A reader comments:
I believe an excellent education can make a difference to children living in poverty, but it is insufficient. As one writer said in response to a previous posting on this blog, to say that good teachers can “solve” poverty trivializes the hardships that poor children endure. It’s like saying something like this to a child living in poverty: You have an excellent teacher so it doesn’t matter that you are hungry. It doesn’t matter that you live in a shelter or a run-down apartment. The fact that there are gangs in your neighborhood doesn’t matter either. Ignore the fact that you sometimes hear shots fired or witness violence. If you get sick, don’t worry about not seeing a doctor. You’ll probably feel better eventually. It also doesn’t matter that your teeth hurt, and you have never visited a dentist. I know you are tired from caring for your younger siblings, and you can’t ask mom for help with your homework till she gets home from the late shift. None of that matters. You have an excellent teacher at school! Isn’t that enough?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ignoring poverty is callous. I wrote this blog post this weekend: http://mskatiesramblings.blogspot.com/2012/09/reformers-just-dont-know.html
“As anyone who has ever read my blog knows, I work as a teacher on an inpatient psychiatric unit for children and adolescents in Chicago. I work with kids who are so sick, that they had to be hospitalized in order to keep them and those around them safe. On our unit, children and adolescents may not even have pencils unsupervised or paper clips for fear of harm.
And through my job I have seen, real and personal, the effects that poverty can have on our young people. I have seen children, with a history of abuse, placed in the foster care system, who are so sad that they bang their heads against walls, scratch their faces, and scream “I want to die.” I have seen children who get so angry-who have so little frustration tolerance due to living in unpredictable situations where they had to be in a constant “fight or flight” state to keep themselves safe on the streets-who will beat another child just for looking at them the wrong way. I have seen countless children who were exposed to substances in utero and now their brains do not work the same as their typically developing peers. These children get angry, throw chairs, scream in frustration when their needs are not met, and lash out to hurt anyone around them. I have seen these same children struggle to learn even basic letters and counting, thanks to the cognitive impairments they have. I have seen children who were homeless for most of their life, whose brains were forever damaged by the stress of their early childhood experience, who now require one to one assistance just to be able to function with a group of children. I have seen young girls, so severely depressed about growing up in our lawless inner-cities with parents overcome with drug addiction and gang affiliations, grab a bottle of cleaning fluid and try to kill themselves. I have seen child after child exposed to greater trauma on the streets of Chicago, than our soldiers in Kabul face! I have spoken with countless children who feel hopeless, who feel abandoned, whose lives are forever altered due to the rampant poverty we let them be exposed to.
Now there are things we can do to help these kids. And believe me, people like me are doing our best every day to help repair the damage done to these fragile children. The proper interventions are expensive, time-consuming, and will not work for every child. But those of us in the mental health field do what we can with the few resources we are given.
But I ask you, why do we as a society LET these beautiful children become so damaged in the first place? It is as if we are sitting back and letting a child be beaten again and again by an abusive parent, and then looking the other way. The education reformers out there are saying “sorry you got beat, here are some chants and gimmicks that will help you catch up academically”. We tell the kids to “work hard, be nice” as if that were enough. And if some kids can’t just “get over” the massive abuse done to them, then they clearly are at fault and don’t deserve quality education. God forbid kids, after being exposed to all types of trauma and then coming to an understanding of the savage inequalities of their lives, don’t want to just “be nice”.
As poverty in this country deepens, we are seeing more and more kids with even more debilitating disabilities. Insurance agencies are shortening the amount of time these kids are allowed to heal in hospitals like mine. Add to that cuts in mental health services, child and protective services, and the schools that serve these children, and these kids are being doubly abused.
For too many of these children, if their families had not been battling the weight of deep poverty, they would not be sick. Let me say that again, if these kids had not been born into extreme poverty, they would not be screaming, gouging their skin, threatening harm, crying every night, and put into a hospital. It is unconscionable to allow these children to continue to be put in harm’s way. Every penny we have should be thrown into prevention, not just in helping after the abuse has already happened.”
Jill Biden’s bio says she taught in the adolescent program at the Rockford Center psychiatric hospital for five years in the 1980s. Why doesn’t she speak out on behalf of these children?
Thank you for painting a vivid picture about the intense suffering that our children of poverty endure.
The educational reformers are so far removed from this reality. They should be required to work alongside you, KatieO, and see what you see everyday. An iPad for every child, etc., is not the cure all.
Well said KatieO. Each year I see many of our students in my school of 600 struggle not only academically, but behaviorally, emotionally, mentally, etc. At least 10 last year spent time in mental health facilities, some more than once. Now our LA governor is closing down public hospitals that serve these students in poverty. You are so correct about spending money on prevention. We are fighting a much larger battle here. Until the problems of poverty come to the forefront of the conversation, we will continue dealing with a vicious circle and cycle of poverty. The price will ultimately be paid by the children we are failing, but it will also be paid by society as a whole.
I’m not sure who is ignoring poverty. That is a terrible practice. The effects of poverty go far beyond not having financial means. There are acute and chronic stressors (Eric Jensen) that plague children of poverty throughout life. I see the effects every day.
Poverty must be addressed in a more intentional way in our country. We are loosing kids because of it.
Still it appears to be setting up a straw man to say that there is nothing (at all ever) that can be done to change that. It isn’t either “you fix poverty or there is no hope.” Not every child in poverty ends up in an inpatient psychiatric unit. I have great respect for those of you who work there. It is truly a noble field. I have no doubt that you are making a difference in the lives of those children. It is terrible to know the trauma of children who must spent time there (which I do.)
