I’ve been to school, so I know how they run, right?
Heck, I’ve been to many different public and charter schools, so I thought I had a pretty good idea. However, when you consider that each school is part of a district which is part of a local and state government, there are more pieces to consider than just one teenager’s experiences.
The Wisconsin Schools project centered around researching ten aspects of all of Wisconsin schools. The ten criterion are as follows:
- Public vs private
- Local cost of living
- Number of schools
- School population
- Per pupil spending
- Teacher:student ratio
- Teacher salaries/benefits
- Extracurriculars/AP’s
- Demographics
- Admin/support staff
I focused on the Fond Du Lac school district and its neighboring private schools.
While I’m originally from a different community, I went to high school in a pretty privileged area. I was therefore shocked most by the high percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunch. I am both grateful that this is an option schools can provide and saddened that there is a reason.
Another surprising data point was the range of per pupil spending within one district. In my findings, two elementary schools of similar size spent $10,675 and $16,875 respectively. There is a stark difference between these numbers despite being in a similar geographic area.
A difference, or lack thereof, that surprised me was the consistency between teacher salaries. Having most recently been to school in Illinois, I expected lower salaries in Wisconsin than I was used to hearing about. What I did not expect was that the average salary across Fond Du Lac County was relatively consistent.
I could continue talking about specific data points that surprised me, or general facts that I learned by researching topics I hadn’t searched for prior. However, I think my real learnings from this project were of greater significance.
I learned that A) There can be great differences between schools that are geographically nearby and B) While information is readily available, people might not know much about the schools in their own community.
This left me with the question of what happens when a student is put in a drastically different district based on a single street boundary? Or what happens when parents are uninformed about the schools their children attend?
I don’t have an answer to these questions, but I know that in thinking about them, the greater issue of public ignorance about education is revealed.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of this reflection Natalie. Grappling with some of the complexity of our education system helps us to move past assumptions and start to build a foundational understanding of the systems that you will work within as an educator. Ending with a question is a great way to keep thinking about this topic.