Based on the academic research I’ve done and personal observations I’ve made, I feel that I can fairly conclude that poverty and education are two inextricably related institutions. While poverty can loosely be considered an institution, the idea that economic status affects the quality of one’s education and vice a versa, is a phenomenon that is undeniable. The question posed for the assignment calls for an assessment of this intersection from an individual, societal, and economic standpoint.

Individual

If one were to examine poverty on an individual level, a reasonable conclusion might be that one is poor because of laziness, flawed work ethic, etc—circumstances within the control of the individual. Therefore, a subpar school in a low income neighborhood would be justified because it would be a reflection of the general population. It feeds off of this idea that poor are savage, lazy, people who probably don’t care about education anyways. In the Changing Education Paradigms video, Robinson asserts that economics and culture are the two main factors in the reform of public education. From a more positive standpoint, reforming the education from an individual level, might involve giving government stipends to poor children to attend private and charter schools outside of their home districts.

Societal

I think America is just beginning to realize that poverty and poor education are societal issues. Viewing the problem from a societal paradigm involves evaluating the link between poverty and educational performance. Further, it involves taking that linkage and then evaluating how it affects the larger society. I feel like Waiting for Superman speaks to the idea that something is fundamentally wrong with our education and it is affecting the status of our country tremendously. I do not believe that it is any coincidence that while China and Japan begins to surpass us economically, our rankings for education continue to go further and further down. Bill Gates even once mentioned that he has to outsource employment in his company because there aren’t enough engineers in America.  

"Poverty is the unspoken and ignored weight on education outcomes, and while U.S. public education needs significant reforms, education reform will never succeed without the support of social reforms addressing childhood poverty and income equity". -Bill Gates