I was concerned about sending my son to the local public school. The area where we live does not have a great reputation for the quality of its public school system and I was worried about the type of educational path we were placing before him.
A meeting with his teacher reassured me that my fears were largely unfounded. Relieved, I felt grateful that we live in a relatively good tax base area and that the school seems to be doing a good job at education. Not all parents are so fortunate.
Photo Google
Daniel Cubias recently discussed a worrisome theory: those who have fallen into poverty may find themselves stuck there. The increase in poverty is a national problem. The number of impoverished people is the highest in has been in 18 years, according to the Census Bureau. A report by the Brooking’s Institution (released November 4), outlines the changing “appearance” of poverty in the nation.We know that Latinos have lost jobs, wages, and household wealth. Is the poverty we now face, as a community, a big pit of quick sand that allows us no footing on which to climb out?
According to reports, the face of poverty and “ghetto-ization” has changed. No longer easily identifiable by concrete towers of urban plight, poverty is now in the suburbs, growing and dispersed. As poverty entrenches itself within these communities, the effects on the economy become like the gravitational pull of a black hole. As property values (tax base) decline in the community, so does access to good schools, municipal services such as police and fire fighters, hospitals, and healthy food; all creating widening islands of inequality within the fabric of U.S. society.
Photo Google
Focusing on the schools: as poor communities become further isolated, they not only lose revenue to fund the schools that are serving a population most in need of the benefits of a good education, but they are also becoming a type of cultural prison. One of the roles of education is to socialize students. In an ideal society, children in all segments of society would mingle and become socialized together. Bonds formed within the system would persist into adulthood.
However, when one disadvantaged population is the only segment represented within the school, children are not able to form bonds with any individual outside of their own culture of poverty. Access to a network of people across a broad range of the social spectrum is denied. Students become acculturated to a certain view of life and their role in it. Without exposure to different ways of thinking, of reacting to situations, and without a window into another section of society, impoverished students risk being trained to think within a narrow framework of expectations and possible life results.
One way to address the issue is to demand community integration; the melting pot theory of economic reform. Providing low-cost housing, interspersed within stable communities, would help eliminate the cultural isolation and disperse the poor into communities that can better absorb and thus buffer economic hardship.
About Maitri Pamo
It depends on what you mean by “low cost housing.” I am a single mom, Latina with a four year university education and a good stable career. I worked my butt off for what I have accomplished and I continue to work my butt off to be able to save and bring my children out of apartment life and into a house in a great neighborhood. I assume that others would do the same, but as I drive around areas very close to me, I see that is not always the case. Ghettos are a mixed population of good and bad, but all too often I only see the bad. Being born and raised in the Bronx, I have always strived to steer myself toward better surroundings. I will not go all this way to pay property taxes and a mortgage to simply be surrounded once again with my familiar childhood enigma of projects and high crime. That being said, I know what it feels like to grow up in those neighborhoods. But the change has to come from within the community. Parents must be told that in order for their children to do well in school, they have to give a damn and support their kids and encourage them to do well. Unity and education are key. These communities need to come together on this, not get spread around.
@ Liz How do you change a community that was not taught to value education and has not been exposed to adequate education? Communitites that are taught to value consumption and trash entertainment over education? It is very difficult and yes you were able to work hard and achieve but that doesn’t mean everyone had the support network, opportunities or even the thought process that you have. The key is definitely education, which tends to suffer cuts often and which members of these communities can’t afford expensive school taxes. There also needs to be a more communal approach to ghetto’s, not just individual success and flight.
The ghetto as a place devoid of resources exists, but I do agree that the people play a large role in making or breaking a community. We cannot speak of the ghetto without accountability. …A ghetto can be poor but filled with decent, hard working people, or it can be dangerous and filled with complacent, apathetic folks who don’t really care. I have seen both.
As for parents who work “countless hours”? Maybe I just speak of my experience in New York City and my job leads me to see the worst case scenarios, but a lot of these parents (if there are even two there) are unemployed setting poor examples for their children with a bad attitude and entitlement mentality. I cannot blame those who make it out and turning their backs on people who have no motivation to do for themselves. The ghetto is what you make it.
Jobs, education, a safe environment and decent healthcare are the most basic and important things that every government, whether federal or state is morally and financially obligated to provide for the citizens that pay the taxes and cast the votes that give our politicians their job. Poverty, apathy and “ghetto’s” are a direct result of those basic needs not being met in communities. How do you work hard if there are no jobs in your community? If your medical needs aren’t being met? If your clinicly depressed because you’re surrounded by violence and blight? How does a child learn to become a hard worker if they’re born into these conditions, raised by parents suffering from these conditions and attending poorly funded schools where the teachers are so underpaid and overwhelmed that they can’t do their jobs well? Nobody wakes up in th morning and says “I plan to be poor today.” The average poor person isn’t the one shipping jobs overseas, overpopulating schools or firing police officers. Poverty is created by goverments and people with power, not the poor.
If theres more than 4 niggers for every 50 people, you live in the ghetto..