My previous experience with education was I believe great in the later grades of elementary, however in the higher levels of education in my district the education seemed to be slightly declining. In elementary school I was academically ahead of the rest of my class. However, I got bored very easily in the grades from kindergarten to third grade. I taught myself math in class and was able to finish the homework in class. Luckily as I moved into 4th and 5th grade I was accepted into an accelerated program which allowed me to learn knowledge ahead of other people my grade.
This continued through middle school and high school. However, because I was ahead in these classes I was disadvantaged in regards to the SAT as when everyone was taking the math classes that covered the math portion on the SAT I had taken those classes at least two years. This put me and the other students at an unfair disadvantage because we were unfamiliar with the math portion and many of us were not even taking English classes anymore because we had already finished. So ironically we were so far ahead we were behind. This in turn can affect our SAT scores. Anyway as I’ve been writing this I actually remembered an inequality I experienced within the fourth and fifth grade accelerated program.
So in the math and science portion of this program we were separated into group A, B, and C. Group C was the highest level group that did not need much overseeing and were ahead a bit There were about six to seven people in this group however all but one was a boy. Meaning there was only one girl in that group. Not to be high and mighty or anything but I very much believed I would have fit that group better than the B group. Anyway, I have never actually thought of that before but I do believe there was some inequality with that.
Anyway back to the question, I do not believe my education has helped my social mobility. First and foremost, my family is of the upper middle class and I doubt that I could get into a high enough paying position to be in the upper middle class on my own. Especially given my interest which are sociology, writing, and more recently public health. Public health is probably the most promising given it is in the medical field. And the medical field. Anyway despite this I am in the honors college and planning to get a degree at Wayne. However, I do believe having my degree from a different more prestigious institution would actually help my social mobility more. Some place like Harvard or University of Michigan. The quality of my education is I would say good and represents a privilege.
I am going to a good university, I have scholarships to keep me out of student debt (as of now), also the content I am learning and the quality of the teaching and curriculum is good. I believe this all puts me at an advantage as employers do care about education when they are expecting work that is something other than physical labor (at least I think). While this is not part of the prompts I do want to say something about my high school that is rather interesting. My little sister still goes there and it is extremely obvious that the quality of education has gone down and I think its related to finances and class and things.
Anyway, when I was there I had a decent education and all my teachers were relatively good. Some better than others (one was rumored to be a pedophile but the school did nothing). Anyway, when my younger sister got there the quality of education seemed to go down drastically. She had a teacher that was a full time sub for physics class. She was literally taught nothing in that class. Now in her other classes there is so much disruption from students that teachers are unable to teach. It truly boggles my mind how a school can shift that quickly. And I really do wonder what caused the drastic change.
