So many reformers tell us that charter schools will end poverty, or that we should “fix” the schools before we even attempt to “fix” poverty.
We have a lot of fixing to do, even without thousands more of those miracle charter schools staffed by TFA ingenues.
The latest figures from the U.S. Census show that poverty remains stuck at 15%, about 46.5 million Americans.
In the past half-century, the poverty rate had climbed to the 15 percent mark just three times: in 1982 and 1993 as well as the past three years starting in 2010.
But since 2007, the lowest-earning 20 percent of the U.S. population “fell much further” than the highest-earning 20 percent, Johnson said — more than 3 percent for the poorest families, and just 0.5 percent for the richest.
“What we’ve found is that there’s a great isolation of the poor in the sense that in the neighborhoods they’re not mixed in, and often the only people that they’re knowing and the other people that they’re going to school with are also poor,” said Clark Massey, president of A Simple House, which works with poor families often living in government-run housing projects or government-subsidized housing in Kansas City, Mo., and Washington.
In a telephone interview Monday from Kansas City with Catholic News Service, Massey said poor Americans are “not seeing examples of people working 9-to 5-jobs. They’re not seeing marriages that are working.” On the other half of the equation, “the greatest problem I see is that the wealthier upper or middle class, they’re distant from the poor. They’re in suburban neighborhoods,” he added. “There’s a great lack of information between the two, that they don’t know a lot about each other.”
Massey said, “There’s a huge segment of the population that’s homeless. We don’t think of them as homeless. They’re sleeping on couches.” He explained: “The government prioritizes moms with kids. Men tend to be homeless … and the moms are in the projects with their kids.” The men going from dwelling to dwelling to sleep on the couch is a phenomenon Massey called “couch surfing.”
It has been documented again and again that poverty is the best predictor of low test scores.
If we want to “fix” schools, it is imperative that we take action to reduce the poverty in which so many children and families live.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We should be working on significant reductions in poverty, significant increases in people employed with satisfying jobs that have benefits, and significant improvements in graduation rates and students who are not only entering, but graduating from some form of higher education (1, 2, 4 or more years)
Why all the emphasis on education, particularly higher education, unless there are jobs to be had that require that education? And why is the public expected to provide free job training for huge corporations? There was a time when the Big Three automakers had schools in Michigan to train interested and promising students to enter the auto industry. That appears to have gone by the boards. Big Business’ wet dream for a century has been to bend public education to its own interests and needs, and to do it free of charge to business. Looks like now they’re going all the way: might as well own the public schools and profit from them directly, too.
Yuck.
Lots of reasons for youngsters to continue their education beyond high school – not just for job training.
That would be nice, too bad there isn’t a good job market right now.
Be that as it may, trust that ed deformers will consider this fact an excuse and insist that the only barrier for poor children is the lack of highly-enthusiastic (if poorly-paid and barely-trained) rich Ivy Leaguers in front of their classrooms for a two-year guest spot on their way to educational policy-making and/or corporate boardrooms. No reason to believe that hunger, illness, environmental poisoning, exposure to crime, substance abuse, emotional or physical violence, etc., would have anything to say about how much impact education has on a child. Nothing to see here with this poverty jazz. Move along.
I totally agree I work with many children in this situation and i worry about the rigor on their class work. We first make assist them with health issues, family concerns , clothes, school supplies, and a better self esteem before we stress them with rigor and testing. Let’s meet their basic need and implement good schools habits, employability skills and college readiness . . These students need our help now. Who will step to the plate?
I do not see, if the charters are deemed to be “so much better” than public schools, why do they not JOIN the public schools and spread their superiority to all? Is it that they don’t want to be supervised the same as public teachers? Is it that they simply want to avoid tests? Is it some other reason?
I understand private schools for religious purposes. I understand private schools for those with special situations, like hearing impairment or blindness. I even understand charters within the public system that draw in a certain interest group, like Cincinnati’s School for the Performing Arts. However, I do not approve of public money financing private charter schools, particularly when the money is not reinvested in the students’ success and when the money leaves the area, esp when it leaves the state.
I admit that there have been times when I wanted to escape the public school setup, esp since the manic rush to constant change began. But, my biggest concern has always been for the children.
In this mess that we are calling “reform” there will be many people whose lives are ruined. There already have been lives ruined. But before it turns around, it will impact so many children. They can never get those years back. They will have lost their youthful years of learning quickly and finding their way. That is the pity of all of this.