Blog #2 : Scouting The Territory
After doing some research, I have decided to continue with the topic that I chose in the initial blog post. The topic that I had initially chosen was about poverty and school funding which affects children’s higher education. It is crucial that ever to close the educational achievement gaps (among upper and lower class) amount to much more than just increased GDP and tax revenues. The current generation of children will be better off when they are adults because they will have higher earnings, higher material standards of living, and an enhanced quality of life. I learned COVID-19 is exacerbating the education gap.
Some of the key terms I used when searching up about my topic were: low-income families, higher-income families, education disparities, poverty, school funding, income achievement gap, low-income students, under-resourced, work-study, enroll, financial problems, grant funding, financial aid, college tuitions, college education, decreased educational success and more...
Research ( book, scholarly articles)
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, and Laura T. Hamilton. “Strivers, Creaming, and the Blocked Mobility Pathway.” Paying for the Party, Harvard University Press, 2013, p. 148–.
The authors talk about how MU might be failing to educate students who most need college skills and credentials for economic security. 1) primed to the party were: successful after because were affluent, help from parents. 2) cultivated for success: guided by parents, career guided, decent money. 3)motivated for mobility dreams of escaping small town, poor. 4) by default: wannabes can live the socialite life and be successful after college because they aren't as affluent strivers; barely afford to be there. Mobility pathway- serving disadvantaged students, many obstacles, have a hard time. Stayers vs leavers: better for low income to go to the local college. This source will help me address college bringing success for all people? Class disparities, college structure, and financial worries of underprivileged students.
Joseph Murphy. “Bringing Achievement Gaps into Focus.” The Educator’s Handbook for Understanding and Closing Achievement Gaps, Corwin Press, 2010, p. 3–, doi:10.4135/9781452219257.n1.’
The author synthesizes the most current research to help school leaders understand the achievement gap and provides strategies to address the external societal factors and internal school factors that contribute to this issue. This source can help me come up with potential solutions to address achievement gap issues.
Harry J. Holzer, and Sandy Baum. Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students. Brookings Institution Press, 2017, doi:10.7864/j.ctt1hfr1gx.
The authors provide a new review of the causes of these problems and offer promising policy solutions. The circumstances affecting disadvantaged students stem both from issues on the individual side, such as weak academic preparation and financial pressures, and from institutional failures. Low-income students disproportionately attend schools that are underfunded and have weak performance incentives, contributing to unsatisfactory outcomes for many students. Some solutions, including better financial aid or academic supports, target individual students. This source can help me come up with guaranteed policies to greatly improve the career outcomes and job market for the underprivileged.
In this article “State Higher Education Funding Cuts Have Pushed Costs to Students, Worsened Inequality”, describes cuts in fundings for higher education over the last decade and how the cost of tuition is increasing on the other hand. Increasing high tuition cost is preventing low-income students from the college. Most of the states (41) decreased at least 13 % of funding per student which reduced academic opportunities for low-income students significantly.
In the article “A Quality Approach to School Funding”, discusses allocating equal funding for every student. The article states that nearly half of all states, affluent districts still receive more funding from state and local governments for their schools and students than poorer districts. Based on an analysis of school finance litigation and research on school funding, the authors found the following: Money matters for student achievement, Students in high-poverty communities continue to have less access to core academic services that increase student outcomes, Districts, states, and the federal government play crucial roles in equity, hile state legal cases have been powerful in closing spending gaps, litigation is inadequate.
Post Research
After conducting this brief research, I have concluded that there are multiples sides to this issue, many people are aware of this issue, but there are no solutions. Creating policies for the financial security of low-income students and their families is crucial than ever. While no single policy is guaranteed to greatly improve college and career outcomes, implementing a number of evidence-based policies and programs together has the potential to improve these outcomes substantially. This research has been eye-opening because most of the sources/studies reveal how outcomes can differ so dramatically for those whose universities enroll which is very unfortunate for the lower-income students.
This looks like a very promising start. You should definitely look at Armstrong and Hamilton's whole book, to which I supply a link on Canvas. Chapter 6 on Strivers, Creaming, and the Blocked Mobility Pathway is useful as it talks about how funding is limited and so it typically goes almost exclusively to the most well prepared of the impoverished (hence "creaming" the crop). You might focus on particular programs that can help disadvantaged students succeed in college. That can help to give you a focus. The book Making College Work seems a good example of this as it offers policy solutions. At Rutgers, there are a number of programs that help disadvantaged students, including the Rutgers Future Scholars, EOF, ODASIS, and McNair. I'm sure there are many more. I am very familiar with the Rutgers Future Scholars, who I have worked with. That program was deliberately set up to use donor money (not state money) and focused on poverty (since racial classification increasingly gets challenged in court). It has been a great vehicle for fundraising and the program is very successful. I have some useful materials related to the program, which is really a model.
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