Imagine living in a Beverly Hills estate, with the loveliest furniture and belongings money can buy, along with servants to tend your everyday needs. On the other hand, imagine living in a small, confined room with barely enough money to keep the water running. Both living in the same country, yet their lifestyles are so different. One has more money they will ever need and the other struggles with the basic necessities of life. Money immensely affects the way a child learns, and according to the articles “Inequality in the American Education System” by William H. Schmidt and “Inequality in Education” by Kevin D. Williamson, it shows how money affects education in America. It demonstrates how the lack of money causes most students living in poverty to have a hard time succeeding when they are older. While those with money will most likely become the future generation of businessmen and millionaires, others will have a hard time rising from the …show more content…
Therefore, many children living in poverty are not able “to make use of their talent- to get the right education, to pursue the right career path” (Krugman,1). Because of this, social injustice has started to rapidly affect our education system, and for this reason, children living in poverty are getting fewer chances at a successful future. These kids are not entitled to a promising future because of their social background. To provide these kids the education they deserve, the government should spend more of our taxes on the low-income families. Then by providing the families more access to basic needs, their children become healthier and are designated to a better school and education. Social inequality is rapidly downsizing the rate of graduating students yearly, and as a society we must strive to end the inequality in America’s education
The greatest country in the world still has problems evenly distributing education to its youth. The articles I have read for this unit have a common theme regarding our education system. The authors illustrate to the reader about the struggles in America concerning how we obtain and education. Oppression, politics, racism, and socioeconomic status are a few examples of what is wrong with our country and its means of delivering a fair education to all Americans.
Education can help Americans receive a well paying job and lead to less low income families. A quality education allows people to feel accomplished and empowered to get a job that could help their family and their financial needs. According to an article by the Global Partnership, education reduces economic inequality and “If each [employee] from poor and rich backgrounds receive the same education, the disparity between poverty would decrease by 39 percent” (“5 Ways Education Can Help End Extreme Poverty”). In an article by William Bennett, states that American companies estimate that currently there are 3 million jobs available. The downside is that the children are poor and lack the education to fulfill those jobs. The government needs to provide more affordable schooling so that young adults can obtain a higher education to earn a higher salary. Currently, The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2014 the poverty rate of people twenty-five and older was 12 percent. Figure 1 demonstrates the statistic provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. It clearly displays that Americans who obtain more years of schooling and further their education, display a lower poverty rate. In 2014, those who have obtained no high school diploma show a greater poverty rate in relation to those who do have a bachelor degree. For example, Americans who have no high school diploma have the highest poverty rate at 29 percent. In contrast, Americans who have Bachelor’s degrees or higher, have the lowest poverty rate at 5 percent (“How does level of Education Relate to
I believe that there is too much wealth and income inequality in the United States
It’s considered a rarity now days to walk down a major city street and not come across a single person who is fighting to survive poverty. The constant question is why don’t they go get help, or what did they do to become like this? The question that should be asked is how will America fix this? Over the past year, Americans who completed high school earned fifteen point five percent more per hour than that of dropouts (Bernstein, Is Education the Cure to Poverty). According to Jared Bernstein, in his article “Is Education the Cure to Poverty”, he argues that not only do the poor need to receive a higher education, but to also maximize their skill levels to fill in where work is needed (Is Education the Cure to Poverty). Counter to Bernstein’s argument Robert Reich expresses that instead of attempting to achieve a higher education, high school seniors need to find another way into the American middle class. Reich goes on to say “the emerging economy will need platoons of technicians able to install, service, and repair all the high-tech machinery filling up hospitals, offices, and factories” (Reich, Why College Isn’t (and Shouldn’t Have to be) for Everyone). Danielle Paquette, though, offers an alternative view on higher education. Paquette gives view that it doesn’t matter on the person, rather it’s the type of school and amount of time in school that will determine a person’s
Many people believe that “having an economy that places a greater value on skills and education is a good thing” and that is the thing that is needed to improve people’s lives and futures (Baicker, Lazear). If what our economy is trying to do a good thing they why are so many students still suffering? The main issues are the low-income education that many students have. Many schools are getting money from the government but that is not enough to pay for everything students need. Educational standards have continued to increase throughout the years but that does not help the students who are unable to pay for the better education. These students who cannot pay for the better education are stuck barely getting by with a low education. A low-education can affect many areas of regular schooling. The students who are at low-income schools do not know what type of disadvantage they have compared to other students across the country. These students believe that they are getting the best education, but there are many students who are getting a better education at a school that has the funds to pay for everything their students need. Low-income students are suffering due to the environment they are in at school and they continue to suffer throughout their life due to it. These students will continue to suffer unless something is done about the low-income schools and improve them for the future. Improvement has to come from all areas, not just one aspect of schooling but from all aspects. Although education has improved along with technology many low-income students still suffer from the vast inequalities. These inequalities will take many years to find a way to fix and even more years to actually fix, until this happens the students will...
