The Poverty Excuse for School System Failure is Nonsense

Thank you, Mike Petrilli and Brandon Wright for a systematic examination of the age-old, teacher union and education establishment allegation that poverty is the reason for the U.S. school systems’ persistent abysmal performance, including in comparison to other countries. It is true that affluence yields increased receptivity to instruction and engagement in academic content. But the United States does not have more or worse child poverty than the countries that rank ahead of us, internationally. Petrilli and Wright conclude, “that excuse turns out to be a crutch that’s unsupported by the evidence.”

Will that assessment of the evidence stop supporters of the status quo from repeating their claim that the system is working fine; that we have a “poverty crisis, not an education crisis?” I doubt it. That claim never made any sense. Why would the wealthiest nation on earth have a bigger poverty problem than less affluent countries? And now Petrilli and Wright have run the numbers and confirmed the logic. Apologists for the status quo will probably continue to assert the poverty excuse because their polling has told them the message is effective with low information voters. Sadly, there are adults willing to lie with numbers as part of a power struggle, even at the expense of children and our “Nation-at-Risk” circumstances.

The assertion of a poverty crisis is an apologist-for-the-status-quo admission that the current system badly serves children from low income households, which is ironic and tragic. Unrealized, but promised gains for the least advantaged is a longstanding key justification for political control of schooling content despite the risk that government control of schooling content threatens more than the low literacy and numeracy we have. It threatens our liberty and prosperity.

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