Poverty is an issue that will always affect our nation or any capitalistic nation for that matter. Since it has such a deeply rooted effect on social structures it will inevitably impact education. “In the 1960’s it was commonly believed that discrimination and poverty were the two basic problems preventing the use of schools as a means of discovering and classifying talent for services to the national economy and national defense” (p 371), and with the goal of advancing society through education Congress enacted the Economic Opportunity Act (1964) and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965). With these acts and later programs such as Head Start and No Child Left Behind, the government took on a more active role in reducing poverty by instituting outreach programs for underprivileged children and increasing funding for specific areas within schools. Human resources were also exhausted to aid the battle against poverty. Although there is a clear correlation between education and poverty, poverty is not something that can be easily eradicated by adjusting statutes within the educational system. Even if resources are highly available in a school, the student’s direct environment (e.g. family, neighborhood) are great determinants of the student’s progress. The attempt to bring equality, even if it is for global competition, is an admirable one but the government is limited or limits itself to simply dealing with the surface.
Another flaw to this approach is the government’s erroneous definition of talent and how it is inter related to poverty. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was developed to “determine everyone’s place in society” and being able to categorize between those “capable of going to college and those considered incapable”. Aside from the argument that the test is not valid or reliable, how can there be equal opportunities for all students, especially those in poverty, when the measures to define their capacities are by nature discriminatory? No Child Left Behind is a prime example of the system’s failure. NCLB advocated for standardized-based education, where assessments (such as the SAT) would give all students equal opportunity to succeed. Schools and teachers were given the highest accountability for their student’s achievement on these tests and each individual state was responsible for setting the standard. This eventually led to segregation within schools between the talented and the untalented or the smart and the dumb. High minority and poverty schools score significantly less on these assessments where you can see the disparity among socioeconomic status and race. Clearly, what was implemented to promote equality is actually creating great inequality.
There are many factors that lead and maintain individuals in poverty. Education can be a fierce tool to combating the rising poverty numbers, but only if the strategies are inclusive of external factors. Nonetheless, is the government’s “cookie cutter” strategies something that can be adjusted or is its stratified political structure preventing progress?
