$5,000,000

A question was presented to us in class and it was, "If you were given 5,000,000 million dollars to help better a school, how would you use that money?". There were several suggestions in class and there is probably no right answer. Some ideas included putting money into technology, others wanted to hire famous people that came form inner cities, and others wanted to give money to the town. One excellent idea that was presented was to give money to the police force and make them more available. Maybe if they are more available, people in the inner cities would feel like they are being protected and cared about. Maybe then, children would rather be in school and not have to worry about watching their backs constantly.
Vandelism is a huge issue in any school, especially inner city schools. However, maybe it a new outside basketball court or indoor basketball court was put in students might want to go to school so afterwards they can play. Sure the court will probably be vandalized but kids need a place to go away from the streets. This designated area will allow them to do that. Maybe if more afterschool activities were provided, kids would be off the streets for longer. These activities do not necessarily need to be academic. Maybe if members of the police force came to teach self-defense classes, or it there was a cooking club, wood tech club or drama club. Maybe kids would be interested in participating in these activities. I feel that anything that would keep them off the streets longer the better. Maybe if money was given to the evelopment of part of the town people would want to make the town or city nicer so they would go to school to learn how to do that. Basically, 5,000,000 dollars is not enough. Improving the school system will take years and a lot of people that care to develop the inner cities. However, even though this sounds completely horrible, in a restorative justice class I am taking, in structural violence and power based ideologies, people of other classes do not help inner cities because they need power and if they help the inner cities they are giving them knowledge and power.