Poverty and Education
August 25, 2010
It’s the Poverty, Stupid
The education reform debate is misdirected.
By Roger Bybee InTheseTimes
A young girl receives a backpack during a giveaway at St. Anthony Foundation August 27, 2009, in San Francisco. St. Anthony Foundation gave away hundreds of backpacks filled with back-to-school supplies to needy children in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The close attention, even obsession, with teacher performance distracts from socio-economic obstacles to education.
With America’s public schools struggling to survive slashed budgets and unequal funding, school reform is back on the national agenda—but will the new model of market-based “reform” promote greater educational quality?
Already, schools in low-income areas see abysmally low achievement levels. In many cities, less than half of
