Chance For Inner City Kids example essay topic

The Halls of Society Walking through the halls of Brookfield Central High School taught me sometimes more than what I was taught in the classroom. Not that this is a bash to my alma mater, but there were certain things that came into play during the 4 years I attended. It was when I was a freshman, at 7: 45 one morning that I was walking through the halls, that I noticed that the halls were practically filled with white kids. It made me feel strange, and it made me think as to why we weren't more diverse in our school systems. There were, however, classmates of mine that were of different ethnicity, but for whatever reason, none of them were ever in school as early as 7: 45, in fact most of them walking in at about 5 to 8 o'clock, which was the time that our final bell rang to issue us to class.

It was strange though, because all these kids came in at the same time, and waited after school longer than I did to get on the bus that took them home. It was then that I realized that there were common links between these. Two other variables were tossed into that. These kids all lived in Milwaukee, in the inner city portions. It shouldn't have made as much sense as it did, because I also realized that, all the kids who lived in the city of Brookfield, were primarily white.

It was quite a rarity to see a person of a different race that Caucasian white males, drive through the streets on the way to school. Unfortunately each one of the inner city kids came in late, almost everyday, and they were also the last ones to leave. At first my impressions were, that they were the ones who cared the least about school, and that is why they came in late and were always doing the worst in our classes. To my embarrassment for thought, none of this was true. They were known as the "220 kids", which meant that they were busse d from the inner city of Milwaukee, 10 - 15 miles away, to our school.

That made me wonder why as well, I knew that there were plenty of schools in the Milwaukee Public School System. To my knowledge there was at least 10 or 12, so why on earth would these 220 kids come to Brookfield? Again, at this point I had to look at it again. They were called the 220 kids, and the number 220 comes from the Chapter 220, in the Wisconsin Education Systems. Chapter 220, is the State Education Boards way of making the ethnicity in suburban schools more equal, and it also gives the chance for inner city kids to get a better education. Get a better education?

Why does my school offer more than the MPS system schools? Turns out, Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the most segregated city in the United States, which basically spelled out to me, that in the inner city, it was mainly composed of minorities, and the suburbs, they were basically 100% Caucasian. It was definitely something shocking, but so was the fact that the attendance rate at most MPS schools hardly ever exceeded 50%. This could also make someone scratch their head and wonder why? Brookfield Central had almost 97% attendance rate each day, Making that 3% usually a sick person or two in a class of thirty. It was then I also found out that my school board, paid teachers more, and gave them more benefits.

This kind of attracted any teacher of any kind away from the MPS systems. MPS teachers, coincidentally, were also first year teachers in most cases, that had just graduated from college, and were looking to get some experience in teaching at the "core" before being able to move out to the suburban schools. So now we have inexperienced teachers, more money in the budget plan for the suburban schools, and a less than 50% turn out rate for school every day, and a separation of ethnicity in this agenda? To me this is one of the worst of society's accidents in the history of Wisconsin. We have to ship kids out to the suburb schools to make it equal in the classrooms, we have to go through one year of teaching before moving up into the suburban schools, and we also have to create an equality in minorities in the classroom. Just wait for this, it gets better.

In the MPS system, when you are registering, you are given the opportunity to apply for the chapter 220 program, to better your chances for getting into college. After all there are 85% of the graduates attending college from the Elm brook School District and other places, and only 15% from the MPS system. Isn't that strange? Fifteen percent of inner city minorities go on to college, versus the 85% suburban white kids in the suburban schools. So you apply when you are young, to be able to have the fortune of hopefully being selected to go to school in the suburbs, so you can move on with your life. It becomes a selective process and only the ones with true potential get a chance to move into the better schools.

To me that sounds highly unfair because, based on my location in the outskirts of Milwaukee, I get more opportunity to become someone, where as other people, of equal importance, have to apply to get in. Now to my knowledge of the years, it became apparent to me that this became an indirect race issue. I lived in the suburbs, they lived in the inner city. The inner city had high crime rate, low attendance rates in high school, and the lower class community closest to the core. So many things correlated with one another, and became variations to one another that it all began to just make sense to me, that our society in the Milwaukee area, was a result of a race issue. No one wants to hire minorities, none of them get a chance to do something with their life.

