...| Suburban School Policy | Sociology 4560 | | | | Deosia Miller | 10/21/2014 | | Abstract A recent paper I wrote for this class led me to choose suburban school policy as my midterm paper. As I read about rising poverty, it made me think of the students in these suburbs and how they are affected by the economic shifts taking place. I found that suburban school policy has undergone changes as the demographic of the communities schools change. I was also found that other policy was indirectly responsible for some of the problems America’s suburbs are currently facing. Two top news stories in August – the tragedy in suburban Ferguson, Missouri, and the end of the white-student majority in U.S. public school enrollments nationwide – speak to the changing identity of our nation, our suburbs and our public schools. Most of us had never heard of Ferguson, Missouri until it experienced recent civil unrest this past August. As I became curious about the town, I found it was one of many that are experiencing a change from an all-white enclave to home for many Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, American suburbs are in the midst of an identity crisis. In many metro areas, the affluent and the poor, people of color and whites, the well-educated and poorly educated are “trading places” across urban-suburban boundaries. In fact, the number of Americans living below the federal poverty line is now greater in the suburbs than the cities, and fewer than 20 percent of...
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...PSC 201A Dr. Schulte Response Paper 3 In the New York Times article, “What’s the Matter With Kansas’ Schools?” by David Sciarra and Wade Henderson published on January 7, Kansas is facing a rigorous challenge on inadequate and unfair school funding for public education. Governor Sam Brownback who is a Republican and the Kansas legislature, which is led by Republicans, have made an excess amount of harsh budget cuts in addition to the cuts that they made several years ago. Parents filed a lawsuit to protest these funding cuts. The Kansas Supreme Court will have to decide whether the state will continue cutting funds or restore them. “The Judges called the school funding cut destructive of our children’s future” (Sciarra and Henderson, 2014). Federal education policies have ignored the issue of poverty for years. There are a number of research studies that have been found that the majority of students in public schools come from low-income families. Referring to the current school system, I think these large cuts in school funding would not only affect the children’s future, but also help to impoverish society in the long run. Poverty is a substantial factor when it comes to education problems in the United States. According to the Washington Post (2013), low-income students made up at least half the public school population in 17 states, including some wealthy states such as California in 2011, which was a marked increase from 2000 (Strauss, 2013). Furthermore, social science...
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...Education and Poverty in America Historically, education has been considered the “great socioeconomic equalizer” of American society, allowing all children an equal opportunity to succeed. Furthermore, a high-quality education is considered both a human and civil right however, educational experiences for children living in poverty continue to be substantially separate and unequal. In the United States, poverty is a common social, political and economic issue that has troubled Americans for years. Despite being better off today nearly 50 million Americans, including more than half of which are children currently live in poverty. In his poem, “Cause I Ain’t Got a Pencil,” Joshua T. Dickerson describes the damaging effects poverty has on...
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...In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case that would end public school segregation. Over fifty years later, studies have shown segregation has increased in the public school system. Currently, public schools have seen an escalation in segregation according to a report released by Richard Rothstein of the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (Strauss, 2013). Three additional reports related to public school segregation have also been released. This increase in segregation could have detrimental effects on the U.S. multiracial society’s success (Strauss, 2013). The study conducted by Richard Rothstein was conducted in 2012 and has now received both international and national media attention. Segregation is defined as “separation of racial or ethnic groups in order for the dominate group to maintain social distance” (Henslin, 2011). In this case the dominant group is white students. A dominate group is defined as “a group with power regardless of the numbers associated with the group” (Henslin, 2011). Segregation has been growing based on both race and poverty. “Fifteen percent of black students and fourteen percent of Latino students attend “apartheid schools” across the nation in which whites make up zero to one percent of the enrollment” (Strauss, 2013). Previous studies conducted in the 1970s have shown four out of five students in the U.S. were white. Now in particular areas (South and West) students of color are the predominate race...
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...importance to be educated. These parents don’t realize that not only their educa-tion give their children the satisfaction to persuade success in school but also the perception to continue their education in college or university. Only education will achieve children to get at-tractive salary and professional recognition at mature age. Literacy is beneficial for education; however, the mere ability to read and write may not be sufficient to lift...
