The Pendulum of Stupidity: All Reforms Lead to Broken Schools

[Modern School]

4. Real REform Starts with the Wealth Gap

I'm sorry, but as much as everyone loves to rag on the dismal state of our schools, the biggest influence on the achievement gap, low graduation rates and test scores is income. As long as we continue to accept a huge wealth gap, poverty, homelessness, hunger, economic insecurity, there is no education reform that will make much of a difference.

Of course schools could be better run, teachers could always improve on their curriculum and pedagogy and better funding could help. But none of these can erase the effects of a lifetime of poverty, particularly when much of the damage occurs in utero and in early childhood, well before kids even start school.