Can’t we just recognize that schools are a part of the solution, and that they can have an impact on a great number of children of poverty?
It’s a mistake to ignore the effects of chronic poverty, but its also a mistake to say that children, with the help of teachers and schools (who work really hard with the families) can’t break the cycle.
No one is saying that teachers can’t help children break the cycle of poverty. Speaking of straw men. They are saying we can’t do it alone.
The problems of poverty stem from a society that glorifies individual “success” in terms of hoarding wealth through avaricious behavior. One can only be considered successful if they have amassed such an amount of wealth that ten generations of heirs couldn’t make a dent in it. Can you say oligarchic plutocracy or is that a plutocratic oligarchy for the current economic and political structure? It certainly isn’t a meritocratic democracy anymore, if it ever was and I doubt it ever was.
This country has more than enough wealth to ameliorate that vast poverty that has taken hold in the last 30 years, it just doesn’t have the will as the vast majority have been mentally anesthetized through the dominant corporate media, mainly the television.
John Marsh’s recent publication “Class Dismissed,” is an excellent and methodical work that argues against the notion that seems to have become pervasive, that is that the answer to our dramatic economic inequities can simply be solved through education. What Marsh makes strikingly apparent is twofold: 1) Making sincere and effective efforts to eradicate poverty will likely enhance students’ educational performance, not the opposite. 2)
My poverty assessment at At The Chalk Face. http://atthechalkface.com/2012/08/16/reformer-rhetoric-on-poverty/
Thanks for having the guts to say what many of us know, but aren’t saying. In most cases poverty is destiny. For a few children who are able to rise out of poverty, it is usually the exception, not the rule. And yes, schools can do much to support children in poverty, and many of us do.
As for those with extremely at risk behaviors and mental health needs, that is a different story. We do, by necessity, put as many support systems in place for them as we can. But the reality is that we are not equipped with the necessary tools to adequately meet their needs. I take it personally when a student at my school is removed for any amount of time. They are my students and I do take responsibility for them. In the end game, though, their needs are beyond the scope of any regular school. That is where people like KatieO are critical. They are much better equipped and educated in the types of services needed for our most at risk students with mental health needs.
I am able to meet the needs of the majority of my 600 high poverty students and for most of them I hope that I am able to help put a kink in that cycle of poverty that is perpetuated by the actions of our government which ignores their reality. Also, it Is unrealistic to ignore the extra costs both financially and in terms of extra time and effort to meet the needs of our high poverty and and at risk students.
Of course it’s not enough! But there are opportunities being missed all the time … How about what I’ve been calling “local Education Communities” for example? Local motivated and engaged citizens work together to identify, understand, deal with, assess, and refine local issues – for the betterment of the local community. The resulting BETTER ALTERNATIVES will gain increased support, will build local confidence, and will improve the opportunities for the community residents – because of initiatives begun.
Make no mistake: ALL communities will benefit from such efforts; AND community interaction and cooperation will occur as well! It starts locally with maybe only small numbers. But the potential is unlimited!
Thank you JCBJR. I see the same thing. It’s already being done.
Yes, you are correct, it does indeed take a village to raise a child. I have worked really hard to reach out and open communication with the business leaders, church groups, social services, even district attorney’s office and law enforcment, anyone who can help us with support systems for our students. The buzz word for this is “braiding”. It has helped many of our students, but many have needs so great that even with these services, we still have students who don’t respond. As I have said before, that is where agencies who provide the services described by KatieO come into play. There is no magic bullet when it comes to these highly “At Risk” students and their family situations.The key is in prevention with early intervention services. I worked on early intervention family education programs for 9 years. They can be successful, but only when dealt with as a whole family intervention when children are very young. Once children enter elementary grades it is extremely difficult to turn the tide. But we never give up on them.
I hear the frustration if not outright anger you have for the needlessness of poverty. That it exists anywhere in the world today is shameful, that it still persists in a country like the USA is abominable. Within your commentary you touch on the real underlying cause of poverty, apathy. I know that apathy is a dirty word in our society and that no one wants to address it because we are all infected with it to a degree (myself included), but we need to talk about. The United States is one of the richest countries in the world. We have the resources, the technology, the knowledge, and the ability to wipe poverty out and save our future generations from its ravages. Yet, we do nothing about. In fact we do everything to promote it. The government, both federal and local, has been reducing funding for programs for the poor, programs focused on assisting people out of poverty, since the late 1970’s. Right now government is reducing funding for programs benefiting the poor by record amounts. It is so easy for officials to misrepresent who the poor are and why they are poor and thus exploit them, because we allow it! Who of us has taken the time to do the research to find out what poverty really is and how it is that people become impoverished. How many of us know that most of those classified as poor work at full time jobs? How many of know that the formula for determining poverty has not changed since the 1960’s? How many of us know that the federal minimum wage provides an income that in practical application places a person in poverty? Poverty is OUR problem. Poverty affects all of us and as such we need to educate ourselves so that we can fight against it. It does not mean simply providing financial aid and essential services. It means providing the education and training to enable the mobilization of individuals and families out of poverty into a self sustaining position within our society. WE have created the drastic increase in the number of impoverished in our society as a result of OUR disengagement from society and the responsibilities attributed to membership in it. Looking the other way, focusing our attention on ourselves, has fostered such injustices as poverty. It is high time that we get involved and take back control of the government from corporate America and make democracy work. WE are “the people” not the power elite. It is time that we prove that by collectively and individually taking action to make this nation once again “the great land of opportunity” for all.