An Assessment of K 12 Education System

Our K-12 Education System

Social justice is a form of commitment that helps achieve equality. In education, social justice helps in reducing inequality among students and their families who happen to be at diverse socioeconomic levels. Thus, social justice helps eliminate cases arising from inequalities in economic, cultural and social practices. Despite the need to eliminate injustices, there are still inherent gaps in the education system. These gaps largely exist for poor students and not for students from wealthy families. Viglante states that, “social justice would involve achieving the two aspects of anti-racism education: the curricular justice goal, which aims to deliver curricular justice to indigenous students and the wider responsibility goal, which aims to redress social disadvantage including, importantly, reducing racism” (103). In my opinion, the current K-12 education system is not fair. This is because funding inequalities still exist. For instance, students from poor families receive less local and state funding compared to their counterparts from rich families. Race inequalities still exist, especially for Hispanics and black students. This makes only few of these students graduate high school or college in comparison to their white counterparts.

Rawls would also not agree with the current system of K-12 education. This is because the system does not ensure fairness. In his opinion, allocation of resources should be made fairly. He uses the idea of the veil of ignorance whereby a person in leadership does not have the knowledge of the people they represent. This is to say that, they do not know about the gender, wealth, race or even the cultural or religious beliefs of the people they represent. The leaders do not also have the knowledge of the resources available in the society. In light of his idea of the veil of ignorance, there will be social justice since the parties involved have no knowledge of those they represent and their interests.

As per Rawls’ second principle of justice, he includes the fair quality of opportunity principle and the difference principle. Rawls defines fair equality of opportunity in his principle as having a fair chance of social positions depending on the level of talent an individual has and her willingness to use prospects of success, and not depending on her background or social status. This principle will help bridge the gap in the K-12 education system on several fronts. In the difference principle, Rawls believes that: “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of equality of opportunity” (83). According to Rawls, this principle tends to justify inequalities in the education system. Rawls also suggests that common assets such as talent and wealth should not influence how resources are distributed in the society. If this is the case, it means that no one deserves anything. The theory of desert makes it difficult to distinguish between inborn talents or how hard some individuals have worked to get what they have.

Libertarians believe that an individual should make their own decisions without being interfered. In general terms, they believe in freedom. In my opinion, a libertarian would not agree with the Rawls principles of justice. In this case, a person who has worked hard all their lives to send their kids to expensive schools or move to districts with better schools deserves to get what they have worked for. The person also made their decisions which should not be interfered with.