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...Yes, poverty is a major issue in today’s society but, when you think about it how much can we, as educators, change society’s poverty problem? We may not be able to fix poverty for years to come but, the way we can fix poverty is by fixing our schools. Students who live in poverty might not have the appropriate support needed to be academically and socially successful. I believe that by fixing our schools we are fixing our communities. Schools can become a place where students feel safe and comfortable to be themselves. I also believe that if we use our resources and offer more opportunities within our schools for all students, we may be able to increase academic performance, personal development, and graduation rates. Public schools are a great resource because parents and guardians are not required to pay tuition for their children to attend. In my opinion, not all public schools have the resources to accommodate every student. This all starts with school funding. I know that school funding has also become a large problem, especially in Philadelphia. Once the proper funding comes around, to not only keep schools open but to also distribute money throughout districts to use to better their schools, we can actually make an impact. I am not sure what can bring in this proper funding but, taxing materials that citizens are willing to keep purchasing seems to be a good way to create funding. This funding will not fix the poverty problem directly but, this funding can...
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...money families must spend. College in itself is a leading cause of poverty among people in the United States. For some families, the cost in itself could break them, for others the fact that they can not afford to pursue a higher education can be a cause of falling into insular poverty. The biggest questions among American’s looking into college are, How much does it cost to go to college? How long are people often in debt from college? With those questions in mind most people have to make a decision on whether to go to college and get an education and maybe be in debt for a while, or...
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...Race and Poverty: Factors of the African American Achievement Gap Abstract The proposed action research study will pinpoint factors that contribute to the African American academic achievement gap. These factors impact not only the lives of families in the African American community but continues a vicious cycle of generations of poverty that hinders our country’s ability to effectively compete economically and also threatens America’s capacity to provide social equality for all. The participants in this study will comprise of parents and students of highly concentrated poverty - low academically performing African American public schools. Thirty two parents and thirty two students from eight low performing-poverty schools in the research study will be interviewed and surveyed online. Collected information and data will be researched employing qualitative and quantitative practices. Introduction There was a time when children of color were denied the hope and expectation of equal education because of racial isolation and discrimination in America’s education system. Although it’s been well over 50 years since Brown –vs.- The Board of Education which established equal education for all, today we are still faced with large racial disparities in reading and math proficiency between African American children and their thriving white contemporaries. This purpose of this study is to illustrate the connection that occurs between race and poverty with the academic...
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...SOCIAL PROBLEM Educational Inequality: A Social Problem in the U.S. SOCIAL PROBLEM Educational Inequality: A Social Problem In the U.S. Introduction: The goal of education is to make sure that every student has a chance to excel, both in school and in life. Increasingly, children's success in school determines their success as adults, determining whether and where they go to college, what professions that they enter, and how much they are paid. Why is that getting a good education is dependent upon a person’s socioeconomic status? Education is a right in the U.S, but it seems to be accessible for the privilege. Why do we have inequality in education? Let’s look at different views explaining some possible causes or contributors to this issue. “Social inequality is the expression of lack of access to housing, health care, education, employment opportunities, and status. It is the exclusion of people from full and equal participation in what we, the members of society, perceive as being valuable, important, personally worthwhile, and socially desirable. Economic inequality is expressed through the unequal distribution of wealth in society. This has obvious ramifications in terms of the unequal distribution of what that wealth may purchase; housing, health care, education, career prospects, status - in our society, access to all these things is largely dependent on wealth. Because of the nature of our society - post industrial, competitive, capitalist, commercially driven...
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...Punjab-Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (P-PRSP) Munib ur Rehman OCTOBER, 2003 Preface Pakistan has always been plagued with the scourge of poverty. This situation has worsened during the last decade. Poverty deprives people of the assets they are entitled to. It takes away their rights and liberties and it results in a loss of dignity. Now, despite many gains at the macro level and a generally healthy economic outlook, poverty still persists and continues to increase. This trend needs to be reversed. Fight against poverty has always remained on the agenda of the government. There has been a significant focus on poverty reduction through various development schemes and projects. Government of Punjab did not have a special poverty reduction programme as such in the past. This meant that while resources were spent on various poverty alleviation schemes and projects, there was no significant attention paid to the poor as the focal point in such programme. Consequentially we neither had a proper data base on poverty nor were any assessments made of the projects and Programmes vis-à-vis their impact on the lives of the poor. The present Punjab Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper [P-PRSP] is an effort to streamline the system and to ensure that poverty and the poor are specially targeted for various interventions. Similarly, review and monitoring is being ensured with a view to creating a feedback loop, allowing us to improve programmes as they are implemented...
