Globalization, Inequality & Education

What is the relationship between globalization, income inequality and public education in the US? It would seem that students at NBHS (or at least a portion of them) believe that public education is a punitive measure of government, imposed on some by courts and on others by their parents. Still others believe that education is not either a public good or a global good. Keeping the issue of teenage angst aside, has our society failed to stress the importance of an education? Do students in a high unemployment, high dropout, high drug use, gang connected city like New Bedford feel that public school is their punishment? Providing a global scope to NBHS students can improve the situation, but only at the point of saturation. One teacher's message or one parent's plea does not seem to have the pervasive effect of promoting a paradigm shift in the way students view school. The Singapore Study demonstrates that if NBHS felt that it had to compete in a global environment to survive economically, improvement in education would be fairly easy to measure. From my experience, NBHS students do not feel this way. They also do not feel that education provides them with the tools that they need to be successful by their measurement of success. Economic power sustains social status. Perhaps that is why some students in my classes work 20-30 hours a week and begin their homework at 10PM. Of course, not all of these beliefs are supported by all students. The attitudes that I am describing here are those of my college-level students, not the AP students. If globalization increases income inequality (something not discussed at great length in Tom Freidman's book) then the disparity in achievement scores would tend to reflect that fact rather than refute it. Can we compare Newton and New Bedford fairly? Are we disengenuous when we tell students at NBHS that education is a form of economic empowerment in a globalized world? Put this way, the results of improved standard for academic achievement define our government's ability to punish the effects of globalization, not the failures of public education in particular. Or is that scenario wrong? Jonoathan Kozol does not believe so. His books, Savage Inequalities and The Shame of the Nation, demonstrate the differences of education between schools of different tax base (and income level) and those redivided by racially segregated districts in urban areas. Income inequality affects public education on many different levels. It affects the amount offered for teacher salaries, the percentage of dependence on state aid for cities and towns for education, the ability of a school district to fund long term (technological) resource development plans, the number of special services offered, the quality of food eaten in school lunch rooms, etc.What we want is for students to believe what we believe: globalization is a reality, whether we love it or not. Because of this, it seems a series of events has occurred. Corporate America is threatened in its geopolitical position because of lower expectations of public school students. No Child Left Behind is a government reaction to this problem, demanding higher forms of accountability on all levels. Income inequality creates complex challenges for public education, and the causes of income inequality, often obscured by parochial vision, lead us back to the effects of globalization. So is it (globalization) an opportunity or a challenge or both?