Political Cartoons of Public to Private Schooling

Some Child Left Behind by Signe Wilkinson, found on their website

One of the largest competitors in the realm of education is the private education sector. While private education is a valuable investment to those who can afford it, private education can be completely out of reach to those who cannot afford it, and is largely unattainable by a majority of the population in the United States (Abraham 2020). This can create problems like those represented in the photo above, which can lead to problems from within the community.

Signe Wilkinson's political cartoon depicting the differences between schools affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Found on Signetoons.com.

While childhood development has a large impact on the future of the city, the people who currently live within the city are the literal building blocks, because without a population, the city is not a city. The community is largely built from the people up. In most cases that is the families which find themselves in the towns and cities themselves. By that I mean the families, which are attracted in part by schools, are a crucial part of the community development, and having good schools should therefore lead to more resilient communities, a major goal of city planners and administrators. Vis A Vis, the school itself is affected by the community, leading to better performance of students, more funding, and an increase of cohabitation between schools and communities (Laliberté 2021). The main problem that most people find is how we can raise the quality of schools without raising the cost of living to the point of gentrifying legacy homeowners and renters in the area. Many possibilities lie with the federal government (CoEA, 2021), but to a local level that can be helped by an overhauling of the section 8 division or at an even deeper level fighting the roots of gentrification, which largely revolve around the ideas of capitalism and inflation.

A Political Cartoon by Fitz Simmons depicting the diversion from public schools to private schools by the voucher program which takes away students and funding. Found on Cagle Cartoons (https://www.caglecartoons.com)

Community development serves as an important piece in all of this. Recent history largely revolved around the removal of neighbors and simply leaving the hood and reducing many neighborhoods to being simply revolving doors of people barely being able to afford their livings. In fact a study from 2013 suggests that there is a correlation that exists between the length by which a person or group of people lives in a community and the rate at which people have access to social services. This means that we can simultaneously create a better area in our education field while also changing our community landscapes for the better. One large problem in this aspect remains, however. With people being served notices to vacate or being kicked out of their homes by evictions because the price rises too high, how do we help people make this money without simply giving them more money to afford these housing options? The answer to that question is simple yet again, education.