Poverty and education are inextricably linked where education is a primary means of social mobility, enabling those born into poverty to rise in society. Powerful evidence of the link include the fact that 46 percent of Americans who grew up in low-income families but failed to earn college degrees stayed in the lowest income quintile, compared to 16 percent for those who earned a college degree.
The link between poverty and education can be seen at all educational levels. From the earliest stage, pre-primary education, poorer Americans start disadvantaged. Children of parents earning less than $15,000 a year have pre-primary enrollment rates about 20 percent lower than children of parents earning more than $50,000 a year. This pre-school disadvantage for poor people has far-reaching impacts, since students who participated in preschool education were 31 percent less likely to repeat a grade and 32 percent less likely to drop out of high school. Additionally, pre-primary education reduces crime rates where children who were randomly chosen from a low-income neighborhood to attend preschool were shown to have one-fifth the chance of becoming chronic criminal offenders as the matched control group.
The educational disadvantage of those poorer students continues as they grow older. Less than 10 percent of school revenue comes from the federal government while about 90 percent comes from the state and local governments. As a result, school funding varies from state to state, and funding within a state also tends to be unequal. As of 2006, schools with the highest poverty rates received on average nearly $1,000 less per student than schools with the lowest rates, and in some states like New York and Illinois, this gap is more than $2,000 per student.
The locally driven funding (and its resulting funding gap) causes poorer students to have even more learning disadvantages. Top teachers are more likely to gravitate toward the schools that pay the most, offer the best facilities, present the safest working environments, and provide the most advanced learning environments. Consequently, poorer students are far more likely to encounter uncertified teachers, fewer resources, and substandard facilities. In the 1970s and 1980s, courts in ten states found that public education funding was unconstitutional. Corresponding court-ordered changes in state funding closed the achievement gap in states required to make changes, while the achievement gap persists in states where no such order was forthcoming.
The resulting educational disadvantage to the American poor is apparent in cross-country exams such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam. In this exam, the United States placed average to below average versus other developed countries in reading, science, and math, but these averages mask the influence of poverty.
The average American PISA reading score for higher-income schools exceeded that of all other developed countries while the average score for lower-income American schools was far lower. In fact, the PISA scores by America students were more influenced by their parents' backgrounds than every other OECD country. American students who move up one socioeconomic level would earn on average 60 points more in science, while students in other developed countries who did the same would gain fewer than 40 more PISA points. While it is not surprising to learn that wealthier students outperform poorer students, this extremely large disparity in performance among American students is of great concern because of what it implies about social mobility.
The educational disparities between rich and poor Americans are exacerbated at the college level where affordability issues have become more acute over the past few decades. From 1993 to 2007, the tuition and fees for attending in-state public universities rose an inflation-adjusted 79 percent. In 2008, the cost of attending a public college was $14,000 a year, about half the nation's median personal income. American public universities have a higher average tuition than other developed countries. Public universities in Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain charge only minimal tuitions and in some countries (Greece and most of Germany) the public universities are tuition-free. This high cost of American higher education prevents nearly half of college-qualified high school graduates from attending a four-year institution and keeps nearly one-fourth from attending any college at all. In 1979, Pell Grants, the need-based grants by the federal government to lower-income college undergraduates, covered about 75 percent of the cost of a four-year college; thirty years later, this had dropped to 33 percent.
The ramifications of these issues with educational opportunities for the poor and the affordability of college are exemplified by the fact that the highest performing eighth graders from low socioeconomic backgrounds have about the same chance of completing a bachelors degree as the lowest performing eighth graders from high socioeconomic backgrounds. The latter were also about ten times more likely to complete a college degree than low-performing eighth graders from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
America, the land of opportunity, needs to create those opportunities for all its children. Given the tight link between poverty and education, America needs to focus on how to enable everyone to have access to quality education at all levels, from pre-primary to college. These opportunities need exist so that all children can go to high-quality schools, taught by qualified teachers with appropriate facilities. America, the richest country that the world has ever seen, cannot afford to turn its back on young people just because they didn't start with a silver spoon in their mouth. Rather we need to create a situation where there is more equality of opportunity so that the most talented and diligent children rise to the top, rather than the current situation where America suffers the lowest social mobility of any other wealthy country.
This article is based on excerpts from the recently released book 'The Measure of a Nation: How to Regain America's Competitive Edge and Boost Our Global Standing.'
This post is part of the HuffPost Shadow Conventions 2012, a series spotlighting three issues that are not being discussed at the national GOP and Democratic conventions: The Drug War, Poverty in America, and Money in Politics.
