**Poverty Issues Undermine Public Education

In my article in the ‘Herald” last Tuesday, I discussed volunteerism and societal attitudes as they relate to public education. Just throwing money at public education is not the complete answer. Last week I viewed a Netflix DVD entitled, “I am a promise: Stanton Elementary” which is documentary about a Philadelphia inner city elementary school. This DVD really highlights that no matter how well teachers try to educate impoverished children that come into the system with major societal and family dysfunction, using limited financial resources, that the children face a very daunting task of succeeding. Our public schools appear to be dysfunctional, mainly because of the poor performance of poorer children in the inner urban cities of America.
The purpose of this article is not to say that there is definite room for efficiencies and improvement within the public school system. Class sizes, teacher pay, and lack of materials put a drag on the system. Public schools typically have 10 to 15 percent higher administrative costs than private schools. School buildings are under- utilized, being occupied only nine months out of the year, while their bonded indebtedness goes on continually. With budget cutbacks many summer school programs have been eliminated. Self esteem building programs, such as art, music, and sports, that round out a student as an individual have been drastically cut back. It is sad that we have another 50 billion dollars for a wasteful war in Afghanistan, billions for corporate subsidies, and tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, but no money to invest in the future of many of our children. The wealthy and upper middle classes can afford private schools, tutors, and all the important factors that can help a student achieve to the best of their ability. The poor do not have the same opportunity.
A Kansas City study of a school district that was given major financial resources had a difficult task in improving children’s learning scores. In the Constitution it says that we all have equal opportunity, which is not reality. Based on an individual’s financial position, he have may face many road blocks, in his ability to obtain resources, access, and quality of goods and services. Children of color, who grow up in crime ridden inner cities to single mothers or fathers with limited education and job skills face major challenges. These children often have to deal with inadequate nutrition, poor medical care, unsafe and decaying housing, and unstable physical and emotional environments.
Getting back to the important issues of poverty that effect a child’s ability to learn, it is important to look at some important statistics. Twelve percent of our nation’s people live at the poverty level. If a child is of color’ or is being raised by a single mother of limited earning capacity, the family is two and half to three times as likely to be living below the poverty level, compared to a white child. Over 52% of Americans live in the suburban areas surrounding the large metropolises. Today, Blacks, Hispanics, and poorer children dominate 23 of the nation’s 25 largest urban school systems. This cultural divide has raised a permanent fissure in our public schools, and has separated children into two separate and unequal class systems - one suburban, privileged and mostly white, and the other inner-city, poorer and mostly non-white.
Many of these children do not eat lunch or breakfast, unless the school supplies meals on site. In addition, many of these children have been subject to traumatic physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The parents of these children can never afford to buy homes that bring environmental stability to these children, and many times are forced to be constantly moving to a foster care situation, an alternate family member, or a crime and vermin ridden apartment in a public housing project or tenament. Due to the challenging emotional issues facing these children, they are often found to disruptive, or act out in the classroom, taking away valuable time from the learning process.
In many locales there is a huge disparity between the spending on education between the poorest children to the richest children. The per student expenditure, in many inner city schools, is one-half that of suburban schools. The students in both school systems have the same educational needs, but the student of an inner city school receives only half of the amount of resources then the student in a suburban school. The inner city schools and administrations are supposed to make these funds seem equal to those of higher funded school districts. The difference in spending between suburban and inner city schools is not always so extreme. When student needs are considered, however, the disparities in funding are enormous. This reinforces the point that equity does not mean simply equal funding. Equal funding for unequal needs is not equality. The need is greater in inner-city schools if these students are to have the same experiences and opportunities as those who are in suburban schools. These inequities, which are only a small representation of the many that are faced by inner city students, hinder their educational future.
There is no simple answer to alleviate poverty, just as there is no simple answer for its embedded state in America. The common element shared by all is our humanity. People devastated by poverty are not deficient, less than, criminals,or subhuman. They are not broken; however, the system in which they are embroiled very well may be.
The neglect of the educational and personal needs of children in urban schools threatens the economic well-being of the nation. Unless the inequalities in education between suburban and urban schools are diminished, the schools and their students will always be victims of the divisions of race and class.