Children coming from little advantage miss out on an amount of things. One being education, coming from a low income schooling system that means that the education is not always up to par. Children that attend these schools will not be academically prepared for college if they do not have the skills they need. Coming from a low income schooling system where there are not enough books to go around and things of that matter are sometimes not skillfully prepared for furthering their education. Children are hindered by these kinds of schools, teachers and peers lay a big role in the children’s lives.
Some schools, like the grammar schools, require a good result on the 11+. This leads to cream skimming, but also off-loading of ‘bad’ students, that for example will refuse children with learning difficulties good education, because they are “those students who won’t do well anyways”. The top students often seem to be from the middle class. They don’t suffer from material or cultural deprivation and often use the elaborated code, which makes education easier for them. This makes the schools trying to appeal to the middle class parents, to make the middle class parents choose their school and help them get their own results better.
While Payne argues that there is a culture of poverty, Gorski states that, rather than a culture of poverty being existent, classism is that which permeates the classrooms and schools. Payne believes that impoverished students live by different rules and values than students of the middle and upper classes, such as how they see money, clothing, family structure, etc. Likewise, Gorski believes that impoverished students do have different values and goals than those of middle and upper clases, and he says that the rules found in schools do not often benefit those living in poverty, but benefit those living in middle and upper class. With regards to impoverished students’ values and goals, both tend to point to the idea that faculty in schools should help to reshape the values and goals of impoverished students. Payne stated that students should learn the “hidden rules” of the middle class from their educators so that they have another set of rules to use if they choose to do so.
In the film Waiting for Superman, the filmmakers investigate schools where there are low expectations of student achievement. Some of the social factors seen in the film that contribute to non-functioning educational environments are Income, school location, neighborhood.. It seems that families in poverty or with low incomes are not interested in learning. They feel like they have been hit with the short end of the stick. The schools are generally over crowded with few good teachers.
Funding from local tax revenues and community resources to generate additional income from poor families is smaller than that of affluent neighborhoods. Second, parental participation is lower due time constraints and lack of information which is often interpreted as disinterest. Third, parents often feel powerless to create change which often influenced by the fourth factor, lack of “individual and collective efficacy” (p. 85). Educational success is further impacted by student arriving with additional needs. Unlike their affluent counterparts, students with in the Oakland system arrived to school with unprepared: academically, often lacked dental and health insurance, came to school hungry, moved frequently or were affected by domestic violence.
With students not having to worry about their looks, fitting in not longer becomes the main worry in kid's lives. School uniforms may also provide a way out for poor children who otherwise couldn't keep up with the trends and would face ridicule or pressure from other children. * On the same note, while the initial investment to get school uniforms may be high, children can then wear the same outfit without having to worry about owning a large change of clothes. Uniforms are usually made out of durable, easy-to-care for materials that do not require frequent replacement. CONS * School uniforms may hinder self expression through clothing, forcing children to find other ways to put across who they are.
Through this correlation, one can see how such factors can keep children in impoverished homes throughout their lives. Education is a social problem in the mix of poverty. In many low-income cities, a good education is very rare for many leaders of the household. This lack of education usually results in generational poverty. In other words, children end up following in their parent’s footsteps by dropping out of school at a young age.
One could, probably, highlight an obvious advantage – alignment and avoidance of social conflicts in school that can be generated on the basis of the families’ wealth. By implementing school uniforms, schools avoid conflicts and discrimination of particular students. ”Wearing the same type of dress reduces social snobbery and peer pressure in educational institutions. Also reduce incidents of bullying and theft” (par. 6 Benefits of school uniforms).
Recent research (Ward, 2006 ) demonstrates that separating students into small size classes by their different levels is better for literacy instruction in elementary schools. Truly, in that case, teachers can design customized lessons to meet the needs and interests of class members. In addition, detailed feedback can also be immediately imparted to better control the gap between each student. However, the overall effect of small classes is not as evident as we imagine. According to statistics launched by NAEP examination, the reading score of students from different grades stayed at a stable level from 1971 to 1996, though the class sizes experienced a downward trend in the shared period.
Many schools believe that having a structured learning environment contributes to how pupils behave. Generally, students who attend school with dress codes tend to have better attendance rates, high test scores, and excellent mannerisms. Students who do not have dress codes tend to have low attendance rates, lower scores, and no manners. Wearing uniforms in school helps to prevent pupils from acting up. Some teachers state that children who have good behavior skills are the key to success.