"Education was
historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of
lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults.
But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap
between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to
dilute education’s leveling effects."
That's lead paragraph in a front-page story that ran in The
New York Times last week, on February 9. It tells of an often cast aside, but still terrifying fact: children from
low-income families are not simply performing worse in school than their more affluent counterparts, but the achievement gap between
students from impoverished families and affluent families is actually growing larger.
And
one in five children in the United States—that’s 15.8 million young people in total—is living in poverty, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
The reality is that the status quo is not working to shorten
this gap. Low-income families need
educational options to choose an education that will best meet their children’s
educational needs.
Education cannot be “the great equalizer” if it is not helping the children who need help most. And when a school is failing them, low-income families often do not have the option to move to a better neighborhood
or pay for private school tuition.
But school choice programs are designed for children from
low-income families, providing much needed options for thousands of children across the nation.
In fact, 14 programs in 10 states plus the District of
Columbia are means-tested or means-preferenced, publicly funded private school
choice programs. Family income requirements are often a part of the enrollment process in school choice programs, ensuring that students
whose families cannot afford choice independently are given this vital option.
Based on the federal free and reduced-price lunch program or
the federal poverty guidelines, these programs collectively serve 147,750
families across the nation.
Sadly, thousands more families don't have a choice in their education. What at all is equal about that?
- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG
No comments:
Post a Comment