> If you're from a rich neighborhood, your school has tons of money and resources. If you grow up in a poor neighborhood, some barely have enough money to keep the roof from leaking. And we've all just accepted this as normal and OK. We have the power to change this but we choose not to.
I would suggest that the reason kids in rich neighborhoods turn out ok is not because their schools have more money but because their parents have set them up for success. I can say this confidently because my dad is in the military, and I've attended several years at a poor high school in Alabama where cheating and truancy was rampant.
See, here's the thing. People often greatly underestimate the role good parents have in producing good, contributing members of society. We like to pretend that everyone is born equal and that the reason some kids fail and other don't is because the public infrastructure they had access to was good or bad.
But I would wager that's only 10% of the issue. The other 90% of the issue is that all parents are on a spectrum. And it turns out that poor parents are at the end of the spectrum that sets up their kids for failure.
I totally get that it's not intentional; Nevertheless, they set bad examples to their kids (smoking, drinking, lotto), often times one parent (usually the male) is missing, they might not enforce school attendance/homework/chores, etc. Kids follow the example of their parents. If the parent is a single mom, pregnant at 14, smokes and drinks excessively, etc. chances are the kids are going to be the same way.
I am not convinced throwing money at schools is the solution. I think there needs to be some kind of mentorship between the poor and middle classes that essentially causes there to be better parents with each generation. Like temporary foster homes where poor kids can learn and observe how middle and upper class people do things.
Basically, I believe the ultimate solution to poverty is love - personal relationships with the poor. Actually making friends with poor people as a middle or upper class individual and helping lift them up a little. Money is part of the problem, yes, but my argument is that the importance of money is greatly overestimated in the poverty problem.