belief that it is unrealistic to expect equal educational outcomes from non-white children given the "robust findings from developmental and educational psychologists and behavior genetics which have concluded that at least half of the differences in the rate of learning of school children are the results of genetic variation" (B & S, p.267, 1996). This notion of who can learn fails to take into consideration that in the end, we must constructively deal with individual differences whether they are environmental or innate (B&S p. 264, 1996).In terms of resources, education as the great equalizer embraces the idea that everyone deserves the means to learn. At its best, it acknowledges and challenges the scarcity of resources as a myth of society that hurts children by unnecessarily denying them what they need to learn and grow. The great equalizer acknowledges that "we can give terrific schools to all our children. There is enough money. No one needs to ration crayons, books or toilet paper" (Kozol, p. 173, 1991). For education to truthfully serve as a great equalizer, resources beyond these essentials must be distributed equitably. Though seemingly equitable, the practice has been to raise funds in the same way in every district. To expand, funds are raised for public schools mainly through the collection of property taxes determined in accordance with a property's value; this means that those residing in wealthier areas raise substantial sums for the schools in their neighborhoods while those residing in poorer areas are only able to raise mediocre amounts of money for their schools. While the idea of raising funds for schools in the exact same way in every area may seem, in theory to be a fair practice, the results are most unfair. Our education system, because it relies on an unequal funding system that allows the wealthy to raise more money than the poor, is unquestionably inequitable in its allocation of resources; it is pre...