HuffPost Live will be taking a comprehensive look at the persistence of poverty in America August 29th and September 5th from 12-4 pm ET and 6-10 pm ET. Click here to check it out -- and join the conversation.
Follow Howard Steven Friedman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/howardsfriedman
Having worked in many different types of districts, charters, privates, I can attest that the kids in higher income areas make the teachers there look great, because they come in with context to hang knowledge on, a history of language development, a culture of learning and a support of curiosity. These kids will learn SOMETHING, no matter who is in the front of the room. It takes a special type of teacher to move kids who resist education for a number of intentional and unintentional reasons, and slug through the mud that is created by the daily politics and data management of a 21st century, post NCLB urban/rural poverty district.
In a capitalistic society, by default all but a handful of the capital class must find work to survive. Surviving means providing the basics of housing, food, clothing, health care and education in America.
If the government (and the ruling elite) choose not to supply enough jobs for all those that desire full time meaningful employment, then they, the government, must supply income support.
Failing to do so, leaves us exactly where we are today, with rising poverty and ever increasing disparity between the haves and the have nots.
Without income support or a decent paying stable employment opportunity, those born or who fall into poverty have NO legitimate path to breaking the cycle of poverty and participating in society.
It's not a mystery why America has the least socioeconomic mobility of all industrialized nations, it's by design.
It is impossible to understand why people do not see this is by design, nor how works such as Naomi Kleins "Future Shock" have been so widely ignored by all but a few. That so little of what is really happening in the economic policy of the US is being unreported by the press is a national disgrace.
What's more baffling to me is how the new plutocracy is killing the geese that laid their golden eggs. Perhaps the short term profit of killing the geese is attractive - but the outcome will be a society and country that is unlivable. How can people so decisively act against their own long term self interest?
2000: Un-educated Chinese workers sell cheap and worthless things to parents of lazy American children.
2010: Chinese wealthy corporations sell lots of cheap, mostly worthless things to mostly un-educated Americans.
2020: Chinese engineers sell high-tech end-products to American importers while buying land and employing the top American engineers left. 20% of the Americans depend on wellfare with no real chance to get a legal job and inability to help their children.
2030: China has the top universities by overall performance. Middle class Americans go to China to have a degree. Even learning Chinese is much more preferable than to pay an American university. The Chinese will allow sometimes American astronauts to visite their huge research center on the Moon.
At least Japan was a democratic country of 120 millions!
Does it seems far fetched for you ?
Maybe I would show another very possible future:
2020 - 2030: The World tensions between traditional superpowers and "de facto" superpowers became so high that a minor incident like a football game will spark regional or general unconventional war, killing a number of billions.
No matter what the reform movements say, teacher cannot make any changes or do anything new or cure poverty.
No matter what the unions say, teacher have no power and can do very little to improve schools.
TEACHERS ARE POWERLESS.
Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319
Except, if the Republicans are elected, Romney will be making drastic cuts to education.
Republicans don't invest in America or Americans.
They just transfer wealth to the rich.
I am so sick and tired of reading about "bad teachers" and vouchers! Most teachers are saints, but all we ever read about are the sexual predators or the grossly incompetent.
I think the assumption that value-added testing reflects teacher quality rather than other events in the child's life is faulty. Other factors -- as cited by this article -- play a larger role. The reform movement is leading to some excellent professional development and teaching strategies, but there is just too much teacher-bashing. Yes, the teacher is the largest influence on achievement within the school system, but external factors (family education, socioeconomic status, absenteeism etc.) have much greater influence. A teen having a baby, getting kicked out of home, developing a drug addiction, or falling asleep constantly in class due to working too many hours in a job -- all these can seriously derail a academic progress.
Nevertheless, teachers like you are powerless. The improvement you site may well be be due to other factors.
Teachers have NO POWER and NO INFLUENCE. They do not set the course of events in their schools, and certainly not in their neighborhoods.
Teachers did not become teachers in order to have power.
Even candidate O ama wondered a out that during the last election.
As a former high school teacher in L.A., I witnessed that disregard for education first hand.
If you don't care a out getting an education, you will wind up on the ourside looking in.
Your explanation??--"It's the racist system!"
What committee does the union mgr get a vote on?
Same school, teachers, facilities, etc. Two completely different results.
There is the pro lem.
True - in hind-sight - their educational experience DID open them up to realizing the art of learning - an art that lasts a lifetime.