5
OPINION
Thursday, May 16, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
T
he effort to eliminate public
school segregation in Ameri-
ca has stalled.
Our school systems are just as seg-
regated today as they were decades
ago. A combination of factors includ-
ing “white flight,” gerrymandered
school districts, the rise of charter
and private schools and the decima-
tion of civil rights legislation such
as the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also
known as the Fair Housing Act, have
contributed to this. A recent report
estimated that predominantly non-
white school districts receive $23 bil-
lion less than white districts despite
serving the same number of students.
How can this be?
It’s simple. The United States,
unlike most of the world, has left the
education of its citizens up to individ-
ual states. The “right” to a free, pub-
lic education is implied though never
addressed directly in the Constitu-
tion. Federal dollars compose on aver-
age less than 10 percent of a school
districts budget, while the rest comes
from state and local funding. Usually
a school district is first funded from
local property taxes. The state usually
has a minimum funding level, so if the
district is unable to meet that with the
money generated from taxes, the state
would step in to bridge the gap to the
minimum level. Sounds fair right?
Unfortunately, states aren’t always
able to contribute what is needed
and leave lower-income districts
scrambling to provide basic needs.
In the wake of the Great Recession,
state and local governments slashed
funding for K-12 education. This, of
course, hit the poorer districts the
hardest. Wealthier districts, on the
other hand, take in so much more
money from their local taxes that
they are able to deal with most fund-
ing shortages.
The quality of education you grow
up with is tied to where you live. By
doing this, we are cementing the
pathway of upward mobility in this
nation with the social engineering
of those in power. While poorer dis-
tricts in general receive less funding
than wealthier ones, the contrast is
especially stark when looking at the
racial disparity. In general, non-white
districts receive an average of $2,226
less per student than white districts.
High-poverty, white districts still
receive $782 more per student than
low-poverty, non-white districts and
a staggering near $1,500 more than
high-poverty non-white districts. “A
single fact is clear — financially, it is
far better in the United States to have
the luck and lot to attend a school
district that is predominantly white
than one that enrolls a concentration
of children of color.”
Even when a school district is less
segregated, issues arise. It is well
documented that “aggressive judicial
desegregation efforts — and exposure
to minorities in general — often lead
to ‘white flight’ from urban school
districts.” It seems a clear limitation
to integration is white people’s aver-
sion to diversity in their school dis-
tricts.
While we have yet to solve the
aforementioned issue, we have an
obligation to all citizens of the United
States to reform the way we fund our
public schools. Regardless of race,
income or geography, all students
should have the same amount of
investment from the government in
their futures.
On average, a predominantly white
district enrolls just over 1,500 stu-
dents compared to over 10,000 in
non-white districts. A potential solu-
tion to this issue can be seen in the
South, where “school district lines
are often drawn along county lines,
making districts larger across the
board. Researchers found that fund-
ing looks more equal in states like
Georgia and Alabama.”
According to EdBuild researchers,
larger school districts would help bal-
ance out funding disparities, instead
of arbitrary boundaries that favor
keeping white and non-white students
separated. Rebecca Sibilia, founder and
CEO of EdBuild, said, “This confirms
a theory that we’ve had, which is that
the larger the tax base — the larger the
actual geography of the school districts
— the more you can actually balance
out the difference between a wealthy
white suburb and a less wealthy rural
or urban area.”
Additionally, pooling together the
local tax revenue and redistributing it
equally would end the unfair system in
place today. Of course, this would raise
issues: The wealthier districts would
likely see their funding drop. This
would lead to inevitable backlash from
the parents and teachers at wealthy
schools. It seems the only plausible
way this policy could be implemented
would be with a large increase in state
funding so that wealthier school dis-
tricts wouldn’t lose money. Everyone
should demand increases in public
school funding at the state level. Doing
so will ensure that we invest the same
amount in all kids, rich and poor.
Time to end public school inequality
AVI RAJENDRA-NICOLUCCI | OP-ED
Avi Rajendra-Nicolucci is a
freshman in the College of Engineering.
5
OPINION
, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN
2
018 was, globally, the fourth
hottest
year
on
record,
surpassed only by 2016,
2015 and 2017 in that order. In the
United States alone, there were
14 weather and climate caused
billion-dollar disasters last year,
and the cumulative cost of all these
natural disasters was over $1.6
trillion (for reference, that’s more
than a twentieth of the U.S. GDP,
and over twice as much as the U.S.
annually spends on the military).
Unfortunately though, this is just the
tip of the iceberg.
Climate change is unlike any prob-
lem human civilization has faced
before; it is a truly global crisis which
impacts an incredibly diverse range
of issues, from economic productiv-
ity to urban development to migra-
tion flows. However, efforts to solve
climate change have thus far been
derailed by a lack of binding inter-
national legislation and an amoral
focus on short-term profit over the
health of the planet. While the clock
is ticking, there is time for humanity
to right these wrongs by embracing
a strong, cooperative approach to
fighting climate change, and looking
for the economic benefits, not draw-
backs, that come with it.
