Discrimination In Education For Children From Poor Families

Poverty has been a continuous economic issue throughout America and the entire world for centuries. In 2017, over 39 million people were living in poverty, while over 3 billion people are said to live off of less than $2. 50 a day in the world. Out of the multiple definitions of poverty by human development agencies, the general term’s meaning is the lack of essentials such as money or material objects which ultimately affects families and individuals negatively. From 1450 to the present, poverty for centuries has been a very severe issue that has troubled many nations while impeding economic developments and progress. The situations involving poverty in the past continue over to the modern day events including discrimination against minorities in the education system and neglect of people in need. Changes over time in history include more tolerant attitudes toward low income individuals and advances in technology to improve economic incomes for impoverished people. Privileged children have many advantages when it comes to having a good education, including access to private schools with advanced learning programs, tutors, and even online testing practices for the SATs and others. While these are all opportunities that most people do not have, they are still fair ways that parents can enhance their child’s chances of getting into their dream college by using every tool they can give them. Recently, over fifty celebrities and wealthy parents have been caught cheating their children's way to top tier colleges such as Yale, USC, and Stanford by paying their university administrators and athletic coaches millions of dollars to solidify their spots in the schools.

Extreme measures were taken to assure that these children would get into the universities such as parents getting pictures photoshopped to make it seem like their children played sports, others paying over $75, 000 to have administrators take or correct their kids’ college entrance exams, and one parent lying about their son having disabilities so that someone could aide him during his exam. While the children were said to be unaware of their parents bribery, it is evident that the parents were the main initiators of the fraud. The parents utilized their power and wealth to make an unfair and completely separate process of college admissions for their kids. The worst part of the college admissions scandal is the fact that more hardworking and deserving students were denied a spot at these colleges, displaced by children whose parents bought their way in. While some students have advantages when it comes to getting a head start in education, other students are in polar opposite situations.

Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools by Jonathan Kozol describes how drastically unequal educational opportunities between minorities in poor schools in the inner-city and wealthier students in suburban schools during the late 80s and early 90s in America are unfair to those living in dire circumstances. On his travels to different schools, Kozol discovers that schools that are supposed to be racially integrated have been anything but with mostly white children going to wealthier schools with better educations and mostly Hispanic and African American children attending run down schools without the correct amenities to properly teach their students. For instance, a Chicago located elementary school only has two properly functioning bathrooms for over seven hundred students and there is barely enough toilet paper as well. A high school in New Jersey only has enough textbooks for half of its students. These issues were not occurring in suburban public schools at the time.

It is thanks to the large gap in funding between wealthy and poor faculties that poor schools are suffering with these problems. As a result of the inadequate funding, students are not simply being denied basic educational needs, but their future is also deeply affected. In 2016, The New York Times reported on an analysis by researchers of roughly two hundred million student test scores. The researchers found inequalities between wealthier school districts and poorer ones, as well as inequalities within school districts. In other words, Kozol’s book was first published in 1991, the issues he raised continue to affect American schools today. One of the reasons that poverty has persisted for so long is simple yet often overlooked. Many individuals that experience poverty do not get the help that they need to get them above the poverty line. More than a quarter of the people living in poverty in the United States receive no help from food stamps and other nutrition programs, subsidized housing, welfare and other cash advantages, or child-care assistance, according to a new Urban Institute analysis examining the reach of the social safety net.

The analysis found that 13 million people living below the poverty line. A household income of less than $25, 100 a year for a family of four was disconnected from federal programs for the neediest Americans. Studies have shown that low-income white families generally have more resources to fall back on than low-income non white families in times of need The assets and net worth of poor African Americans tend to be significantly less than those of whites with similar incomes leaving them with fewer alternatives to government assistance. Overall, the federal safety net reaches nearly

1 in five Americans monthly, including nearly a third of all children, according to the Urban Institute analysis. Among the fifty nine million Americans receiving some sort of help, forty three percent are white, twenty six percent are Hispanic, twenty three percent are black and eight percent are Asian (Jan). Without financial help from the government, it is extremely difficult for impoverished Americans to be able to take the progressing steps toward making it out of poverty. Over 25% of people that are not obtaining financial support are bound to continue living in a cycle of poverty unless they get help to get them back on their feet. In the past, there are many instances of impoverished people getting neglected the assistance they need. One example is Ancient China. Throughout the long course of China’s civilization, the vast majority of its population consisted of peasants, living in small households representing two or three generations. Some owned enough land to support their families and perhaps even sell something in the local market. Many others could barely survive. Nature, the state, and landlords combined to make the life of most peasants extremely vulnerable. Famines, floods, droughts, hail, and pests could wreak havoc without warning. State authorities required the payment of taxes, demanded about a month’s labor every year on various public projects, and enlisted young men for military service. During the Han dynasty, growing numbers of impoverished and desperate peasants had to sell out to large landlords and work as tenants or sharecroppers on their estates, where rents could run as high as one-half to two-thirds of the crop. (“Peasants” 1). In China, most of the people below the poverty line were considered as peasants and were denied assistance from the upper classes and the Chinese government in order to keep them in that position. Similar to the 13 million Americans, both groups of people were unable to get the resources they needed to maintain a healthy lifestyle because the government did not provide help for them.