After watching the Teach Us All documentary on Netflix, it opened my eyes to many of the issues regarding educational inequality. The study looked at schools in Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles to show us the current state of U.S. education and how far we have come since the school desegregation crisis. The thesis of this documentary is that since the efforts of the Little Rock Nine, our belief is that educational inequality has improved when in reality, it hasn’t improved and the actions of our country have had negative effects. Teach Us All emphasizes the need for unity and collective action to improve our education system for the kids in poor communities that are in the most need. Our country has devoted all the resources to the middle and upper class for education and are taking money away from where it needs to
The authors describe the differences between relative and absolute poverty and how poverty correlates with education. When thinking of education and poverty, educators need to consider that not all students will have access to the technology that you would like them to. While this is true, poverty can be more than economical. It also includes, poor nutrition and health, poor home conditions, unstable home life, and prejudices. A lack of education can lead to this poverty, and a student’s parents’ views on education can affect how their child values theirs. Poverty can also lead gifted students to not reach their full potential, for impoverished students do not always have the same opportunities as their peers. Less poverty, often times,
Equality, America is driven by this one simple word, but how much of America is actually equal
The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While increased spending may help, the real problem is often rooted in the complex issues of social, cultural, and economic differences. When combined with factors involving the school itself and the institution that supports it, we arrive at what has been widely known as the divide between the suburban and urban schools. Can anything actually be done to reverse this apparent trend of inequality or are the outside factors too powerful to change?
Students who live below the poverty line have less motivation to succeed, and their parents are less inclined to participate in their child’s education, often because the parents cannot provide support for their children. Although it’s logical that school districts from poorer communities cannot collect as much funding as the richer communities, people stuck in these low-income communities often pay higher taxes, and still their school districts cannot accumulate as much money.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Throughout the nation, education inequality affects many minority students that have low-income which reinforces the disparity between the rich and the poor. The amount of children that have a socioeconomic background of poverty in the United States is estimated to be 32.4 million (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2011). Since many of these children are from
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 ...
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.
Many young people dream about having successful careers as lawyers, doctors, or CEO's of major corporations, but to achieve these goals they must be adequately educated. However, not all people are given the same opportunities as others. Why? Education is effected by the funding of schools. According to Caroline M. Hoxby, Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard, local tax revenues are an "effective and efficient means of providing education...and gives incentives to both residents and school staff" (2). However, in Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol argues that funding schools solely with property tax is not effective because the property revenues of poor families do not compare to those of the richer families; thus less money goes toward the poor children's education. Therefore, I agree with Kozol in that local property taxes are an unfair way to fund schools because students of poor districts are not given adequate education nor do the parents have sufficient amounts of money to finance their schools.
Poverty has one of the largest negative effects on education and learning within poverty-stricken communities and other areas. As stated, poverty makes needed resources inaccessible because there is no viable funds to assist those in poverty of acquiring said resources. The United States has one of the greatest gaps between rich and the poor in which minorities primarily reside in the lower income bracket (Capra, 2009). Due to this, research has shown that there is a large gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students. According to Lacour and Tissington (2011), on a study done with third through fifth graders, those who were poverty stricken scored below normal and “significantly worse” (Lacour & Tissington, 2011, pg. 522) than their more advantaged students. These numbers are a result of lowered cognitive skills due to the lack