POVERTY AND EDUCATION

Poverty and Education

Abstract

The meaning of Poverty has extended to various levels and its effects can be seen in different fields. The paper discusses its effects on education and poor students who cannot afford to have better quality education. Statistics has shown that poverty has a great impact on the results of students. Education is considered to be a solution to poverty as Economic growth alone does not solve the problem. Root causes of poverty has been developed over the time. The role of state, market, society, poor can change the situation into favorable one.

Poverty and Education

What is Poverty?

This is apparently a simple question that has a difficult answer. Poverty is not limited to just lack of income today. It has extended its meaning to lack of equity and fairness. Having a life with poverty means one has more chances of dying from diseases that are preventable. This happens due lack of education access, infant mortality, and adequate housing. Now a day it is also considered as the means of exposure to violence and crime, exclusion of political process, unfair treatment in courts and community. Poverty also relates to power as in who exercised and who is not, in public and behind closed doors. To understand the ways rooted discrimination and address them, that both sentenced to individuals, communities and peoples to generations of poverty, it is essential to reach the center of the complex patterns of power relations in the political, economic and social development (Fuller, 1985, 135).

Statistics

With 18.2% (U.S. Census, 2006-2008) of people in the United States are living below the poverty level, it is increasingly important that the government should take measures regarding this context. Poverty thresholds or income levels is dependent on the number of family members. Poverty in United States of America is unique in nature with 13-17% Americans live below the poverty line in America. Although extreme poverty is virtually nonexistent in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, national measures indicate the presence of economic deprivation. For example, in the United States in 2006, 38.8 million people, or 13.3% of the population, fell below the federal poverty line (Fields, 2000, 389).

In the United States, the poverty threshold was established in 1965 based on the cost of food, taking into account household size and composition but making no adjustment for regional differences in cost of living. The threshold is adjusted annually for inflation. For example, in 2007, the federal poverty threshold for a family of three, with one adult and two children, was $16,705—far above the extreme world poverty measure but well below the national average income (Filmer, 2001, 127).In light of the recent economic crisis in the United States, poverty and homelessness are at the forefront of many people's minds as it is nearly impossible not to be personally affected or to know someone affected by monetary hardships. According to the 2009 poverty guidelines provided by the Federal Register of the United States Department of Health, poverty is defined as a ...