Poverty in America

Paper Summary:

This paper describes the poverty-stricken, desperate situations of approximately 12.5 million poor children in America and looks at the failure of the educational system to improve their plight. The paper describes the serious implications for a society so divided by class, traces the problems of today's schools back to the years after the second world war, explains how the way that public schools are financed in America contributes to the problem of social and educational inequality and explains how the current economic situation in America is making the problem of poverty and lack of opportunity for poor children even worse. Additionally, the paper provides a plan for addressing the problem of poverty which includes implementing school-governance teams and new teaching methods and revitalizing inner cities.

From the Paper:

"The United States contains approximately 12.5 million poor children. Of these, 72% inhabit the central cities and their greater vicinities (US Dept. of Ed. 1987, 5). Many people view education as a way to move out of these deplorable conditions. The innercities of America contain many of these conditions but the educational system is not helping them. A large majority of school-age youths are not able to move ahead because their dropout rates are a full three times higher than for the children of the affluent (US Dept. of Ed. 1987, 3). The level of care and education the destitute receive is very poor. Much of this has to do with the economics of education. Schools rely on funding from local and federal governments as well as local property taxes for support and operation and the funding to schools in the urban districts needs to be increased to equalize the disparity in schooling received by poor students and their middle and upper-class counterparts."

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