Education Impact on Psychological Development

"The quality of a school setting and education directly impacts the development of a child especially in critical ages of their psychosocial development. Education can be the key to breaking the back of generational poverty society to be better educated and bettered prepared for the technological and economic development that will continue to take place. Today, an average adolescent spends seven hours of their time on education which is over 1,300 hours in a single school year (Office of Adolescent Health, 2018). Given children are spending this much time in a school setting, it is important to understand what kind of institutions they are placed in.

Our system has come a long way given the history of education in the U.S. Schools were once limited to a specific gender, and a certain race, but monumental supreme court cases like Brown v. Board of Education where the supreme court ruled that American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional and violate the equal protection clause of the f14th amendment of the US Constitution, paved the road for major reform. However, there are still a lot of issues we need to address in order to guarantee equal, effective education for the youth of America so that they can discover their fullest potential in the most crucial parts of their lives.

The quality of a school setting and education directly impacts the development of a child especially in critical ages of their psychosocial development. Adolescence is a period of transition between childhood and adulthood that occurs from the ages of 12 to 17. Children entering adolescent are going through many changes including physical, intellectual, personality, and most importantly social development. It’s when kids spend more time in peer relationships and where participation in large social groups becomes important. they search for their identity in this stage of their life, thus it’s crucial how much and where adolescents spend their time. And that place is school. What happens during this stage directly impacts who they become as an adult.

Dr. Robert Evans Critics, a former teacher and current family therapist, claims that schooling plays an important role in a child’s life and learning, but not the most influential. Most influential are the experiences, habits, values, and ideas they acquire from the environment in which they live. However, in a study conducted by the UCLA School of public Health, 1270 low-income minority studies were randomly assigned to traditional public schools in their area or high performing public charter schools or private schools out of the area. The study showed that high performing schools in this study impacted the student’s health behaviors by isolating students from deviant peers and thus gang related violence, as well as drug and alcohol use. These effects were enhanced by a positive school culture and supportive adult and student interactions to reinforce healthy norms. this study provides compelling evidence that quality school environments be immediately beneficial to low-income, minority kids.

Underserved groups and communities will be able to attend free, quality schools that will increase the economic mobility in society. Investing in high-quality public schools may be an important strategy for achieving health equity for all students, and particularly the most disadvantaged. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are an average of 4.3 months behind their peers by the age of 5, that gap increases to 9.5 months behind by the age of 11, and to 19.3 months by the time they leave high school.
Not only are the children of the rich doing better in elementary and high school than the children of the poor, they also are cornering the market on the seats in the best colleges. Because these colleges provide educational opportunities and access to social networks that often lead to high-paying jobs, children from low-income families risk are being locked out of the upper end of the economic spectrum. For low-income children, the American Dream is further out of reach. As I explained in the study earlier, its not that underserved kids aren’t capable of succeeding. They certainly are, they just don’t have equal access to the resources needed to do that like higher income kids do.

Critics claim that it is a winner-take-all economy and parents should be able to give their kids every advantage they can. But today’s income inequality is now leading to unequal investment in children and laying down a foundation for even more unequal adults lives in the future.

Equalizing the education system will allow our society to be better educated and bettered prepared for the technological and economic development that will continue to take place. The achievement gap between the rich and poor is bad news for our future economy and society because we need well-educated workers in order to sustainably boost economic productivity and grow the economy. The impact of this skills gap is easy to see across local economies. Georgetown University predicts there will be an estimated 228,000 STEM-related jobs in Michigan by 2018, but as Detroit public schools rank the lowest among big-city districts in math—with only 4 percent of eighth graders scoring proficient or better—the question lingers: Who will fill those roles?

How do we achieve equalization? First we need to acknowledge the inequality that is our system. Right now, public schools are funded by property and income tax. So that’s why we see so much disparity between schools in different regions, even just looking in Pennsylvania. According to the North Penn 2017-2018 budget report, Meaning they spent an average of 36,000 per student, while in the Philadelphia school district, in 2017-2018 school year, they spent $9,062 per student. The spending gap in PA between rich and poor school districts was rates as the nations worst in 2015 according the Inquirer. So, to improve the quality of schools and combat the current issues, we need to Raise standards for teachers. Teachers choose to work in more affluent areas because of better pay/working conditions and because they are being now are spread to thin and students don’t get the attention they require. By investing in teachers more, income and training, we can guarantee that children have access to supportive leaders that will accommodate their individual needs.

Make funding a priority. States need to invest more in schools. But at a scale that will increase funding more for schools with less access to local resources. It’s not that the government is struggling to come up with revenues. Just think of it this way, almost every state in this country spends more to house the average inmate than it does to educate the average elementary/secondary student.

What can we do? Educate ourselves, participate in local government, vote!! This is significant to anyone who knows a child in a school system, be it good or bad. Children of rich parents aren’t born smarter than others. In order for American to really be considered the land of EQUAL opportunity, education should not be based on aristocracy or parental wealth, but on the merit of their own achievements and that should possible for all the youth of America."

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