Closing the wealth and achievement gap

By Dr. Andre M. Perry
Contributing Columnist

cobol real easy loan Market-driven education reformers consistently discredit progressive educators for pointing to poverty as a root cause for the achievement gap. “Poverty is not an excuse” has become a slogan used to replace educators who view inadequate housing, drug dependent parents or an incarcerated father as significant factors for low performance. Money may not be the primary cause, but calling poverty an excuse may be easy to say when you are 20 times wealthier than the Black and brown students you serve.

According to a new report issued by the Pew Research Center, the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of Black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households based on 2009 data. This has tremendous implications in the school reform debates. In many cities, the contentious battle over charter schools and school takeovers fall along the wealth gap, which happens to be racialized. cash advance nearby White, out-of-town reformers are increasingly taking higher shares of middle-class education jobs.

If school reformers are data-driven as many claim, wealth accumulation and inequities in all forms of human capital have to be factored into our education agendas.

As a descendent of those who were denied the right to have an education, I deeply appreciate viewing education as an emancipator and equalizer. As someone who helped manage charter schools, I know the focus that’s needed to give students an opportunity to live a mainstream life. However, reformers’ unwillingness to form coalitions with those who wish to deal with inequities in housing, employment and wealth is an outright abrogation of responsibility to work for the collective civil rights of whom they serve.

Wealth is the sum of one’s assets minus debts. Blacks and Latinos were disproportionately impacted by the housing crash and recession payday loans valparaiso in because most of their assets were drawn from their homes. As a result, Blacks and Latinos lost well over half of their wealth during the period. Therefore, instead using equity to pay tuition for primary, secondary or postsecondary education, Black and Latinos must seek out loans (if they qualify) to have similar educational options as their white peers. Additionally, higher loan debt is a shovel that digs a deeper wealth hole.

Across the country, school reformers have turned a color-blind eye to teacher worker rights. Historically, teaching positions comprised a significant portion of jobs that made up the Black middle class. Meanwhile, Teach for America and other national alternative certification programs and charter management organizations hire disproportionately white teachers, who in many cases receive loan forgiveness.

If a Black or brown charter school graduate attends an elite liberal arts institution, he or she payday loans lilburn ga will probably take out loans and have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Because folks aren’t hiring, that graduate gets a late start finding his first job, which negatively impact his future earnings. So the loan-strapped student looks for a teaching position in an urban district but is turned down because he or she doesn’t have the GPA as someone who didn’t have to work in college. These are not excuses. These are the people of the recession. These are the people on the negative side of the wealth gap.

The automatic response from reformers will be, “These are adult issues we can’t address.” Re­minder — students become adults. Students have adult caretakers. Statistically speaking, income and wealth are still some of the biggest predictors of academic success. The achievement gap closes with a rises in income.

I would never personal loans at pep stores discourage radical education reform. If schools in our urban centers aren’t transformed, families will not have an opportunity to climb out of poverty. However, I strongly hope that education reformers form coalitions with groups who seek need-based scholarships, tui­tion breaks, housing tax breaks for first-generation college students, and tuition for incarcerated adults. In the very least, stop saying, “poverty is an excuse.”

Without question, teachers must teach and principals can only do so much. Educating the student in front of you should be Job-1. However, we can’t be so myopically focused that we forget that we are ultimately trying to build stronger families, communities and societies. Trust me, we can have educated, people in debt.

This article was originally published in the August 8, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper