Here is the noble idea…
The 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that fourth-graders growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind high-income community peers. About 50 percent of them won’t graduate high school, and those who do will perform on average at an eighth-grade level. Only one in 10 of those will graduate college.
Teach for America, started in 1990 as an offshoot of an undergraduate thesis by a Princeton student, is a non-profit organization focused on improving the equality of education in the U.S. It is a two-year program that sends college graduates into public schools in low-income communities in order to insure that all students are receiving educational opportunities, regardless of socioeconomic status.
But then we get the quote from the Texas A&M branch…
“What we need to do is redistribute the economic wealth,” said Jonathan Chatham, one of the five campus campaign coordinators for the Texas A&M Teach for America branch. “We see this as a moral imperative. People who earn more get a much better education and there’s just no justification for that at all. Every school district should have equal opportunities for an excellent education.”
Now that sounds like socialism to me. “Redistribute the economic wealth.” I think (I hope) he meant to say redistribute the knowledge capital in this country.
I grew up poor – product of a broken home, mom struggling to make ends meet – but I graduated college with a BS in Nuclear Engineering because I wanted it. Because I earned it. Because I learned how to learn.
Then there is this back words thought, “People who earn more get a much better education.” I thought it was the other way around: get the education and you will earn more. I’m living proof of that. So are all of my colleagues.