The advantage of a wealthier education?
Wealth school districts and their possible advantages over other districts are being called into question, especially with the recent academic achievements of schools like PV and Ankeny.
There has always been a line of tension between kids of opposing schools, and for the most part this has been drawn to friendly competition between competing sports and academics. However the issues may lay far deeper than just friendly competition.
In fact, most kids that come from Davenport school districts in particular, seem to house a very negative view of PV and the people that come along with it. “Most of the interactions I’ve had with PV kids is just them flaunting all their stuff and acting so entitled when they barely put in any work to have what they have” opinion made very clear about PV, by Davenport Central student Alejandra Rios.
In order to find where this all begins, a comparison of the resources and wealth disparity was looked into in both the PV district and the Davenport district to find where the differences lie. And what was found paints a very clear picture of differences between the two.
Multiple census reports backup what Rios stated, with PV holding a nearly double median family income at $100,000, compared to the average of 55,000 per family. Also compared with an average of 4% of people below the poverty line in PV districts, and a massive difference of 15% below the poverty line in Davenport districts.
With such a big difference in wealth and resources between the two, the boiling tensions between schools starts to make sense. “We don’t choose to be born into wealth and have to work harder to compete” point made by Rios further demeaning the PV attitude.
The question now remains how much of an advantage does a wealthier education bring? Just because a school has more funding and wealth at its disposal does not automatically mean that the students are willing to work as hard and would want to achieve academic success in the first place.
But again most make the point against this, as most argue that with more money, they would not have to focus as much on outside work and earning enough to support themselves and their families. “If we had as much money as PV we would one hundred percent be one of the top schools in Iowa no doubt in my mind.” put by high academic achiever Karma Caldwell of Davenport West.
Even if students like Caldwell work every day to help put their schools on the top of the academic leaderboards, they still won’t have access to half of the resources PV does, but in the end is it the money which brings success? Or the work ethic of the students that matters.
