WP4 — Rough Draft

To begin, homeless children being deprived of a quality education has been a problem for years, now becoming a nationwide issue. These individuals don’t have the resources to be able to receive a proper education in their early childhood years, so it’s very difficult for them to be competent in society as an adult. To provide context, I’ve seen homeless children throughout my time in service-learning with Waterdrop LA, who simply can’t comprehend sentences and demands that many others take for granted. Also, from my experiences in highschool, many of the lowest performing students in my classes were those who were unhoused, or better known as homeless. This shows homelessness causes these children to skip the most important part of their schooling, which is kindergarten and primary school, in which they should’ve learned the basics to be able to function in society. Therefore, homeless children are given the opportunity to only receive a low-quality education because money plays the biggest factor in the educational system, in which homeless families obviously lack.

In other words, money is at the heart of the issue of education among underprivileged children. To dive deeper into this problem, privileged families have the ability to trade money for time, meaning they can get tutoring, babysitting, or day-care services for their children. However, with homeless families, the parents have to be in charge of all those previously mentioned duties, while also having to provide financially. This becomes overwhelming and the first thing to drop is typically the tutoring and education sector, which dramatically hurts these kids, but they’re forced with that choice. Oftentimes the blame is put onto these parents, even though they are forced to make that decision. Esther Dermott, a highly-touted educator from the University of Bristol and Marco Pomati, a highly-accredited author from Cardiff University explains that “lacking access to taken-for-granted necessities may mean that parents are unable to fulfill the requirements of socially acceptable engaged parenting” (“Good Parenting Practices”). This shows us that there are major consequences that come with the lack of education toward homeless individuals, and in this case one of those may be the ability to know and perform the correct social norms. As a result, homeless families are not capable of performing all of the parenting practices necessary, because in most cases well-off families are getting tutoring and babysitters for their children; this gives well-off children an unfair advantage because even when their parents are absent they are still learning and adapting to society.

As a result of these “taken-for-granted parenting practices” not being done by families who are enduring financial hardship and are homeless, many consequences then fall onto their children. These include, poor education, the lacking of social and interpersonal skills, and the ignorance of social norms. All of these aren’t at the fault of the homeless individual, but rather the blame should be placed on society not giving them the resources they need; this is the case because they simply can’t afford extra guidance or tutoring. In Homelessness Comes to School it states,“Even more than poverty, homelessness is profoundly destructive to the educational outcomes of children” (Murphy 28). This statement made by Joseph F. Murphy, a highly-reliable author, shows that education is the number one impact on children that make up the unhoused community, showing if they had the financials then it wouldn’t be a profound issue. Due to all these issues that have arised throughout the years between homlessness and poor education, the government, organizations, and individuals have tried to make strides towards eliminating the core problem.

Even though this is still an issue in today’s society, there have been efforts attempting to solve this problem including the implementation of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. More specifically, this act forced all states to revise restrictive educational policies and regulations. Additionally, it led to the encouragement of educators to “minimize enrollment delays, ensure timely access to appropriate educational services, provide family support services, and empower teachers [to become] advocates [for unhoused students]” (Rafferty). This quote from “Meeting the Homeless Needs of Children” shows some of the steps that have been taken toward ending the correlation between poverty and poor education. Even though these have reduced the impact on homeless students, there is much more that could be proposed to further improve the situation. We cannot rely on acts and provisions from over 30 years ago to still be relevant in today’s society because new issues arise that have to be addressed by new laws and action.

We should create change and ultimately call for more direct use of government funds, so they are better allocated to those truly in need. Previously mentioned solutions haven’t been successful because the government tends to give low-income county’s a lump-sum of money, in which they have the discretion on how to use it. This could work in some cases, but the majority of the time, the county officials will inappropriately spend the money on unnecessary measures. Therefore, we need to focus on how we’re spending the money, instead of being so worried about the amount we’re spending. “Federal Aid to School Districts During the COVID-19 Recession” includes,“We focus not on how much aid is optimal but instead on the implications of different approaches to allocating aid on progressivity… the relationship between per-child funding and the child poverty rate” (Gordon, Reber 783). This quote from the article shows the importance of looking at how each child is affected by the spending of federal funds by a school district, while also looking at those in poverty, separately.

As a result, a more effective, better step forward would be to implement government-owned tutoring and day-care programs in areas of poverty to eliminate the educational gap between the well-off and the poor. These programs would directly serve those who belong to underprivileged communities, therefore lacking the educational resources that many of their peers take for granted. Implementing these programs would eliminate the problem mentioned in “Good Parenting Practices” that argues families in poverty don’t have the ability to trade money for time (Dermott, Pomati). These institutions would directly benefit those in need, which would mean that federal funds would be getting used in the most effective way, unlike how some school districts would choose to allocate the funds. “Informed Outrage: Tackling Shame and Stigma in Poverty Education in Social Work” states,“Social work education must respond in ever-nuanced ways to the challenge to structural explanations of poverty (Beddoe, Keddell). These two, well-accredited members of the educational field in New Zealand, explain how students must be taught correctly how to deal with educational issues that come with poverty. Therefore, these tutoring and day-care programs would eliminate all issues associated with the parents’ abilities to teach their children and this responsibility would shift towards those working at such institutions.

Consequently, this change would result in higher academic achievement among homeless children and better integration into society. Homeless children and those in poverty would no longer have to worry about whether they’re going to receive the same resources as their more privileged classmates. With these new programs being implemented, the educational gap between the poor and wealthy is reduced greatly and it becomes much less of a “money” issue. With this new change it creates opportunities that were previously unavailable to those who didn’t have extra money. When you look at this problem in terms of long-lasting effects, more children who grew up in poverty will have opportunities to receive higher education, such as a college degree. Therefore, it will create a generational effect among these families who are involved and the end goal is that the family will no longer have to use those government-provided services. UCF experts in “Hidden Struggles” include,“Homelessness can strike college students at any time and for a variety of reasons: Financial aid is delayed. A parent gets sick. Sometimes a door has been shut” (Frick). This evidence from the article shows that with one simple mess-up, a child in poverty’s education can be at fault, but this wouldn’t be the case with these new programs. This is due to the fact that the tutoring and day-care centers will always be available for those in need.

All in all, money is at the core of the educational epidemic found among homeless students, so implementing government-owned tutoring and day-care programs in low-income areas would eliminate this problem. With these programs being implemented, it turns into a case of effort, because the resources are now there for those who previously had limited access to further educational help. Even though it may take a bit more effort for those in need to receive the same assistance as those who are more privileged do, the opportunity will be there. This is a major change, because before school districts and communities didn’t directly serve those in need with the federal funds they were receiving. Therefore, by encouraging these communities to open up day-care and tutoring centers, those who are underprivileged will be directly affected, in a positive manner.