The Ones Left Behind by Underfunded School Systems

Mary Collard ’28

Staff Writer

All children in underfunded school districts are victims of systemic issues in a country that does not value children or education, but rather lets their greed guide their policies. Underfunding affects schools in lots of ways, but there is one specific issue that stands out to me: a lack of translators. What I have noticed, in my time spent working in Hartford middle schools, is that some of the children who suffer the most from underfunding are the ones who don’t speak English as their first language. Many of these children are the children of immigrants, who have come to Hartford to make a better life for themselves. Their classes are all taught in English, and even though some of these students only partly understand it. Many of them sit quietly in the back of the classrooms while the teachers stand in the front, catering their lessons to the English-speakers. They suffer in more ways than one: socially, they are isolated from their teachers, and their other classmates. Many do not feel comfortable raising their hands to ask for a translation or clarification for fear of teasing from classmates and frustration from their teachers. Though some teachers offer worksheets in Spanish as well as English, the instructions are rarely given in Spanish as well, which leaves these kids lost on how to do their work. Furthermore, the content itself is often taught in English, so how could they be expected to fill out a worksheet on things they don’t know? They also don’t always know how to write in their native language. Many of the kids have grown up in the United States, and because of this they might speak Spanish but no classroom aside from the occasional Spanish class (which covers just basic Spanish) will teach them how to read or write in their language. So now, these kids are unable to write in their native languages, but still left out of writing in English. 

To be able to read and write in a new language, while the instructions are not being made clear, disables these kids in the classroom. Overall, when I ask the Spanish-speaking kids in the classes what their favorite subject is, they say math. It’s not hard to understand why — math requires the least amount of translation (though still great amounts), and numbers are universal. So many of these kids are smart and passionate about so many things, but they are not given the resources or opportunities to show it. They have so much potential and deserve so much more than they get. Where funding comes into play with this argument, is that many of these problems can be solved if there was staff in the schools who could translate and work with the children to help them learn English. In one of the schools I worked in there was one translator for both the middle school and high school, and the children would go to the phone in the classroom and call her whenever they had a question their teacher couldn’t answer. These children have so much to share, and they have interests and personalities that get lost and silenced in an atmosphere that doesn’t value what they have to say. What is that teaching students to feel about themselves? That they are not worthy of the same kinds of attention and support from school that the other kids get? This treatment can affect self-esteem, create social anxieties, and isolate them into groups which they are never able to leave. In March of 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin closing the Department of Education. Children are currently suffering in middle schools and being left behind and disregarded. Teachers are quitting at unprecedented rates. If things do not start changing in public schools everywhere, we will have a true crisis of education in the United States.