Matthew Mandolfo

Ms. Townley

Period 1

23 October 2019

The Current Threat to Public Schools in North Omaha

Education is the backbone of our Democracy. But what happens when that backbone is

missing all of its support structures? The stiffest and strongest backbone ever conceived would

still fall over if it had nothing to hold onto. This is unfortunately where many schools in North

Omaha currently find themselves. They have all the tools to educate children, but nothing outside

of school to build off of. As a result, Omaha Public Schools in North Omaha have some of the

worst scores in the state when it comes to standardized testing. Blaming the schools for this

shortcoming is foolish to say the least. The blame doesn’t fall on the students either, but on the

city as a whole for letting this demographic of people fall behind. Increasing the funding of

Omaha Public Schools is a waste of money that insults the omaha taxpayer who has been

funding these increases.

Omaha Public Schools has always been a district with problems for the state. In a

statewide assessment Omaha Public Schools was rated as one of the lowest scoring schools in all

of the state. “OPS’s classification dropped from “good” in 2015, when the ratings last came

out…”(Dejka). This is despite increases in funding to the district that occured in the previous

years (Knoche). According to the data, only three of the past 10 school years have been properly

funded by the state. Two of these years, where the state allocated the sufficient amount to the

district, were just prior to the year in which these poor ratings came out. Nebraska is the only
state in the nation that is in the top ten for both Pre-12 and secondary education, as ranked by US

News (Ziegler). Some might claim that because Nebraska is such a high performing state, the

ratings of OPS are skewed to make them look worse than they are in comparison to all the other

students. This claim would make lots of sense if Nebraska’s success wasn’t rooted in the

structures of our statewide education assessment. In his paper comparing Nebraska’s

standardized testing system to Virginia’s system, Ryan Ruff details the history of standardized

learning benchmarks in Nebraska. He describes that due to several factors Nebraska opted for a

low risk test which was different than many other states. He articulated that Nebraska’s

educational success has originated in this choice many years ago to have a low risk test, allowing

teachers to provide a more holistic approach to learning (Ruff). Good news for many in Nebraska

but bad news for OPS. This refutes the claim that the statewide assessment unfairly showcased

OPS. They have the same advantages as other schools when it comes to the reason Nebraska

ranks so high. So then why is OPS ranked so low?

Omaha Public Schools faces the most unique demographic of students in the state, which

creates challenges that other districts do not have to deal with. OPS is also the largest district in

the state, so comparing it as a whole is not as useful as diving into specific schools. In general

the schools that bring the entire district down so low are the ones located in the poorest parts of

Omaha (Dejka). Links between poverty and poor school performance are common knowledge to

educators at this point. They know that these schools and children face challenges that other

schools or children never have to worry about. OPS is the largest funded district with some of the

worst scores in the state. Should the city give up on the district or keep pumping money into it?
 The effective way to deal with the circumstances that plague the North Omaha

community and impact their schools is to address them head on. Instead of pumping the district

with even more money, the city needs to start investing that money into local projects that help

alleviate some of the intense pressure the North Omaha Community faces. This is not a sure fire

way to solve all the problems in the community and raise OPS to one of the best districts in the

state. In an ideal scenario, this plan helps alleviate pressure and stress in the area caused by

poverty, which in turn will improve the students performance in school. At worst, OPS does not

improve much in the upcoming year, but the city still invests millions into a struggling area of

the city instead of wasting money trying to improve grades with a strategy that hasn’t been

working. At the very least the public officials who levy the taxes need to stop insulting the

taxpayers by asking for more money with no results to show for it.
 Works Cited

Dejka, Joe, and Emily Nitcher. “24 Nebraska School Districts, Including OPS, Rated as 'Needs

Improvement' in State Report.” ​Omaha.com​, Omaha World Herald, 22 Dec. 2018,

www.omaha.com/news/education/primary-secondary/nebraska-school-districts-including

-ops-rated-as-needs-improvement-in/article_6fdeb373-399c-5362-bc02-8221759eef9d.h

Tml.

Knoche, Connie. “2018-2019 BUDGET AT A GLANCE.” ​Omaha Public Schools - Open Book

Initiative,​ 23 Aug. 2018, Omaha Public Schools - Open Book Initiative.

Ruff, Ryan Richard. “State-Level Autonomy in the Era of Accountability: A Comparative Analysis

of Virginia and Nebraska Education Policy through No Child Left Behind.” ​Education

Policy Analysis Archives​, Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the

University of South Florida. c/o Editor, USF EDU162, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa,

FL 33620-5650. Tel: 813-974-3400; Fax: 813-974-3826; Web Site: Http://Epaa.asu.edu,

21 Jan. 2019, eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1203997.

Ziegler, Brett. “These U.S. States Have the Best Education Systems.” ​U.S. News & World

Report,​ U.S. News & World Report,

www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education.