The reason they don't want them, because they never went to college. They never went to college, because their high school didn't give them enough attention. They never got enough attention, so they dropped out of school. They dropped out of school, didn't have a job, so they stole some money. The correlations can go on for quite some time, but the mental picture is remaining the same. Minorities were starting out life, with weights around their neck, in a 50 ft deep pool.

There chances of becoming something were very slim, and it is like a hole that they aren't able to get out of. The farther back down they fall, the further and harder they have to try to get back up. The suburbs give people a chance to go to school to become something, basically we end up giving them permission to wake up an hour before school starts, and wait for a bus that occasionally doesn't show up on time, and come into school late, and marked tardy because your bus was late. At even the most extreme cases, the 220 kids would get into 1st hour between 10 and 30 minutes late.

It is like a field trip to them every day, and their lives become so much more complicated than ours. They have so many more things to worry about than I do. I got up at 7: 30 a lot, and walked to school by 7: 45, giving me still ten minutes to get organized before class, maybe even finish up some homework. I feel spoiled, and for just a moment I have to wonder what it is like in the shoes of a "220" kid. It must be a very difficult and long day for each of them because they work so hard, and get the minimum compared to what I do. Chapter 220 is a mistake, it is something that shouldn't have to be.

Unfortunately, society has given itself a cut due to race and minorities, and there is only perhaps one way that it can be corrected. A few years back, the state Capital of Madison attempted to pass a promotion of "redistricting". What this would do, would be to redistrict and redirect the lines in which schools and communities cut off, so that each school would be more equal in ethnicity as well as opportunity. This however required that Shorewood, the richest city in the state, to share borders with Milwaukee Rufus King high school, one of the roughest schools there is. Shorewood spoke and the people listened. The parents board of Shorewood suggested that it not happen, and again money spoke and acted.

Milwaukee King was not going to be allowed to go to school with the kids from the current Shorewood school district all because the Shorewood people didn't want to ruin their kids chances at becoming great. That is a frontal display of the closed minded suburban individuals that vacate the large houses outside of Milwaukee. It's funny however, that the redistricting would cost roughly 20 million dollars for the city, but it is also amusing to know that after twenty years, they would no only save twenty million dollars, they would also save another 20 million dollars. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports stated that " up to 40 million dollars" would be saved over the course of twenty years if they were to redistrict the Milwaukee community. This would solve everything, with the exception of the rich, outspoken Shorewood parents. Because Shorewood did this, many other school districts followed the same.

The Parent Teacher Education Programs spoke left and right of how they would sue if the districts were redrawn because it would be taking away from their sons and daughters education. After reading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel while growing up, you seem to learn a lot about it too. "The state gives a school district a little more than $5,000 for each student admitted under the open enrollment program. While that is less than half of the cost of educating a student in some districts, if the district carefully decides where the students will be placed, accepting the student will have little or no effect on the district's costs while bringing in extra cash that can be spent by the district", (October 8th 2002, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.) Sometimes the numbers just don't mean a lot to me, because there is no number worth the troubles of race inequality. These are the issues of the Chapter 220 programs, and in the big picture, results of a racial problem that wasn't recognized until it was too late.

By the time the city of Milwaukee, recognized what was going on, parents and suburban people were not about giving up their percentages and success rates to a bunch of minority inner city problems. Last time, when the rich became to rich, and the poor became farther and farther away from the rich, there was something called the Great Depression. Milwaukee is in a depression however, the chances for certain people are granted almost the moment you are born, and what you are born into. Otherwise, when you are not born into the right hands and into the right house, you become what is labeled a social parasite, and you cause crime. Why do they cause crime though and why do these problems occur? They happen because there was hardly a chance to do anything else and become much of anything else.

The suburbs give them dreams, dreams in which can only stay dreams and rarely become a reality.