The United States public school system is still segregated. It is not as harsh as it once was, nor with so many rules, but the fact remains that public primary schools in this country are still vastly unequal, and it is hurting everyone.

In the U.S., public schools are paid for out of property taxes. The more expensive the area a school is in, the more money it makes. That is a major problem for lower-income areas. The system is built so that lower-income areas get schools with fewer resources than those in higher-income areas. Those resources range from food options in the cafeteria to how many teachers are available. The NPR reported that in one school district in southern Chicago, three schools share one nurse, and the school district has a single elementary art teacher and one elementary music teacher. They switch schools halfway through the year.

In Colorado, Channel 2 reported that a Denver area school district had to consider closing five of its elementary schools to keep teachers’ pay at a state average, or risk losing their teaching staff. Teachers there earned on average $10,000 less than teachers in surrounding districts.

Another Colorado school district had to institute four-day school weeks in order to keep the district financially solvent, according to a report by CNBC.

While it is true that in many of these cases, these schools were also victim to state legislators slashing contributions to public schools, those legislators likely would not have slashed state funding for schools so heavily if they did not expect the school to be able to collect alternative funding from property taxes, regardless of how little money that actually is.

In Canada, for example, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia have all undertaken provincial-level school funding schemes that have drastically improved the fairness of public schools in those areas.

We, in New York state, are fortunate. According to NPR, this state is the most equitable in how it spends money, with nearly every district in the state spending more than 33 percent more per student than the national average per student per year. New York is the only state with an equitable system. Every other state in the country has districts that have significantly fewer than average resources and districts with significantly more resources than average.

This issue adds to many of the social problems the country is facing. When students do not have good educations, they may find it harder to enter higher education or compete in the workforce, depressing their chances at making a decent living and widening the income inequality gap. When students do not have school on Mondays, they miss out on years of schooling by the end of their 13 years in public school, significantly reducing their competitive edge in the workforce or their chances of getting to college. Add to that the fact that free time and young teenagers will probably lead to boredom, and that boredom can turn into drug use, criminal activity or even depression, it is pretty clear that students in poorly funded districts need help, and they need it immediately.

The education system is the basis of our economy and our social system. Without it, we would all suffer from a greatly reduced scope of possibilities. We as a country decided long ago that we would commit to funding public education, and it is time for us now to say that we as a country will commit to funding public education equally.

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