In Yemen nearly 1. 2 million children continue to live in 31 active conflict zones in areas witnessing heavy, war-related violence. Since the Stockholm agreement on 13 December 2018, not much has changed for the youth living there. Every day since, eight kids are killed or harmed. Most of the youngsters killed were enjoying the outdoors with their friends or were on their thanks to or from college. The large amounts of violence over the past four years, high levels of poverty; and decades of conflicts, neglect and deprivation are putting a heavy strain on Yemeni society, tearing apart its social fabric which is fundamental for any society to maintain intact, especially for children. With the World Bank, UNICEF is providing 1. 5 million of the country’s poorest families with emergency cash assistance to help them avoid extreme survival measures like child labour, marriage, or recruitment. In 2018 alone, UNICEF provided treatment to over 345, 000 severely malnourished children while nearly 800, 000 children received psycho-social support to help them overcome traumas they have endured. In 2019, UNICEF is appealing for US $542 million to continue responding to the massive needs of children in Yemen.

The middle ages was a time of severe penalisation and harsh torture for crimes that nowadays would appear trivial. People were beheaded and limbs cut off, vagabonds were often whipped and chained in stocks. Even the church used torture and imprisonment to get confessions from folks no matter whether or not they were guilty. Roman and Greek law expressed that solely slaves were allowed to be tortured, eventually the laws changed and free men were tortured and imprisoned for committing crimes. People usually had their hand cut of for stealing, people were beaten, burned alive, stretched on a rack and women committing adultery were drowned. Suffocating people in water was a common practice. Mutilation and branding's were commonplace. Vagrancy was considered a crime and people were put in stocks so towns people could beat them.

It was the poorer categories that were discriminated against. Lords and high officials were exempt. Courts and judges did exist, but were bias and often judgements were known before the case was even heard (Nash). Unjust treatment of poor people is a continuity from the Middle Ages to modern day. Impoverished people in the Middle Ages were targeted for punishments that were far too extreme and unnecessary. Even though unfair punishment is still relevant in the modern world, it is far less harsh. A research worker in Edinburgh is leading efforts to develop gene-edited domestic animals for poor farmers in continent. Professor Appolinaire Djikeng is developing cows, pigs and chickens that are resistant to diseases and more productive. He believes that sequence piece of writing together with a lot of targeted ancient cross-breeding can result in healthy, productive livestock that will transform the lives of some of the very poorest people in the world. He means people such as smallholders with just one, two or three animals.

If the animals die or don't seem to be manufacturing to their potential, it means no income for the smallholder's family and the risk of falling into absolute poverty. Funded by the Gates Foundation, Djikeng and his team are working closely with African research institutes to identify local problems and to help them find solutions. His team is currently focussing on developing chickens that are resistant to Newcastle disease and dairy cattle resistant to East Coast fever. One approach is to form cows whose coats repel the ticks that unfold the unwellness. There is additionally a collaboration with a United States firm, Acceligen, to make kine that are able to cope higher with heat.

The project is to improve the genetics of animals through traditional breeding or gene editing which benefits the animal and in turn, benefits the farmer’s income (Ghosh). Throughout the long course of China’s civilization, the vast majority of its population consisted of peasants, living in small households representing two or three generations. Some owned enough land to support their families and perhaps even sell something in the local market. Many others could barely survive. Nature, the state, and landlords combined to make the life of most peasants extremely vulnerable. Famines, floods, droughts, hail, and pests could wreak havoc without warning. State authorities required the payment of taxes, demanded about a month’s labor every year on various public projects, and enlisted young men for military service. During the Han dynasty, growing numbers of impoverished and desperate peasants had to sell out to large landlords and work as tenants or sharecroppers on their estates, where rents could run as high as one-half to two-thirds of the crop. (“Peasants” 1).