Education For Cure Poverty : Education Is Not Only A Necessary Government Responsibility

What is the main argument the author makes and how does it apply to contemporary education?

While all these possibilities from providing increased educational funding to inner city schools seem to provide a solution to the educational difficulties, the underclass is a multifaceted problem with several contributing factors. For example, the issue of students dropping out of school is not only affected by simply the quality of their education and resources. The appealing allure of drug dealing and belonging to a gang, both behaviors that involve criminal actions that could lead to incarceration, severely entice students from finishing their education. Furthermore, many children lack familial support to complete school. Their families tend to consist of numerous high school dropouts, and, therefore, lack the knowledge that comes from past experience leaving the student at a severe disadvantage. Plus, some family members will even remove the students out of school themselves, because they view the school as a waste of time. Even more detrimental to the underclass are the longstanding problems of unplanned pregnancies, single parent families, racial discrimination, and welfare dependency. With all these contributing obstacles that build upon one another in mind, it may seem pointless to fix the educational issues, so why should society and the government still pursue this option?

Today’s education system has its problems, one of the problems being equal education to everyone. This is a problem that can be seen in the more poverty areas in the United States. Most schools in poverty areas have older materials to work with, teachers who are less passionate about their jobs, are not being taught the humanities, and many of the schools are shutting down from poor conditions and low attendance.

There may be some blacks or minorities who remain poor because of their personal characteristics, but the majority of poor blacks are not different from others in motivations and aspirations. In fact, many poor people work incredibly hard at low paying jobs in order to barely get by. The most important causes of poverty lie in the power relations of society, and not the cultural characteristics of the poor individuals. The experiences of poverty have an impact on an individual's disposition and psychological state. Poverty could cause an individual to behave in particular ways, but the main difference between the poor and the rest of society is the opportunities and circumstances the individual’s encounter. It is not their personalities, attributes or values. Blacks continue to be discriminated against in employment and housing, which only contributes to poverty. The majority of African Americans are not poor because they choose not to work, but are poor because of the continuous discrimination from the dominant white race. Poor black Americans should face the same political, economic, and housing conditions as poor white Americans, but this is not the case. Because of continuing discrimination, poor black families do not live in integrated neighborhoods with comparable white families. In addition,

Poverty leads to insufficient opportunities, especially in college education. For instance, according to U.S. Department of Education, students who do not enter college or drop out of their classes are “predominantly persons from low-income families.” In support of this argument, the article states that “only 21 percent of those with family income of less than $25,000 were highly qualified for admission at a four-year institution” compared to the 56 percent of students with family income above $75,000. Therefore, students with bad economic conditions struggle with attending university even after entering it. The problem is that the African Americans race gets the harshest disadvantage from their poor economic conditions. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services publishes that almost 40 percent of African Americans under 18 are below the national poverty line, which is three-times higher than their white counterparts. This explicitly proves that unequal economic conditions are the main reason for inequality in education; African Americans are the most disadvantaged. Furthermore, the correlation between poor economic conditions and a lack of education among African Americans creates a chain of inequality. The poor economic backgrounds of African Americans obstruct their children from attending colleges and subsequently, the lack of higher education makes

The 2001 census bureau report 22.2 percent of people without a high school diploma lived in poverty as opposed to 9.6 who had a diploma. 14.2 percent of high school dropouts were lived in long term poverty, while 3.8 percent of people with high school diplomas lived in long term poverty. In less affluent neighborhoods, there is usually no funding available to hire quality teachers and equipment needed to educate the youth. As we progress education has become one of the main keys to battling poverty. It is harder to earn a decent living without having some kind of

Race, income, and education have shifted the demographics of my community, Huntington Park, in the past years from 1990 to 2010. In the 1990’s there was no particular social class dominating my city; the median income was $62,500. In 2010 however, my city was made up of working class individuals whose median income was about $37,651. The departure of whites contributes to urban decay in my community just as Hunter’s observations showed, where low working class came and made up the majority of the population and lived in “extreme poverty and seemingly ever-present violence (Hunter). Education also affected the class shift in my community, there was less people graduating and pursuing higher education. The 1990 census shows that 14.48% attained

It seems that those who are not well educated tend to commit crimes which has no help because it cost the the public a large toll taking away from people who need money. “Real wages of young black men, as well, are less than those of Hispanics and Whites within each group, except among college graduate” (224). According to the chart 27.5 on page 245, black young men earns $0.86 more every hour than white young men do. However, if a black young man doesn’t have a college degree or more, they earn less than white and Hispanic people. The wages a person can earn are based of their education and their experience of working. So, black men without an education will earn a lower wage. Hispanics with an education will earn close to the same amount as whites, but whites tend to still earn more it's just the way the job place seems to work. This gap continues to grow, and over time mostly whites will control the job field, and that will be a

