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Karen Son

Paulson

Core B

February 10, 2016

Education For Poverty

George H. W. Bush once said Education is the key to opportunity. It's a ticket out of poverty.

However, in a world like today where even access to education is denied, escaping poverty is impossible.

When we take a moment to consider the millions of people around the world who can neither read nor

write their own names, we realize a true problem occurring in this era today. Furthermore, when this

education dilemma has become more prevalent among adolescents, we can now see how detrimental it

can be to millions of communities. Imagine yourself in the shoes of a homeless; shamed and shunned by

the rest of society. The only way to survive is to forge for food by committing crime. If only we, the cold

hearted people we are, could understand what it feels like to rouse each morning and endure another day

of torture. Poverty is not a widely known problem in society today, and therefore we underestimate the

damage it can do to our society. We do not keep in mind that poverty can create violent communities and

negatively affect children's development. Thus, to create an adequate society, we must provide education

for all people, so that they may be able to lift themselves from the depths of poverty.

Currently, nearly half of Earths population is unable to read. These people are now unable to

rescue themselves from poverty since they do not have the knowledge to do so. Therefore, they are unable

to be employed and to receive a consistent source of financial support. The lack of education is inching

closer and closer to the majority of children whose families are categorized as low-income. As a result,

we feel a sudden urge to promote awareness. According to the Scientific American, it states during a

study on the link of poverty to education children who grew up in families below the federal poverty line

had gray matter volumes 8 to 10 percent below normal development (Kwon). This means the children in
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poverty are affected by slower educational development rates. Slower development rates are no problem

to children today, but when they continue to slack behind the rest of their peers and eventually are

employed to a low paying job, they will create a foundation of poverty for their own children to suffer in.

As seen, unless we provide equal access to education, poverty will continue to become a cycle for future

generations to come.

Now, we ask ourselves: Why is there no equality in education between people in poverty and

those not? According to the Huffington Post, it states children living in poverty and attending schools

that are underfunded, under resourced, and understaffed are not gaining the best possible education

(Slade). When schools are underfunded, children attending the school do not have access to the more

recent and better material. Likewise, when schools are understaffed, children have no choice but to share

the attention each student obtains from the staff. Not only are the facilities underfunded, but children in

poverty do not have the same resources as other middle or high class children. On the day they start

kindergarten, children from families of low socioeconomic status are already more than a year behind the

children of college graduates in their grasp of both reading and math, according to Eduardo Porter from

the New York Times (Porter). Since the current generation of technology allow parents to begin to teach

their children academic and extracurricular activities at a young age, they take this advantage. However,

the low income parents do not have the same luxury, therefore they are always one step behind. Many

researchers like Seth Pollak from University of Wisconsin thought this education gap would minimize as

the years progressed, but after an experiment by Pollak and his colleagues, there seemed to be no

difference in age (Kwon).

Some people in society believe that poverty is a choice. They state that when a person becomes

homeless, they have complete control over the choice. To add on, they state people such as homeless drug

addicts enter poverty by choice therefore we should not take charge for their choices, but let them suffer

for choosing the wrong path. However, I disagree. Poverty is not a choice. When a child is born into
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poverty, they have absolutely no control over the fact that they are in poverty. And although they may

want to escape the border of poverty, they may be unable to because the lack of knowledge and sources.

Therefore, it should be the communitys duty to assist in lifting each and every individual out of the

darkness called poverty and hopelessness. According to United Nations, ending poverty is number one on

the list of sustainable development goals for the United Nations to solve until 2030 (Ford). The United

Nations believe that the problem of poverty is the top global economic dilemma, thus, we should start by

providing people with fundamental education so that they may be able to lift themselves out first even

without the help of others.

As a society, we are entitled to maintain a common goal of depriving toward the best interest for

society as a whole. For our society to flourish, providing education for people of poverty would be in the

best interest. Many people in poverty are willing but unable to accomplish the task of fleeing poverty.

This problem originates from the lack of education children in poverty gain. Not only do they attend low

funded schools, but they hold limited access to academic resources. If we were to allow equal chance of

education to students, no matter the income, we would see a drastic decline in poverty rates as a plethora

of individuals in need of financial support would be able to emerge from the difficulty. Providing

impartial education for entities in poverty will surely create a better community for everyone.
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Works Cited

Anonymous. Hunger Statistics. World Food Programme, World Food Programme,

2017, www.wfp.org/hunger/stats.

Anonymous. Subscribe to Blog via Email. United Nations Sustainable Development,

United Nations Sustainable Development, 2017,

www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.

Ford, Liz. Sustainable Development Goals: All You Need to Know. The Guardian, The

Guardian, 2015,

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/19/sustainable-development-goals-united-na

tions.

Kwon, Diana. Poverty Disturbs Children's Brain Development and Academic

Performance. Scientific American, Scientific American, 2015,

www.scientificamerican.com/article/poverty-disturbs-children-s-brain-developmen

t-and-academic-performance/.

Porter, Eduardo. Education Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider. The New

York Times, The New York Times, 2015,

www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/business/economy/education-gap-between-rich-and-poor-is-growi

ng-wider.html?_r=0.

Shah, Anup. Poverty Facts and Stats. Globalissues.org, Globalissues.org, July 2013,

www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats.

Slade, Sean. Poverty Affects EducationAnd Our Systems Perpetuate It. The

Huffington Post, The Huffington Post, 2016,

www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-slade/poverty-affects-education_b_7861778.html.
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Rubric rating submitted on: 2/18/2017, 4:48:14 PM by kapaulson@mytusd.org

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Comments:
-Powerful introduction
-Good argument structure
-Some issues with sentence structure and precise vocabulary