WHY EDUCATION PLAYS A VITAL ROLE IN ERADICATING POVERTY

While we’re talking about social disadvantage and social justice today, it is

important to investigate the link between education and poverty. Today, I’ll

explain why universal access to adequate education and training the most

efficient means of achieving a just society. I’m sure that you are all aware of the importance of a good education. Yet few things are as strongly connected with social disadvantage and poverty as limited or deficient schooling.

Supporting disadvantaged students to successfully continue their schooling is

a preventative social policy measure. If we were to survey an impoverished

postcode or correctional institution and trace back the lives of their inhabitants

to their early years, one would invariably find that it began with a particularly

unsuccessful stint at school.

A positive experience of school, and the acquisition of general and vocational

skills that such an education entails, is the best insurance policy against a life

of disadvantage. And given that we are steadily becoming more of a

‘knowledge economy,’ gaining a good education is perhaps more important

than ever before.

Experts say inadequate efforts to meet the needs of those fast-growing demographics hurt the nation’s global competitiveness. The socioeconomic changes coupled with higher academic expectations, they say, create a perfect storm. It is the education crisis of our time.

“If we don’t figure out how to make education work for these kids, we’re going to have one heck of a time really alleviating poverty, creating more upward mobility,” said Kent McGuire, president and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, speaking at EWA’s National Seminar in May in Nashville. “That will have huge implications at the end of the day for prosperity, certainly in the South … (and) for the nation.”

The reality of poverty and its impact first became clear for Ron Walker when he visited Mississippi in the 1960s and later, when he visited one of his former students in prison. “It is absolutely, in my mind, unfathomable to think that you can lift yourself up out of deep poverty without having a … strong, educational framework to support you. It can’t be done,” said Walker, executive director of the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color.

The data have been around for years. The White House recently acknowledged the inequities in public schools, such as disproportionate rates of discipline for minority students. Inequity with resources with funding, teacher quality and other resources continues despite the knowledge of its existence.

McGuire said the investment in education does not match the need.

Walker and McGuire said school officials should be more deliberate in how they spend money to help students from poor families.

Teachers, administrators and counselors should get training to better understand how to work with low-income students and minorities. They should know about different cultures.

Reporters should be curious about what poverty is a proxy for, McGuire said. He described the links between poverty, health issues, absences and the school to prison pipeline.

Here are other areas reporters should monitor to hone in on issues of poverty and inequity in their daily coverage: