Poverty and Education

The author of reaching and teaching students in poverty seeks to examine and put into light possible strategies for erasing the opportunity gap. He further cross-examines poverty and economic injustices that affect students in and out of school. Therefore, poverty and schooling form the basis of his book. Gorski believes that socioeconomic as well the larger society disparities do affect the performance of a student. He argues that youth leaving in poverty fail to access essential services and resources as compared to their wealthier peers. The services in question include better health care, healthy food, and quality preschooling (Gorski, 2015).
Gorski argues that the society inclusive of teachers, social workers, and administrators among others all have the capability of eliminating barriers that result in inequitable conditions at schools. He, therefore, insists that it is everyone in schools system responsibility to create and maintain an equitable environment for students in poverty. The author holds that instead of fixing families and students experiencing poverty, fixing the inequalities they experience should come first. Families who live in poverty work for multiple under-wage jobs to make ends meet results in reduced interactions with schools.
As a result of such reduced interactions with school, it gets perceived that families under poverty never get concerned about the education of their children as compared to their wealthier peers. The author disregards this notion and cites that every parent is ever concerned about their child education.

Further, he holds that more affluent families tend to show high concern based on on-site school interactions than poverty marginalized families. However, families living in poverty prove to be more concerned and usually follow up on their children education at home more than wealthier parents (Gorski, 2015).
According to Gorski, many reasons contribute to the low on-site involvement of families leaving in poverty. Taking unpaid leaves, transportation difficulties and perceived hostile reception of low-income parents at schools lead to the minimal on-site availability of such parents. After all, he specifies that educators hold the highest capability of transformation as they handle class comprising all manner of students. Gorski holds that money is critical to improving the socioeconomic class of every family since access to quality economic resources requires cash in exchange (Gorski, 2015).
Sensoy and DiAngelo in the book of an introduction to key concepts in social justice education aim at addressing structural inequalities based on gender, race and other social locations. He holds that societal structural difference affects the preparedness of joining college level engagements. Sensoy argues that social justice courses seek to address such inequalities. The main aim of social justice education is to assist one to recognize and change structural inequalities in the society. He holds that members belonging to a dominant group posse’s superficial understanding as it happens to be a primary message available in the social mainstream of information(Sensoy, 2017).
The minority group in the society deeply understands inequality and how it works although they lack a scholarly language to put it in its context academically. The reason being that message available in the social mainstream never prepare one to develop neither conceptualize a language of discussing such inequalities in depth (Zajda, 2007). The author recommends guidelines for ensuring deep understanding and learning social justice. These include; striving for intellectual humility, recognizing informed knowledge from opinions, use defensive reactions in gaining self-knowledge. More so, realize how social position informs one reaction and perspective and finally understanding societal patterns while letting go personal anecdotal evidence (Sensoy, 2017).
Personal reaction
Gorski, the author of reaching and teaching students in poverty works from a theoretical perspective that poverty is a major contributory factor causing low student performance. According to him, lack of enough money to cater for basic needs affects the performance of students. Personally, poverty is not the only major reason students perform dismally in academics. Instead, there exist other factors that contribute to the failure of students living in poverty apart from the availability of money. Motivation, for example, is a factor that makes a student performance to improve. Parents and other education stakeholders can be a source of student motivation through various ways.
Gorski as well argued that low-income earning parents fail to show up in most of the on-site school visits is justifiable due to the nature of their working conditions. He cited reasons that include avoiding taking unpaid work leaves, problems of transport, and perceived hostile perception of unwealthy parents by schools. The actual reality is that failure of parents to turn up for school meetings lowers the student morale. More so, such parents fail to make their contributions on important issues touching on student’s education leaving such decisions to be made by their wealthy peers only. As a result, students living in poverty feel left out and gets discouraged.
I am of the idea that wealthy and families living in poverty all have concerns about their children education. However, the author reaction to some extent is biased to state that poverty students are only assigned the most inexperienced teachers, large class size, and the most underfunded schools. It is unreliable to indicate that it is only the poverty students who get denied access to various school resources and opportunities their wealthier peer enjoy. Nowadays it is equally possible for any student either from wealthy or poverty-stricken families to get bullied against the author notion. However, it is true to state that most students who live in poverty attend public schools which mainly have limited resources to both the students and the teachers.
Sensoy and DiAngelo in their introduction to key concepts in social justice education stated that minority group lacks the right language to put inequalities in the society in an academic context. Such implication is biased against the minority group in the society. It is biased to imply that society dominant group poses in-depth understanding of structural inequalities. However, it is worth learning that Social justice education help to recognize inequalities existing in the social structure, therefore, enabling one to work towards changing them. Sensoy and DiAngelo contribute unpreparedness to join university or college to structural inequalities such as class, gender, and race.
Grading result performance of students is never a way of minimizing opportunities to pursue courses offered at college and university level as Sensoy stated. Contrary to Sensoy, fixation of grades makes it possible to recognize students capable of meeting certain expected course standards. The book is informative on structural inequalities in the society by depicting how one resists once confronted with inequality evidence challenging identity. It is true for everyone under such situation seeks to protect worldview that happens to be comforting and more familiar by deflecting any unsettling information.
Questions
How does poverty affect the performance of a student?
What criterion compares the performance of poverty student and that of wealthy peers?
How does educating people on social justice change their mindset?
As always said, is education an equalizer?

References
Gorski, P. C. (2015). Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap. Teachers College Press.
Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concepts in social justice education. Teachers College Press.
Zajda, J., Majhanovich, S., & Rust, V. (2007). Introduction: Education and social justice. International Review of Education, 52(1-2), 9-22.