Filling Pockets
by Suruchi from Irving, TX
As I drive through the narrow, bleak streets of inner-city Dallas, signs of poverty envelop me. Roads filled with potholes. Poorly maintained houses. Broken fences. A heavy metal gate stands menacingly at the end of the street, protecting the building inside from the fear without. The crisp, clean building housed within the fence belies the broken, dirty city surrounding it. Children mingle amicably near the entrance to the building, and an air of safety emanates from the building itself. The building is a school – the solution to ending the vicious cycle of poverty.
Every community faces different challenges when it comes to educating economically disadvantaged students, depending on different cultural backgrounds. The Communities Foundation of Texas1 and the Thirumalai Charity Trust have taken laudable steps toward educating the poor in Dallas and Walajapet, India respectively. Each of these organizations has adopted a different strategy based on the specific needs of its community. However, these models can be adapted by any community in the world to fight the poverty cycle.
A major problem underprivileged students in Dallas encounter is that public schools in underserved communities do not give students an adequate education. Many parents are “distrustful of the school” and feel “a sense of powerlessness and frustration” when interacting with it2. The Communities Foundation has tried to overcome this obstacle by funding the creation of high-quality charter schools like Peak Academy, a school for economically disadvantaged students in inner-city Dallas. As a charter school, the day-to-day operations of the school are funded by the Texas government so that underserved students can get a good education, without having to pay for one. Peak Academy - the haven I encountered in the middle of the dreary city - provides underserved students with a strong education based on three ideals: rigor of coursework, relevance of subject matter, and relationships developed between students and teachers in a small school environment3. When these principles are applied to a school dedicated to helping underprivileged students, the results are miraculous. When I visited Peak Academy, the students were optimistic, bubbling with enthusiasm, eager to learn, respectful, and mature. They had embraced the opportunities given to them by the school and were well on their way to getting a good education, going to college, and breaking the cycle of poverty.
In India, the rural poor make up a large part of the population, and public schools in rural areas are particularly inadequate. However, the importance of education is deeply ingrained in Indian culture. Parents invest time and effort in their child’s education. Many private schools have been established where public schools do not suffice4. Most of these private schools are beyond the reach of the rural population. The Thirumalai Charity Trust in India has responded to this situation by significantly subsidizing the amount families must contribute to a private school education by funding the creation of schools like Vedavalli Vidyalaya in Walajapet, a small rural community in Tamil Nadu, India. Parents pay much lower fees because the Trust has funded all the infrastructure costs. At the same time, the school provides a significantly better education than the average public school because the Trust is committed to “bringing the rural poor together, in building their own future5”.
“Learning must be fun, exciting, and meaningful; understanding of fundamental concepts is essential; and the child must be prepared to face an ever-changing world,” says Bhooma Parthasarathy, Executive and Project Director of Thirumalai Charity Trust. To ensure that these values are executed in the school, teachers are required to observe each child individually and personalize a lesson-plan for every student, meaning the school must be relatively small. Because of the efforts of Vedavalli, many economically disadvantaged students now attend college and are on their way toward success6 . “Everything is only because of my training at the school,” says Ramu, now a student of engineering. “[My job interviewers] wanted to know about [Vedavalli] and they were impressed that such a school exists even in a rural area. I owe everything to my school.7”
Both approaches to this problem are shining beacons of success in educating the economically disadvantaged. More students wish to attend these schools, but there are simply too few spots available for every student to be admitted. Many similarities exist between the ideals that each education system upholds, even though each community is addressing different cultural challenges. Both systems highlight meaningful, relevant education, a rigorous curriculum, and small classes that foster close student-teacher relationships. Small classes, in particular, help students rise above poverty because teachers support each student’s unique development needs and act as influential role models.
The Communities Foundation caters to a large number of underserved students because it is based on a public-private model. Thirumalai Charity Trust could enhance its strong model by developing schools with some public funding (like the Communities Foundation) to significantly increase the number of students gaining a good education. In turn, the Communities Foundation could learn from Thirumalai Trust by working to get more of its parents involved in the education system by breaking down the cultural and language barriers holding parents back from playing a bigger role in their child’s education.
In an increasingly knowledge-centered world, educating the poor will provide a solution to ending the cycle of poverty. Dallas and Walajapet have made admirable strides toward solving this problem. As Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.7” Reforming education systems for the poor can help us fill empty heads and hearts, and fill pockets as a result.
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1 Communities Foundation of Texas has partnered with the Texas Education Agency, Dell Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create the Texas High School Project. This has broadened the reach of the Communities Foundation beyond Dallas into all of Texas.
4 Muralidharan, Karthik, and Michael Kremer. “Public and Private Schools in Rural India.” www.people.fas.harvard.edu. 22 March 2006: pp 2. 4 June 2007. <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~muralidh/Public_and_Private_Schools_in_Rural_India_032206.pdf>.
6 Parthasarathy, Bhooma. Email Interview. 9 June 2007.
Works Cited
“Quotations about Poverty”. The Quote Garden. 21 January 2007. 10 June 2007. <http://www.quotegarden.com/poverty.html>.
McNulty, Jennifer. “Sociologist says class-based childrearing patterns perpetuate social inequality.” UC Santa Cruz. 28 November 2005. 10 June 2007. <http://socialsciences.ucsc.edu/news_and_events/view_news.php?id=21>.
Muralidharan, Karthik, and Michael Kremer. “Public and Private Schools in Rural India.” www.people.fas.harvard.edu. 22 March 2006: pp 2. 4 June 2007. <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~muralidh/Public_and_Private_Schools_in_Rural_India_032206.pdf>.
Parthasarathy, Bhooma. Email Interview. 9 June 2007.
Texas High School Project. 2006. 5 June 2007. <http://www.thsp.com/>.
Thirumalai Charity Trust. 6 June 2007. <www.thirumalaicharitytrust.org>.