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...The Geography of Los Angeles’ Public School System When discussing Los Angeles, most people think of its enormous wealth: Hollywood, movie stars, bikinis, Lamborghinis, and multi-million dollar homes. However, Los Angeles is a city of extremes, and the wealth is even more pronounced when compared to the city’s poverty. In all aspects of life, there is a disparity between the very rich and the very poor. This disparity is most apparent in our public schools. While some public schools in Los Angeles are exceptional and score highly on AP and SAT exams, others are far below California’s target API (Academic Performance Index) score. The quality of public education in certain areas of Los Angeles is, in part, due to specific geographic factors that create such extremes in LA’s public school system. While Los Angeles is a very unusual city, there are two easily identifiable Central Business Districts: Downtown and the Port of LA. Before the Industrial Revolution and fast land travel, the wealthiest and most important people in the city lived as close to the center as possible because it was the heart of business and commerce. After the Industrial Revolution, city centers became much less desirable to live in because of pollution and noise, and the most powerful people began to move towards the suburbs, away from the CBD’s. However, in Los Angeles these people did not move away in all directions; they moved west, towards the ocean and natural beauty. Conversely, the city’s poor...
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...considered low-income or below the federal poverty level (“Child Poverty,” 2017). While elementary and secondary public school education are available to all residents under age 18, students from low socioeconomic status (SES) households (under 200 percent of the federal poverty level) have an academic disadvantage when compared to non-poor peers (income over 200 percent of FPL). As the “lottery of birth” of growing up with or without financial stability determines a child’s overall standard of living, it thus also determines the quality of their education (Kristof, 2014). This paper will outline three areas of inequality between low SES and non-poor public...
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...Pilipino Program Poverty is one major problem, not only our government, but everyone of us faces. It deprives people not only of safe water and adequate food, clothing and shelter, but also education and healthcare. It puts people’s life in danger and robs them of their future. Moreover, poverty takes away people’s right, their freedom, dignity and peace of mind. Certainly, in a country well governed, poverty is something to be disgraced of. In line with this, with thinking minds as the ‘raw’ materials, brainstorming as the process, they had come up with a useful product, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps’). This is one of the State’s anti-poverty initiatives under President Benigno Aquino III’s administration. Its objectives are to provide social assistance by giving cash assistance to poor families to lessen their basic needs and to develop social welfare by breaking the intergenerational poverty cycle through investments in human capital. However, the question we are all interested of is that, how useful and effective is this program in our country? According to the National Statistics Office (NSO) Cebu district officer Gil Melchor Rubia, the poverty incidence among population during the first semester of 2012 was estimated at 27.9 percent. She added that comparing this with the 2006 and 2009 first semester figures estimated at 28.8 percent and 28.6 percent, respectively, poverty remained unchanged. It is still a mystery of how the poverty incidence remained...
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...when he addressed that it was time to “declare an unconditional war on poverty”, infusing his dreams under Kennedy’s legislative agenda. Although Congress did not approve for Kennedy’s tax bill that called for dramatic tax cuts for middle-class Americans, Johnson was able to add on the War on Poverty to the bill. He centralized his focus on poverty because as a young man he was able to witness how Mexican Americans were stricken with poverty.Confronted by the firsthand challenges, Lyndon...
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...Research Study) Poverty, and the alleviation thereof, has been a discussion that has spanned centuries, specifically in the Unites States of America (USA). Now while those discussions have taken shape in various itineration’s (ie: political platforms, debates on entitlement structure, or simply encouraging individuals to help those less fortunate), everyone seems to agree that its ultimate remediation is beneficial to society; however, in terms of the actual path of forward, we open up a gambit of opinions and approaches. While the disagreement is real, we can take solace in the fact that there appears to be significant consensus on the actuals drivers that play a significant role in empowering the poor, being Capital, Knowledge, and Opportunity. In discussing poverty, it’s important to note that, contrary to common belief, poverty is an epidemic not specifically reserved for developing nations, and continues to be a major problem in the US. The below graph, derived from the US Census Bureau highlights the level of poverty, per race within the US in 2011. Some interesting observations include the incredibly high poverty rates among African American and Hispanics, and the obvious intra-race poverty disparity. Regardless of ones opinion on poverty and the mechanism to alleviate it, it’s worth noting that poverty possesses a heavy cost not only on its victims, but on society as a whole. There is significant statistical correlation between high poverty rates and elevated crime...
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