The Shame of the Nation was written in 2005 by author Jonathan Kozol. In this book he discusses how underprivileged children in lower-income school districts are treated differently than the children in middle-class school districts. The middle-class children have easy access to pre-school but very few children in the lower-classes have access to pre-school. As a result, when lower-classes are finally able to attend school, they are below the grade level set by government, they are forced to deal with overfilled class rooms, unskilled teachers and inadequate resources. The children in financially restricted school districts must take and pass the same exams as the children who have had access to better schooling since they were a toddlers. He notes how tough it is for kids to do well under these circumstances and that those who do well are considered to have courageous talents. Kozol uses comparison and description to persuade the readers something needs to be done about the issues.…
In her skillfully written narrative, Eaton delves into the complex reasons hindering equal access to a quality education for the nation's children, a problem with a long and messy history. Beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the U.S. courts were, for a few decades at least, a place where civil rights made noteworthy gains. But in many places the attempts at desegregation were never really established, and by the '80s, what had been accomplished was quickly being lost. The reasons for today's education faults are, for many, almost undetectable. The author presents a fascinating group of kids from an inner-city school in Hartford, Connecticut, who struggle to learn in a characteristically disheartened and under-funded urban public school.…
For those that are not aware, America’s education system is experiencing a dilemma that is going unnoticed. Schools today are not just being inadequately funded, or overcrowded, but something more interesting. Jonathan Kozol explains the issue at hand in his book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.…
One injustice currently affecting my community, my family, and many other families throughout the state of Alabama is the Alabama Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Program (PACT). Instead of maintaining a “college fund” savings account at the bank or investing in stocks or bonds, many parents and grandparents “were sold on PACT and its assurance that they were paying tomorrow’s tuition costs with today’s dollars” (White, 3). So, they “decided to play it safe with guaranteed tuition for their children and grandchildren when they reached college age with a plan that was backed by the State of Alabama” (White, 3). Now, those parents and grandparents who had the foresight to plan ahead and secure the future education of their children and grandchildren by sacrificing to purchase PACT Plans are being told that education is in jeopardy and is no longer guaranteed (White, 1).…
Throughout America’s communities today, the quality of schooling varies from school to school. In the book Our Kids the author, Robert Putnam, believes that the increased gap between the wealthy and poor is what causes the differences in school quality and opportunities for the students (Putnam, 2015). Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing two of today’s youth, Josh and Erin. Their names have been changed for the sake of anonymity. Josh is a 17-year-old student at Shawnee Mission East High School, in Prairie Village, Kansas.…
Negroponte has a vision to launch an educational movement that would help alleviate poverty by connecting children in developing countries to the rest of the world. “As the pace of change in the world increases dramatically, the urgency to prepare all children to be full citizens of the emerging world also increases dramatically. No one can predict the world our children will inherit. The best preparation for children is to develop the passion for learning and the ability to learn how to learn.”…
Currently, there are very few programs and policies that help the poor with postsecondary education; American capitalism is the underlying cause of the lack of support. Mike Rose spent a year and a half going to community colleges to see those hardships in effect. He believes the disadvantaged should have the same equal opportunities in secondary education. However, such opportunities are being slashed due to government budget cuts. If these budget cuts are permanent, the poor will suffer from economic consequences.…
The lack of resources for schools constricts learning. Poverty stricken school districts in America receive inadequate funding. In his essay, Barber expands on the idea of poverty in school districts and the result from it. Barber states, “The richest school districts…spend…
I have chosen this topic because as a person enrolled in an institute of higher learning and the mother of children who are currently enrolled in a public school system I am concerned that for to long we have turned a deaf ear as well as a blind eye to issues that could potentially affect us as a society in…
In the 2015-2016 school year, approximately eighty-seven percent of the students in my school were classified as "economically disadvantaged" according to the Irving Independent School District; additionally, over fifty percent of students in my school qualify for free or reduced lunch. A majority of my peers and I come from homes lead by single parents and working teenagers, a fact that…
As research states that poverty is on the rise. Our children are suffering the most. As an educator what can we do? I believe that we ask ourselves about being accountable for this issue in the school system. Teaching with poverty in mind how to help at-risk students succeed. As stakeholders questions to reflect on:…
Students all over the nation are experiencing delays to learning. Whether children are poor or in low class families, have low school funding, are being discriminated against because of their standardized test scores, or are being tracked throughout their entire school career, they are not getting the best education they possibly can. A lot of schools are having difficulty with the No Child Left Behind law because it forces students who have learning disabilities and English as a second language students to take standardized tests. Not only is this not fair to the learning disabled students and students who don’t primarily speak English, but this will also drop school’s test scores. In order for all students to get the best school experience…
I believe that these insights into the middle and lower classes may allow me to contribute something unique to ODI's mission. I believe that higher standards regarding behavior and GPA should be set for those attending and teaching at vocational schools. I also believe that classes should be required for high school seniors to learn about what they should do when applying for colleges and the financial consequences that they may face and how to go about solving…
Some of the stakeholders impacted by issues of cost and access include students, faculty and staff, local communities, and institutional administrators. Low-income students have a more difficult time in college (Berg, 2010). Berg writes, “the intense personal development that all colleges students go through in their lives is made especially hard for students from low-income backgrounds because they have been judged by society as coming from a community of underachievement and even immorality” (pg. 67). Knowing that the development period of their collegiate experience will be more challenging, these students have high stakes in how institutions are prepared, or not, to support them. If institutions do not have adequate support available for…