Education in Low-Income Areas

Those who live in poverty are given the least amount of attention from an educational standpoint. The education system in low-income areas are underprivileged, and not given the attention they need. The teachers are not prepared to teach the level of education they are assigned to do, and children in most cases do not respond well to the way they are being taught. Schools with high ratios of low-income students choose to make the course work easy so everyone passes, however the students do not learn much from their time in high school. The high school curriculum taught to the students in low-income areas is not enough for them to succeed or prepare them for a college environment.

When people are born into poverty, their view of the world is from a different side. In the book Convergences, the personal essay “Speaking for the Past” by Gordan Parks describes the hardships of living in Chicago’s Tenements: which are buildings that are in impoverished neighborhoods. He states, “ For me those crowded kitchenettes, the loneliness of rented bedrooms, and the praying in leftover churches remain an ongoing memory” (Parks 418). He describes his life, when living in these tenements, and the effect it had on him. For people living like Parks, they might need a different way of learning, since most of the things they have to handle are much different from someone living in a middle class, or high class area. A different way of learning does not mean an easier poor education, like it is now. Instead, schools need to make exceptions for some of the students who go through a harder time, and reward them in a way that will satisfy them, like offering something they can look forward to. In our school system there is more punishment than reward, and for people who already have been punished by their position in life; it is wrong to give them a poor education.

In areas of poverty many do not speak common English, instead they speak in slang. An example of slang is African American Vernacular English which is usually spoken in low-income areas. The fact that people speak more slang than common English proves that the method of teaching they learn in school is not valued. If schools made an effort to show the importance of what they are teaching to underprivileged students in a way that can appeal to the students than students would want to learn. For example, a teacher can develop a curriculum around the interests of the students, so they are more passionate about what they learn. Although it is not always the teacher’s fault with problematic learning, in most cases it is the fact that teachers cannot relate to their students, which does not give the best learning relationship. Some may argue that the problem with education has nothing to do with the schools, and instead it is the students. In some cases it may be the child’s development that caused the issue of learning new skills that seem irrelevant. Yet, this does not seem to be such a big issue in upper class areas, with better and higher paid teachers.

Teachers are the main source of education at any school, but in low-income areas they are usually very new to teaching. New teachers have the least amount of experience with handling children. Putting new teachers with students who need people with experience is the worst position that can be made which is why there are so many issues with schools. In an article by The Washington Post, they reveals how most schools in underprivileged neighborhoods have new teachers with little to no teaching experience. They write, “Students in the region’s poorest neighborhoods are nearly twice as likely to have a new or second-year teacher as those in the wealthiest, a Washington Post analysis has found”(ProQuest). The results from the study proves that inexperienced teachers are thrown into positions they can not control. This means these schools are just used as a stepping stone for teachers to learn but when they have a few years of experience they move onto better schools. This education system is broken, and schools in low-income areas should have the most experienced teachers that know how to teach students that may have disciplinary issues.

Children that grow up in impoverished neighborhoods live with high stress. The stress in low-income areas that children have to cope with that may impair the way they learn in schools. In a study by the Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, it tells the story from the children’s point of view of living disadvantaged in poverty. The department stated, “The majority of children (n = 28, 93%) made some reference to material resource differences between poor and non-poor individuals”(Science Direct). The results of the study exposes the disadvantages that youth in poverty have to endure. They do not receive enough materials like the other children in their schools, and they notice they are disadvantaged. Children experience the embarrassment of not having the same materials as the other children, and it starts their experience of school as a bad experience. These experiences could eventually lead to the lack of care for school, and cause them to retaliate against their inexperienced teaches.

As a result of little to no care for impoverished students, there are many problems in the schools that are meant for them. For education being one of the most important resources, it is not taken as serious in areas with low-income students. Having inexperienced teachers usually means a pretty poor curriculum because they are also learning. Since the issue is with public schools in or near areas of poverty it is not cared for. People who live in these areas are already put at the bottom, but when the schools in the area are also putting the community down than there is no hope for growth. The students are the new generation, with high aspirations of college, but with poor education comes a less likelihood of succeeding in college.

Works Cited

Atwan, Robert. Convergences: themes, texts, and images for composition. Bedford/St. Martins, 

2009.

De Vise, Daniel, and Chandler, Michael Alison. “Poor Neighborhoods, Untested Teachers: Many            

of D.C. Region’s Low-income Areas in a Cycle of Inexperience.” The Washington     Post2009: A01. Web.

Heberle, Amy, Sara Kaplan-Levy, Juliana Neuspiel, and Alice Carter. “Young Children’s

Reasoning about the Effects of Poverty on People Experiencing It: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis.” Children and Youth Services Review 86 (2018): 188. Web

Rickford, John R, Greg J Duncan, Lisa A Gennetian, Ray Yun Gou, Rebecca Greene, Lawrence

F Katz, Ronald C Kessler, Jeffrey R Kling, Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Andres E Sanchez-Ordoñez, Matthew Sciandra, Ewart Thomas, and Jens Ludwig. “Neighborhood Effects on Use of African-American Vernacular English.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112.38 (2015): 11817-11822. Web.