Here is the link to an article published by the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rebell/us-schools-have-a-poverty_b_1247635.html
In the article the authors discuss the association between child poverty and achievement. The authors go on to make several recommendations for putting low-income schools on an even playing field with middle-income schools.
If low-income schools remain behind other, more advantaged schools, then many of these students will continue to lag behind their peers, which have huge implications for enrollment in college.
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ReplyDeleteAlong poverty issue, Dr. Wilmer Leon and Professor Cornel West speak frankly about corporate media and how race and class are left off the table in mainstream media and more in this snippet:
ReplyDeleteLink: http://yourblackworld.net/2012/01/black-news/dr-wilmer-leon-cornel-west-speaks-race-class-left-table-mainstream-media/
The 2011 Census indicates 46.2 million Americans are poor. The high numbers go back 20 years, so we have been moving in this direction for a while. Cornel states that poverty is the new slavery. As long as Wall Street is running policy, the cycle will continue.
I think the author attempts to cover up education inequality by stating poverty is the problem, not education. By claiming there is a poverty crisis and not an education crisis, Michael Rebell is dismissing the historical and current institutional barriers that create issues of access to education for underrepresented students. Rebell attempts to separate poverty from education, however poverty and education is not mutually exclusive. The International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) asserts that the relationship between poverty and education works in two ways, "poor people are often unable to obtain access to an adequate education, and without an adequate education people are often constrained to a life of poverty." (pg 1). Thus asserting, you cannot dismiss one in favor of the other.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly IIEP is incinuating that education plays a key role in social mobility. To this end ignoring the education crisis by focusing on poverty is not a viable solution to any crisis. Second, I find it very interesting that Rebell argues that "Access to comprehensive educational services is a right" however as previously stated, neglects to mention societal historical barriers and current barriers that have significantly impacted access to resources and education for students that have been traditionally undeserved in education.
Overall Michael Rebell's argument, assumes that if you get rid of poverty, then the issues with education will simply diminish. Specifically stating, "A growing body of research and a number of demonstration projects around the country indicate that America will attain its goals of equity and excellence in education only through a concerted effort to eliminate the substantial socioeconomic barriers that limit school success for many students" However if we are aiming to address the issues of both poverty and education, we cannot attempt to make both social problems mutually exclusive. Rather work to address both in order to create access and educational opportunities for students from underrepresented backgrounds.