The South's double edged education question

The American South long has been the poor cousin to the northern states. The South is home to the most children living below 50% of the poverty line. The greatest ratio of poor children is in Mississippi, where thirty-one-percent are considered poor. Mississippi ranked last in child welfare, followed by Louisiana and Alabama.

In 1954 the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, overturned the 1896. Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, which enshrined segregation; strong Southern resistance to integration and equal distribution of educational resources continued. In 1958 Congress voted for the National Defense Education Act – the first major national education investment in eight decades; much of the cash was allocated to poor Southern schools. Much of this cash was squandered by Southern politicians on non education items and "administrative costs" who were clearly more comfortable with a poorly educated voter base, and wanted nothing to do with the Federal Government's help to educate their children. Which begs an important question:

Can Education Solve Poverty, or must Poverty be Eliminated before Children can be Educated?



http://www.southerneddesk.org/?p=2253

@mchill said
The American South long has been the poor cousin to the northern states. The South is home to the most children living below 50% of the poverty line. The greatest ratio of poor children is in Mississippi, where thirty-one-percent are considered poor. Mississippi ranked last in child welfare, followed by Louisiana and Alabama.

In 1954 the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Brow ...[text shortened]... Poverty be Eliminated before Children can be Educated?



http://www.southerneddesk.org/?p=2253

My opinion is, only education can solve the poverty problem. Notice that the right always wants to keep their base and the poor uneducated. Trump says he loves the uneducated, same as southern politicians. Once these people are educated, they will begin to see through the lies and deceit of others. They will learn how to critically think and fact check for truth. Plus learn how to make money beyond working for someone else making them rich and then make themselves more wealthy etc. Thoughts?

@mchill said
Can Education Solve Poverty, or must Poverty be Eliminated before Children can be Educated?

In the U.S., poverty is caused by many things, lack of education being just one item in a slew of things that lead to poverty. It starts at the top: greed in government that allows for the rich to proper at the expense of the poor. Whether that means giving the rich tax breaks at the expense of everyone else that "trickle-down" crap from Republicans) or allowing the rich to influence government through lobbying, it starts there.

From fighting minimum wage increases to fighting Affordable Healthcare Act (both to not have a such a huge competitor and to keep profits higher by not covering preexisting conditions, forcing people to spend more to treat preexisting conditions), the rich help poverty by way of seeking their own best interests without regard to financial consequences everyone else faces. This also includes the cost of education, which which institutions fight tooth and nail to keep from ever being free or affordable. Hence, the 1.5 trillion in total student debt. Such debt keeps students in poverty even if their education leads them to finding a good job.

And there's education itself being manipulated by the rich. People like Betsy Devos, who's not only thoroughly and demonstrably unfit to be Secretary of Education, but only has the interests of the rich in mind, made clear by her funneling money out of public schools to charter schools (schools popular with the reach for multiple reasons).

Simply put, long before we even to get how education (or lack of) influences poverty, there are already multitude of policies driven by the rich that all by help guarantee poverty for the non-rich, regardless of how much education they have.

As for how it relates to the South, they blindly support those who continue to use them as pawns for their own means. Conservative culture helps ensure the people are always kept in line away fro independent thought. If you can get people to believe that a deity who committed genocide multiple times and tortures people for all eternity loves you, you can make those same people believe a proven habitual and compulsive liar is worth trusting as President.