To begin, it’s important to con-
textualize how broad the effects of
climate change are. One of the big-
gest effects of climate change, which
is often an afterthought in discus-
sions of the issue, is global migra-
tion flows. In the past five years,
the European Union’s struggle to
handle a large influx of immigrants
and refugees has already revealed
how economically contentious and
politically charged the issue of mass
migration is. The EU’s controversial
management of the situation has
unfortunately contributed to the
rise of far-right movements within
Europe.
However, an increasingly warm
and erratic global climate would only
serve to drastically increase migra-
tion flows, in particular from devel-
oping nations in the global south. In
2015, a Notre Dame study found that
many countries in Central and Sub-
Saharan Africa are the most vulner-
able to climate change and the least
prepared for it. Many do not have
the money or resources to effec-
tively protect themselves. A report
published by the European Council
of Foreign Policy found that “The
combination of poverty, dependence
on agriculture, environmental deg-
radation, and population growth (in
Africa) are creating a vicious circle,
which can be expected to translate
into increasing forced migration.”
Here in the United States, the same
issue is already occurring: Climate
change has decimated the Guate-
malan farming industry, leaving
individuals with little choice but to
migrate to America.
The mass migration caused by
climate change is problematic and
highlights a fundamental prob-
lem with humanity’s handling of
the issue. Even among developed
nations that have acknowledged the
dangers of climate change, there is
no actual long-term plan in place
for solving them. The Foreign Policy
report explains that “The EU Emer-
gency Trust Fund for Africa is typi-
cal in focusing on enhancing border
control and fighting smuggling, rath-
er than tackling the long term causes
of migration.” This exemplifies the
systemic unpreparedness countries
have in regard to climate change,
even when it touches on issues like
immigration, which have already
proven to be highly controversial.
With that said, it’s time for the
global community to finally take
some bold steps towards fighting
climate change. Historically, there is
(some) precedent for binding global
cooperation in fighting climate
change. The primary example of
this is The Montreal Protocol of 1987,
which was a global agreement to
ban the use of chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) and other substances which
depleted the Earth’s ozone layer.
The treaty, with its concrete, specific
restrictions was ratified by 197 coun-
tries. Two years later, at the Noord-
wijk Meeting in the Netherlands, the
world came agonizingly close to cre-
ating a global framework for fighting
climate change, except, as a Swed-
ish minister eloquently explained
to American environmental activist
Daniel Becker, “Your government is
fucking this thing up!”
Since then, the global response
to climate change has been a
bevy of half-hearted treaties with
high-minded language which are
unenforceable, weak and largely
ineffectual. The Paris climate agree-
ment, hailed as a groundbreaking
treaty, “requires all Parties to put
forward their best efforts through
nationally
determined
contribu-
tions.” This type of open-ended
requirement essentially leaves coun-
tries to do as they please, as exem-
plified by how the U.S. leaving the
treaty didn’t seem to change any-
thing, on any level, with regard to
fighting climate change.
While creating a binding treaty
on such a broad issue is incredibly
complex, there are a few aspects that
are essential for effectively tackling
climate change. Beyond the obvious
requirements for a climate change
treaty (promoting clean energy,
finding ways to limit overall car-
bon emissions, etc.) there should
be several other components. First,
there needs to be some sort of finan-
cial incentive for countries to join;
too often, countries ignore treaties
they’ve agreed to follow if the agree-
ment is solely diplomatic. This could
be as simple as creating a free trade
agreement between member states,
creating incentives for countries
to join and cooperate. To go along
with that, specific environmental
goals on a country-by-country basis
should be instituted. While the Paris
climate agreement attempts to keep
global warming below 2 degrees Cel-
sius, it has no specific requirements
for individual nations, essentially
absolving countries of their respon-
sibility to actually act.
Secondly, a good treaty would
extol the economic benefits of fight-
ing
climate
change.
Especially
within the U.S., the political right
has successfully created the narra-
tive that fighting climate change is
economically infeasible or unwise
(even as economic disasters caused
by climate change cost the country
trillions). A 2016 report found that
Germany, by further promoting the
use of renewable energy and globally
cooperating with other countries
doing the same, could reduce its car-
bon emissions from 72 to 93 percent
by 2050 without harming economic
growth. By justifying the economic
benefits of fighting climate change,
a global agreement could win over
private enterprise, leading to greater
investment in renewable energy and,
subsequently, more innovation in
the field.
The case for a globally binding climate agreement
Zack Blumberg can be reached at
zblumber@umich.edu.
A good treaty would
extol the economic
benefits of fighting
climate change
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