Benefits of an Inner City Community Youth Center

720 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Poverty and student achievement

It’s no well-kept secret that inner city impoverished neighborhoods produce some of the lowest test scores in the nation. It is not necessarily the children’s fault that they perform poorly, they are simply victims of their environment, one of apathy, greed, and a lack of academic importance in life. Most of their parents are not well educated, and as statistics show, they will not be either. Often, inner city youths, good children to begin with, become entrapped in a vortex of negativity stemming from a community that does not care to support them in a positive manner, and prominent negative influences abundantly tempting them, such as drugs, violence, and crime. Given the right opportunity and nurturing, any of these children could very well grow up to be professional college educated people with a wide variety of degrees allowing them to positively contribute to society and become as beneficiary as the influences they, themselves had as children. The problem is that there is not that initial stimulus of support that is so necessary in the development of a child’s life and long-term orientation.

I believe the strategy that would be found most lucrative to pursue with the $150,000 would be to open up a youth center in an impoverished city environment. There are several youth centers throughout America, yet most of these serve merely as deterrents to keep children off the streets and prevent them from being negatively influenced by some of the aforementioned temptations. The real key to success in these youth centers would have to be encouragement of an education. Of course the youth center would need the initial appeal of sports, games, and fun activities to draw people in with, but it would also need educational activities an...

... middle of paper ...

... and ensures that more of the children can get further educated at technical or even four year private institutions. Once they are educated and find themselves positioned in well-paying jobs it makes sense to presume that many of them will return from whence they came and contribute some money back into the youth center and perhaps back into the city itself.

There is a saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I believe this statement to be true, I also believe that inner city schools are America’s weakest link in the education system. I think that, given 150,000 to spend on the renovation and opening of a community youth center, a place where inner city children and teenagers can be safe and learn the importance of a good education would not be very fiscally rewarding. However, I cannot imagine anything being more lucrative on a societal level.

Show More
Related

  • American Education: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

    1469 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the main issues in the educational system is the mindset of students, especially those in poverty. Students in poverty since the, “...beginning of the Progressive Era...” have had a tendency to not put forth effort in the classroom (Hood). Cultural trends throughout twentieth and twenty-first century America has developed different philosophies on how education should be treated. The overarching theme from all time periods in America is that students in poverty tend to be less happy, less excited about school, and less invested in the future that lies ahead for them because they have no hope and optimism. According to the International Journal for Behavioral Medicine, students who have a low “...socioeconomic status [view] the future as containing more negative [experiences] than positive [experiences]”. These students are considered the trouble makers o...

    Read More

  • Summary Of Dr. Pascal Mubenga's The Struggle Of African American Students

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, Dr. Mubenga’s research does not take account of how neighborhood plays its role on education, and specifically, how poorer neighborhoods lead towards poorer, unsuccessful schools. An Editorial from the New York Times points out how African American neighborhoods became poor in the first place, and it draws a connection between that and its effect on education.

    Read More

  • The City of Columbus to Save Its Youth

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ieve life goals. The community should encourage continued community service from college students that receive scholarships and or some type of financial aid to volunteer, with the existing programs. This could increase the amount of people available to these after school and summer programs, while saving the city some money. This could prove to be a major step in continuing to improve the city and make it a desired place to live and prosper.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Sparknotes

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...hoods have a lower verbal ability. This lowered verbal ability then results in poor performance in school and the labor force, which results in them being more primed towards violence. Although they find that other factors may be involved in this behavior, verbal ability is considered a primary factor. They argue that by educating these children properly, we can steer these children away from the negative emotions they may get when they are unable to respond to their environment due to their inability to properly process what is happening. Their findings suggest that if we are able to improve the living conditions in poor neighborhoods, we may be able to reduce the race difference in verbal ability and adolescent violence, which will create a more stable environment for the children to learn, as well as provide them a more social and positive environment in school.

    Read More

  • The Hood: Exploring a Culture of Isolation

    2092 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the United States of America, the general path to becoming a successful adult begins at an early stage in life and continues, typically, until the age of 18 when one is able to positively contribute to society. During this period, we are constantly molding our future through the cultural influences of the environment surrounding us, obtaining an education provided through grade school, and expanding upon our socialization skills. Therefore, a productive culture, adequate education, and the ability to adapt socially are all vital building blocks needed to finish our path to success. Raised in a community that harbors an isolative culture unconducive to success, those born in “The Hood”, a community

    Read More

  • Urban Imagination Essay

    1696 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Imagining the Urban: Politics of Race, Class and Schooling the urban jungle is described as, “Black, Brown and Yellow bodies, which are poor and dirty, criminals and dangerous, violence and drugs tied with the images of majority of urban people.” Leonardo (2007) This perception of urban fails to look outside of one’s own stereotypes and attributes some character perceptions to describe a group as a whole. The media also plays a big role in our depiction of the urban, men and women who live in urban walls are seen as villains. An example of this is in the 2015 movie Fast and Furious described by IMDb as a “Crime film/Thriller.” Here we see an increasing majority of the character’s to be men of color and the themes of the movie were fast cars, vulgar language, violence and gang affiliations. The media constantly shows in the news that the response to manage the villain living in the urban is jail or death. The end result for most teachers who see urban in this way believe teaching students in these various demographics as a “waste and hopeless.” This perception held by policy makers and teachers has attributed to what Brenzel and Kantor (1945-1990) have described as a “crisis” that needs to be fixed, “urban schools receive insufficient funding, and have out dated facilities leaving them far below the achievement gap and increasing their dropout rates.” That was the case in the 90’s and is still the case today 25 years later. So in conclusion our perception as educators has a true impact on all students, the way we see them early on and relate to their urban can save them from prison and/ or death. It is challenging to be fully invested and truly help children if you do not trust them, as future and existing teachers we owe it to our students to think beyond the media, and our own

