Failing Schools or Failing Society?

From the Huff Post --  Poverty among children in America is shamefully high. According to a UNICEF report, U.S. child poverty rate is 23.1 percent -- higher than any other economically advanced nation except Romania. --

Romania is economically advanced?  In any event, we are only the United States of America, we can't afford to bring more of our children out of poverty like those wealthy nations can.  Yeah, I'm talking to you, Greece and Latvia!  You think you're so much better than us just 'cause you're so rich!

And from the same report:
--  According to a Newday Article, a Standford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond points out, "U.S. 15-year olds in schools with fewer than 10 percent of kids eligible for free or cut-rate lunch "score first in the world in reading, outperforming even the famously excellent Finns."

It is clear the link between environments in which economic struggle is rampant directly impact educational success in the classroom. --

So, our public schools are doing the best job in the world, IF their student population is not impoverished.  Add poverty, and it's all the teachers' fault.  I mean the teachers' unions' fault.  It it weren't for those unions, those children would not be poor.

The clear and predictive link between socioeconomic class and school success has been known and well documented for decades.  It was St. Ronald of Reagan who first began the deceitful meme that our schools were failing due to the incompetence and or laziness of teachers.  It was a lie then.  It is a lie now.

This deceit was, and it remains, popular because it suggests a cheap, quick fix to a problem which is actually difficult, complex, and expensive to solve.  The problem is not our failing schools.  The problem is our failing society.  Getting children out of poverty is the most effective answer.  This would best be attained by creating an economy in which the middle class is growing.

Please note that the middle class began to shrink under the administration of Ronald Reagan, and has been shrinking ever since.  

All I ask is that you take some time to think about the facts.  Put emotion and preconceptions aside for a while and do some serious thinking. Do it for our future, which is to say, do it for America's children.