Home In The Classroom: Income

The last time I wrote about the achievement gap, I touched on the difference parenting can make. That is not the only difference parents make though. Income has quite a bit to do with the gap as well.

A couple weeks ago, I had to spontaneously write for a grad school application. It was a 30-minute, timed response to a short article about a study on teacher movement in a school district. The article covered how the district went from intentionally integrating the district's demographics, to discontinuing the practice. Quickly, schools stratified, based on race and income (which are, unfortunately, correlated). Soon after the switch, teachers within the district moved to the schools with more affluent students.

It shouldn't be too surprising. Pretty much anywhere, money talks.

The problem is that education should be what fuels an open class system. It should be the "golden ticket" for people to make what they want of themselves. In a nation with public education, and "the American dream," there is a pledge to give everyone a fair chance. That can't really happen in a system where there are the "haves" and "have-nots," and it has a ton to do with parents' income.

The rich will tend to stay rich, and the poor will tend to stay poor. Students that could benefit the most from good teachers are left with lackluster ones. Just yesterday, I was reminded of this starkly a couple times.

One student had a worksheet with story problems, and I suggested we read through them together. The student's response was, "I think the teacher just wants the answers. She said we would get freaked out if we tried to read the problem." So inspiring.

Later on another, much younger, student kept falling asleep, and complained about being really hungry. The student didn't get lunch because their teacher gave them five minutes to chow down before making them work some more.

I'll stop there for now. Education impacts income, and income impacts education. It's a symbiotic relationship that makes it difficult for students to move up or down in the world based on their own merit. Of course, this wouldn't be such a problem if there were more good teachers to go around and/or if the bad ones weren't so bad. That's a topic for another post though...