    Read More

  • dd

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    As stated before, a neighborhood plays an important factor in the upbringing of children and youths. Living in a poverty stricken neighborhood has negative consequences such as a lower educational achievement and a higher chance of committing crimes. The wealth concentrated in affluent neighborhoods stays in the neighborhood and are rarely spreaded to areas in poverty. Children growing up in poorer neighborhoods are not given the same opportunities as children growing up in well-of neighborthoods to gain a higher education because of the resources that are offered. As a result, poor socioeconomic areas remain the same over time because of the lack of resources introduced into the area.

    Read More

  • Problems in the Inner City Schools

    2038 Words  | 5 Pages

    For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused elsewhere, particularly in the inner city schools.

    Read More

  • Personal Role Model Essay

    714 Words  | 2 Pages

    As children, we look to our parents to teach us skills that we need in everyday life, whether it be social skills or how to. Yet for a variety of reasons, some children do not have this personal role model for them to follow and learn from. For these children, their teachers may be the first adult to give them any sort of attention or care. As a result, a teacher can play a huge impact in a young child’s life. The Allentown School District’s high schools are both considered Title I schools, meaning that over 40% of the school’s students come from families that are legally considered low-income (www2.ed.gov). In the ASD, this number is nearly doubled at 88.7% (www.allentownsd.org). Most likely, these students come from homes in which the adults they live with are working most of the day and

    Read More

  • The Social Construction of Childhood

    2204 Words  | 5 Pages

    In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough attempts to unravel what he identifies to be, “some of the most pervasive mysteries of life: Who succeeds and who fails? Why do some children thrive while others lose their way? And what can any of us do to steer an individual child – or a whole generation of children – away from failure and toward success?” (Tough, 2012). Children are born into environments of varying circumstances, good and bad, influencing their development. Through direct encounters with researchers, educators and children of different environments, Paul Tough approaches his questions by ex...

    Read More

  • The Segregation of America's School System

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most important, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students.

    Read More

  • Social Factors Affecting Inner City Poverty

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poverty has stricken the country with thousands of inner city families facing dilemmas that contribute to their inability to reach a higher economic social status. Each year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issues updates for the U.S. Federal Poverty Measure. These updates report thresholds that determine eligibility for particular federal programs, and also is used to set an income measure which allows the National Census Bureau to estimate the percentage of the population who are indeed suffering from poverty (The 200 HHS Poverty Guidelines). These poverty-stricken homes have very few ways to escape the economic trap that they are in. Forty-two percent of all poor live in metropolitan areas of 300,000 or more (Harris 12). By examining the factors that affect the poverty within America's inner cities, one can easily see the economic damage that each can cause. Three major factors that affect poverty in the inner cities are the lack of educational and occupational opportunities to those who live in the communities, racial and economic segregation, and governmental ignorance and abandonment of the urban communities. Over twenty percent of all children under age eighteen are now living in poverty (12). Impoverished students tend to have much lower test scores, higher dropout rates, fewer students in demanding classes, less well-prepared teachers, and a low percentage of college-bound students (Orfield 56). "More parental involvement in active learning (including programs that teach parents how to help and teach their children) should be fundamental in improving the system" (Dreir 114).

    Read More

  • Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own Proves Students Need Schools of Their Own

    3422 Words  | 7 Pages

    As a nation, we have established institutions of learning that cater to the needs of some. Our schools allow a select handful of students to succeed. Certain segments of our population appear to be at greater risk than others. The future does not bode well for young black and Latino men and women who do not make it through high school. According to Duane Campbell, author of Choosing Democracy, the unemployment rate for Latino men and women is substantially higher than the national average and an African American child is as likely to go to prison as to college (15). According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 1991 43% of African American children and 35% of Latino children were living in poverty. It is not surprising that a vast number of the 501,875 annual school drop-outs come from impoverished black and Latino families.

    Read More

  • How Wealth Affects Education

    1498 Words  | 3 Pages

    Currently, relatively few urban poor students go past the ninth grade. The graduation rates in large comprehensive inner-city schools are abysmally low. In fourteen such New York City Schools, for example, only 10 percent to 20 percent of ninth graders in 1996 graduated four years later. Despite the fact that low-income individuals desperately need a college degree to find decent employment, only 7 percent obtain a bachelors degree by age twenty-six. So, in relation to ...

    Read More

  • How Poverty Affects Academic Performance

    2579 Words  | 6 Pages

    Living in poverty exposes children to disadvantages that influence many aspects in their life that are linked to their ability to do well in school. In the United States of America there are an estimated 16.4 million children under the age of 18 living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). “The longer a child lives in poverty, the lower the educational attainment” (Kerbo, 2012). Children who are raised in low-income households are at risk of failing out before graduating high school (Black & Engle, 2008). U.S. children living in poverty face obstacles that interfere with their educational achievement. Recognizing the problems of living in poverty can help people reduce the consequences that prevent children from reaching their educational potential.

    Read More

More about Benefits of an Inner City Community Youth Center

Open Document