re: "Why our schools are failing" AL.com opinion

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So it’s not poverty that’s the problem. It’s parents.

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I imagine they're in poverty with children because of poor decisions.

Since kids learn from parents, many of these children are doomed. It wasn't always this way, folks were more motivated to improve their lot in life. I honestly believe we have a permenant class of people who will never escape currently. Drugs, prison, culture...

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It’s that we as a society need to turn our eyes toward the systemic iniquity that creates poverty, and the systems that we put in place that perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

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Please give examples.

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And the type of poor they grew up in isn’t like what we think of today. They grew up in rural north Alabama in the 20s and 30s during the Great Depression.

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It was true, crushing poverty. And it was everywhere. People literally starved. When kids dropped out of school, which was frequently, it was to go to work.

My grandparents raised 8 kids through the depression and WWII in a tiny four room shack on the single salary of a textile worker. In a single generation, five of those kids became solidly upper middle class and the other three are quite wealthy. That's a 100% success rate on emerging from poverty.

The formula was simple. Their parents gave a damn about education. All of them went to school. None of them had children as teenagers or outside of a two parent household. All of them maintained full time employment throughout their lives, even if the jobs, at times, were menial.

The point is, there is no systemic oppression of poor people today. In fact, they have EVERY advantage over someone who was poor just sixty or seventy years ago. Homes with plumbing, electricity, almost always with air conditioning, monthly checks, food stipends, health insurance (at least for children, but also for adults in some states) cars, cellular phones with access to every piece of information in the world, and the list of advantages just goes on and on.

The problem is they just don't give a shite. Black, white, Hispanic is meaningless in the poverty cycle, because they all follow the same pattern. They couldn't care less if their kids go to school. They expect them to have babies as teenagers and usually don't expect that the father will be involved (this stat is so high in poor black communities, that there probably can NEVER be an economic recovery). The idea of full time employment is not a consideration by most of the truly poor.

Poverty is an issue, but not giving a frick is a bigger issue. I went to school with a lot of poor kids of all races. They may not have had the nicest clothes, but they were clean and there on time. They didn't all become CEO's, but most have families and gainful employment, and a few have exceeded what anyone would have expected.

I have relatives involved in the school system now, and the "culture" is completely different now. The poor, but well behaved child who tries to better his station in life is the exception. It used to be the rule.

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Poverty is an issue, but not giving a frick is a bigger issue

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Not giving a frick definitely leads to poverty

It ain't poverty. It's culture.

Pearls before swine.

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It's because the white flight schools get all the funding. If we saw equity in dollars, we would see equal results. Period.

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Just in the Houston area.....HISD spends way more per kid than district in the burbs. Yet HISD sucks as compared to places like Cypress, Katy, Woodlands, etc. Even more money down the drain won't fix HISD.

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The problem is genetic, so yes, it does start at home, but that article is complete hogwash

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Can you expound on this? I'm curious to hear your thinking on it.

I can only imagine the number of wasted resources. The Parish I'm in is currently changing the ELA/Math curriculum. I was bored one day so I googled the amount it cost for training and for a 3-day training they pay almost 8k. That does not include all of the materials the Parish will need in order to make sure all students have the material.
Now what the Parish will probably do is just tell the teacher to copy everything or figure it out as they go rather than giving the teachers all of the materials the curriculum calls for to be successful.