Also consider, with more than 60% of all today’s minority male children growing-up in a single-parent mother household, 3 out of 4 live in low-income families.20 As a result, many of these young men are also more likely to have low earnings jobs as adults, and as teenagers are more likely to drop-out of school, abuse drugs, be incarcerated, become teen parents, have behavioral disorders, and run away from home or join a gang.21 If this current trend continues, it’s estimated that 1 in 3 of all African-American males and 1 in 6 of all Hispanic males have a chance of going to prison during their lifetime.22 Without question, the most important factor causing minority males lack of productively growth in the 21st century, will be the high school drop-out problem,23 and the problem behavior that cause it, and if we as a nation continue to choose to disconnect this population from our mainstream society, it will destroy human capital, reduce our labor force, and cost state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain these

According to Marian Wright Edelman, “Education is a precondition to survival in America Today. Unfortunately, a good quality education that will ensure a successful and economically stable future for our children today is not available to all children, especially young Black males. According to Jenkins (2006) in the needs assessment for African American Men of Arizona State University (AAMASU) program, the university noted that Black males experience a high level of underachievement in the higher education arena, over involvement in the criminal system, and high rates of unemployment, poverty, and dying via homicide (Arizona State University, 2004). All too often African American males have been caught in a web of stereotyped notions of race and gender that place them at considerable disadvantages in schools and ultimately society (Howard, 2008). According to Hooks (2004) more than any other group of men in our society black males are perceived as lacking intellectual skills. The 1900 census reports that 57% of black males were illiterate. Now as we move onward in the twenty-first century, black males make up a huge percentage of those who are illiterate (Hooks, 2004). Society will looks at our young black men and label them as lazy, uneducated, underachievers, and highly involved in the criminal justice system, however at the same time, it overlooks how they got there. According to Jenkins (2006) this has not always been the case. Prior to the segregation of schools, young

There is also an underlying punishment in the segregation found in education. Schools that black children attend are segregated because they are located in poor neighborhoods. Living in high-poverty neighborhoods for multiple generations adds a barrier to accessing achievement. It is not possible to desegregate schools without desegregating both low-income and high-income neighborhoods. Residential segregation and ongoing poverty have left African Americans in some of the most terrible housing in several of the lowest-resourced communities (Rothstein). Black citizens also suffer from concentrated poverty. About 45 percent of poor black children live in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty. Only 12 percent of poor white children live in concentrated poverty (Algeron). Children in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty experience more social and behavioral problems, have lower test scores, and are more likely to drop out of school. Part of the difference in educational outcomes likely comes from the different environments black and white children live in during their school years. Black children are far more likely to live in households that are low-income, extremely poor, food-insecure, or receiving long-term welfare support (Ford). Black children are less likely than white children are to live in households where at least one parent has secure employment. In addition, black children have the greatest

The younger generation of African Americans is also severely affected by poverty. 45.8% of young black children reside under the poverty line where as only 14.5% of white children do. Unfortunately, black children are at a socioeconomic disadvantage that makes them more vulnerable than any other racial groups to live in areas of highly concentrated poverty where they are at greater risks of being involved with or exposed to violence leading to psychological issues later in life. 52.1% of black children live in single parent homes as the rate of marriage among the African American demographic has seen a steep decline during the recession compared to the white population. African American children are less likely to have proper nutrition and immunization. For these children, concentration on education is often

Kathleen Blanco, the 54th governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana, once pointed out that “ Every educated person is not rich, but almost every education person has a job and a way out of poverty. So education is a fundamental solution to poverty.” It is almost gratuitous to say that everyone desires a higher education. And why not? It is perhaps the best way to avoid a life of poverty; a life in which one must struggle to meet the basic necessities of life. Unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to receive a higher education, especially students living in poverty, who are often forced to live on a day-to-day basis, let alone even think about school. Poverty deprives these students the quality education they are entitled to, thus inhibiting their potential for future success. This predicament has contributed to a widening racial wealth gap that is not only a threat to the individual’s themselves and the economy, but also a significant threat to upward mobility, which is defined as the ability of an individual to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. One particular factor that has and continues to contribute to this widening racial wealth gap is the lack of a college education among these low-income students. More importantly, this lack of college education is the direct result of a poor-quality K-12 education, especially in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. To mitigate the prevalent racial wealth gap, each

Although educational programs have been introduced to address the achievement gap in low-income and urban communities, the educational outputs of these areas remain below the national average (Tierney & Jun, 2001; Ng, Wendell & Lombardi, 2012). For example, the percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree in Camden city

In today’s world people need to compete globally for jobs and one of the most important factors in getting a good paying job is education. However, even the best schools cannot overcome some of the obstacles placed in front of the students that walk through their doors. Poverty, chaotic home environments, discrepancies in exposure to technology, and lack of funding for schools all negatively impact the effort to educate children.