I taught 36 students in a fifth-grade classroom in a low-income neighborhood predominately serving children of color in California. As a seventh-grade teacher in a similar neighborhood, I had classrooms of 39-40 students. Now, teaching in a suburban school with mostly white students, I have 22-23 fourth-grade students. The access to materials, healthy learning conditions, etc. are remarkably different.
All 50 states still use property taxes as a source of funding for their schools. This creates distinctly different educational learning experiences based upon neighborhood wealth. While we live in a post-Brown v. Board education world, we are sadly not even achieving the goals of Plessy v. Ferguson ("separate but EQUAL"). This system maintains the current power structure, which is what the construct of race was created to do.
Watching these videos and participating in poverty training in Iowa helps me see the deep connections between access to resources and opportunities for success. Education is highly valued in my family and my parents ensured that we were in good school districts and could help us with homework. I can seek more how "3 strikes and you're out" laws negatively impact those caught in the schools to prison pipeline and how skin color impacts expectations for behavior and learning in students. When basic needs are met and resources are readily available, opportunities for success seem to be higher. What would happen if programs targeted to help people overcome specific challenges could be used to prevent incarceration for those simply needing rehabilitation?