverty and "failing" schools, I revisited the article "Racial Bias in Pennsylvania's Funding of Public Schools." From the first read-through, I was struck at how the line-of-best-fit in the graphs so starkly separated the yellow and brown dots. On second look, I noticed a brown dot in the upper right corner -- an outlier -- at about 90% Free or Reduced Lunch and getting about $16,000 per student BEF (Basic Education Funding).